I had a weird dream last night. I’m not going to talk about the contents. Let’s just say it wasn’t weird because of my stories having an ill effect on my psyche. Or, actually, maybe, that had an effect too, but I'm pretty sure the stories weren't the primary reason this time.

Er...let me interject on that subject, by saying that the qualitative and quantitative changes brought to my growth thanks to the [Tale of the Cultivator] had made my Wisdom stat even more, oppressively, formidable than before. Enough so, that my story-born nightmares were happening less and less, and I was waking up less and less.

However, that was just a digression. I was talking about last night. Last night I had a weird dream and in the morning, I had to quickly run out, bathe, change my clothes and scrub my trousers and underclothes clean, because it seems that evil, evil, woman the puberty fairy had decided to strike at me in full force. Thanks to my high constitution and charisma stats, I wasn’t breaking out, but it seemed that the other stuff was determined to happen. Ranging from the near-constant narbs (no apparent reason...whatsits…). To my voice cracking. To dreams like last night.

Fortunately, the rest of the day was normal. Jack and I went hunting like we usually did. In a mere three months, we’d grown strong enough that we weren’t afraid of most of the jungle’s lower-leveled threats anymore. My [Tale of the Cultivator] and the Cultivation-based stories that Jack had access to as an archive member, had helped the two of us get real skilled at manipulating our auras. As such we not only became better at hiding, but we could do the opposite and broadcast our auras a little. Our auras let the local wildlife know to stepwise, or get wrecked.

Sometimes broadcasting our auras like that would draw out would-be predators, but that was still a win for us, because we were trying to focus on hunting powerful monsters for the sake of getting stronger, faster. The weaker prey now only held value if there were a lot of them, or if they held an ability that Jack’s grimoire hadn’t gobbled up yet. At this point, we weren’t even hunting the weaker beasts for food. At least we weren’t doing so, for “our” food.

Though we might still bring a few lower-level beasts over to our fellow survivors in Mr. Sigi and Ms. Alina’s survivor camp, we found our appetites trending towards the more dangerous catches. The [Tale of the Craftsman] and the [Tale of the Alchemist] included cooking knowledge. If you knew how to prepare them properly, powerful beasts were actually often more tasty than weaker creatures, because of the flesh refining effects of all that excess spiritual energy. They were also a whole lot more nutritious and filling for us. Which was good, because our appetites had seemed to skyrocket since we’d gained all that cultivation knowledge.

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“Okay...I think we’ve found one,” said Jack. After a long stretch of the two of us walking through the jungle staring at the tree tops.

“Yeah, I see it,” I said. My data-sampling confirmed that we’d found our target.

Today’s quarry was a beast called a “forest-shrimp”. Contrary to the name, these creatures were the furthest thing from tiny. Instead, the average forest-shrimp could grow to be as tall as 500 to 600 feet in height. They were just one amongst a staggeringly high, paranoia-inducing number of forest-born, and jungle-born, megafauna that had evolved to mimic trees. Forest-shrimp kept their legs clustered together to mimic the trunk of a banyan tree. Then when you got too close. They struck with the claws that were hidden within the “leafy” growths that covered their upper-bodies and hid their true-nature from view.

“Alright, we’re here...and the target is right in front of us. Are we ready to do this?” I said. Feeling a bit anxious as I looked at the excessively tall monster.

“Yeah,” said Jack. Frowning up at the giant arthropod.

“Are you sure?” I said. Still hesitant.

“...Dude, come on,” said Jack. Getting impatient.

“Fine, fine...Alright, on a count of three,” I said. My arm outstretched.

“One…” said Jack.

“Two…” I said.

“Three,” said the both of us.

Jack fired a spike of shadow-ice at the beast. I used the knowledge that I’d gained from the [Tale of the Arcanist] to create what I call an elemental-boosting bubble. Elemental-boosting assured that the natural effects of a given element were increased. It operated on the same principles that my kinetic-boosts operated. Except instead of something merely moving faster and hitting harder, you assured that a given mass of energy was granted an increased sort of “magical-momentum” that increases its given effect. In this case, that meant her shadow-ice got a whole lot darker and whole lot colder.

The forest-shrimp gave a cry of outrage and pain as the shadow-ice spike struck its carapace. Its legs began to spread out as the beast prepared to wage war on whatever hit it. Then that was the very last thing the forest-shrimp would ever be allowed to do, because that was the point where the super-charged, endothermic effect of the shadow-ice spread through the forest-shrimp’s entire body like poison. Freezing all the water in its body, and killing it instantly.

“Oh, fuck...That’s almost too OP,” said Jack. Smiling broadly as she gazed up at our brand new shrimpsicle. Clearly pleased with the result of our attack.

I held my hand up tilting it one way and then the other. Not quite as impressed.

“Eh. That only worked as well as it did, because we A) had the benefit of surprise, and B) were close enough to the forest-shrimp’s actual level of power that it couldn’t shake off your spell with its aura,” I said.

“True...But now we have a proof of concept. A tasty seafood dinner...and a whole bunch of avenues to explore,” said Jack. Undeterred.