The sickly aroma of rot filled Jack’s nose. Even though he’d been hiding there for hours, he just couldn’t get used to the smell.

True to its name the blooming corpse titan smelled like a week-old dead body. Whether that was just the smell it gave off naturally or there were actually bodies in the area he didn’t know. If there were corpses around, he couldn’t see them.

Jack and Lucy were trading off keeping watch while the other practiced a skill.

For Jack, it was a combination of Focused Senses and Hair Manipulation. While narrowing in on the sounds of rain falling, he would weave his hair into intricate braids. It was excellent training but difficult.

Doing almost anything while Focused Senses was active could easily cause him to lose focus. Which would overload his brain with all the input from his heightened senses, causing it all to blend together like white noise.

Lucy would work with her webbing. She made sure not to infuse mana in the webbing so the glow wouldn’t attract attention.

So far she had only made simple nests or flat sheets of webbing. After some encouragement from Jack, she attempted something more difficult.

While making sure to keep an eye out for approaching drones, Jack couldn’t help but sneak the occasional peak at her progress.

Lucy had dug a small hole in the ground just big enough for her to fit in it. Then she started weaving a covering, incorporating mud and grass so that the outside blended into the surroundings. Well, at least it was supposed to blend in. She didn’t quite cover it completely.

When she presented the trapdoor to Jack, he could feel the pride coming off of her. That pride was short-lived when she went to demonstrate how it worked, and she realized she hadn’t made the door able to open. She quickly tore the door down and started again. This time Jack made sure to point out spots that could use better camouflage.

Every now and then a random drone would approach them, but since the blooming drones had almost no vitality left they could be taken out quick enough as to not alert nearby drones.

So when Jack saw an approaching bobcat drone, he prepared to attack it before he realized it wouldn’t actually get close enough to spot them.

While all of the blooming drones looked close to death, with most missing all of their fur and their eyes milky white. The drone in front of him was an extreme case.

Its eyes were shriveled like large raisins, and it looked like all the fat on its body and been sucked out. It was so extreme that he could easily count every single bone in its body.

The creature was hobbling towards the center of the clearing.

The boss took note of its approach and pulled in one of its long vines.

It collapsed at the spot where other drones would drop off new hosts. It was still faintly breathing.

Dozens of rope-like roots shot out of the ground, entangling the withered drone.

The boss reached down and ripped off the vine that was growing out of the drone. The roots pulled the entire body into the ground with startling ease, while the boss opened its giant mouth and threw the vine into its hollow stalk. It then went back to its resting position as if nothing had happened. The entire event happened in less than thirty seconds.

Jack just sat there waiting for it to do… Something. Anything. There wasn’t any sign of a skill at work. It just ate the vine. There was nothing for him to go off of.

No, there was something. It swallowed the vine. Just the vine, not the body. That fell right in line with his thought that the sap inside the vine was the important part.

He could be wrong about Vitality Absorption being an active skill. It might be passive, or more likely the boss had an evolution that let it passively absorb as well.

That could make sense. The wolf was hanging outside of the dungeon for a reason; it was obviously absorbing mana from the dungeon. Maybe all it had to do was sit there because it had a passive evolution of the skill too.

So how can he learn an active skill with a passive evolution?

The easiest way would get it to actively drain a creature in front of him, but that would be difficult unless he wanted to let it drain him. Which he did not.

When learning the Mucus Shield he was able to visibly see the mucus coming out of its skin. So maybe if he could see how it ‘digested’ the sap, he could unlock the skill. That would probably require him to either cut the thing open while keeping it alive or going inside of it.

While his knee jerk reaction was to toss away the thought of going inside of it, it made him think. Right now his primary concern was learning its skill, but he also was trying to find a way to kill it.

There was little hope that he could kill the forty-foot-tall flower in a head-on fight, even with Lucy’s help. So he had to be creative.

His first idea was to go after the roots, which theoretically would be a plant’s weak spot. After seeing how thick and active the roots were when pulling the corpse into the ground, he doubted they would be a weakness.

Poison probably wouldn’t work on something with as much vitality as the boss should have.

In a lot of movies, games, and books, the way to kill the huge indestructible monster was to go inside it and attack its vitals. It was a crazy idea and who knew if the corpse titan had vital innards, but it was a possible strategy.

Just something he’d keep in mind. As for now, though, he was tired of sitting around. Even if he avoided the ones around the boss, there were plenty of drones heading to and from the exit. It might be nice to have them come to him for once.

Kai had been curious about the various animals with vines growing out of them, but he was too busy following Jack’s trail to investigate.

While normally a two-week-old trail would be difficult to follow, that was not the case when tracking Jack. At relatively even distances apart, Kai was able to find small holes in the ground where Jack had dug up bugs for the experience. They just had to follow the holes and that should lead to Jack. The holes Kai noted led west, not north.

What he didn’t expect to find was a dungeon. When looking at it from the sky it blended into its surroundings seamlessly. That must have been why Ava had not spotted it before.

It did explain the sudden abundance of vine animals. The dungeon must have broken recently. That could explain what happened to Jack, one of those vine creatures could have attacked him.

What was strange was Jack’s entire trail led directly to the dungeon as if it was the intended destination. The young man had mentioned his class was a dungeoneer so he might have a skill to find dungeons.

If so, they would have to have a discussion about Jack helping him locate more.

Back in Osepla, he heard those who were wealthy owned devices that could show them the way to a dungeon. He had tried to get one before sailing back home but was only met with dead ends.

Even if he could locate dungeons that did not explain why he went to it, instead of going to the herd.

He had Ava quickly check the surrounding area for signs that Jack had moved past the dungeon, but she did not find anything.

While inspecting a tree near the dungeon, with large gouges in it, Kai found strands of long dark hair caught in one of its lowest branches. That confirmed he did make it to the dungeon.

Hopefully, the vine creatures were the type to take their prey back to their dungeon. Then he might have a chance at finding Jack still alive.

Picking up his speed, he rushed into the dungeon.

The Bloodied Woodlands Time until the dungeon closes: 859 hours.

After a few minutes, he found one of the first vine animals. Now that he was inside the dungeon he activated Identify.

Wolf Budding Titan Drone Level: 7 Once a free and wild creature, now just a walking incubator and fertilizer. The Budding Titan Drone slowly drains the life out of its still-living host. Its one motivation in life is to bring back living victims to its parent to convert into new hosts. Once the host is near death a Budding Titan Drone will make its way home to be devoured by its parent.

Taking its head off with a swift slash of his talon, he repeated the attack on every drone he passed.

The tunnel gradually filled with fog, reducing his vision to thirty feet. Once the tunnel opened up into a large swampy rainy area he paused, hearing a commotion in the distance.

Approaching the sounds revealed a battle taking place.

In front of eight drones was the very person he was coming to rescue.

Jack dodged backwards while holding his staff defensively, swatting away their aggressive attacks.

Lucy, his bonded spider, was jumping from one drone to the next, digging her fangs into their backs a few times before moving on.

They continued this even as more drones showed up. One by one the drones Lucy had attacked would fall to the ground, their skin turning black.

Kai stayed back and watched as they killed almost two dozen drones before the waves of animals ended.

The mildly pudgy nervous young man was gone. In his place was a warrior. Still an inexperienced warrior, but a warrior nonetheless.

When they first met Kai had doubted whether Jack could match the potential of the young spider he was with. He was too soft and full of fear. Granted, according to him he came from a vastly different culture and time, but he was here now and Kai thought he would not be able to adapt.

He was wrong.

Kai watched as the little spider stood on top of one of a bear and began to stride side to side while waving her front legs in the air.

Jack laughed, “Yeah yeah, I know you did most of the work. You need more experience, remember? I level much quicker.”

The glowing lines of the spider flashed brightly as she stopped moving back and forth.

“Oh, really now? Who saved who from the crazy mana eating wolf?” Jack pulled out a knife and began cutting off the vines from the drones.

Since it did not seem like there would be more fighting, Kai walked slowly forward.

When he was about ten feet away from them, they finally reacted. Jack jumped to his feet and readied his staff, while Lucy sunk behind the bear and out of sight.

Kai held up his hands and announced himself before taking another step forward. “Calm, yourselves it is Kai.”

Jack’s shoulders visibly relaxed as he exited his defensive posture. “Hey Kai! Long time no see I didn’t expect you to come looking for me. Sorry about not making it to the herd, I kinda got sidetracked. Well, lost and then trapped. Well, I didn’t know I was lost until I got trapped. Sorry, I am talking a lot, I’ve only had Lucy to talk to, and while she is getting better, she’s not much of a conversationalist. I guess I was also talking to a frog for a bit, but that was because I thought he might be a genie.” A look of self-realization appeared on his face. “Oh, right, sorry. Talking. How did you find me?”

“The holes.” He should introduce Rilda to Jack, they would get along.

“What holes? Oh, the ones I was digging to kill bugs? I almost forgot about those. But how did you know to check in a dungeon?”

“I thought you were captured.”

A look of shame flashed on Jack’s face. “Yeah, I get that, that makes sense. The dungeon only broke yesterday, so no. That reminds me, though, I have some questions for you.”

He held back a click of annoyance. To avoid those questions, he asked one himself, “What happened since I left you.” That should keep the endless questions back for a while. He also genuinely wanted to know what happened.

As Jack began his tale, Kai turned his head to the spider that was trying to sneak up to him. “I see you, little one.”