The cavern was starting to get more humid with each passing minute. Basil walked towards what he thought was his destination. By now, he killed a dozen of the blasted slime bugs in his path; there was another one of the big kind who tried to hunt him. However, after analyzing and fighting many of the same species, Basil found a way to kill them more easily.

He would pretend to be hurt and let them get near or even curl around his body, so he could eject his spikes and destroy many cores at once. This play was clever and saved him the need to pounce them. They didn't verify if he was indeed injured and fell for the trap each time. Also, he found a way to make prepared spikes in his back, but he needed time to make them. These were not like the ones he had in his back already because they were in random places, and he needed to be careful not to hurt himself while doing so.

Basil was getting tired of walking without encountering something more than those blasted "bugs" and rocks. Another minute passed with him walking, and to satisfy his boredom, he looked at the nothingness with his unusual sight.

This time many dots and lines filled his vision. There were even new colors intermixed with the turquoise, there was some light green, brown, and murky green added. This excited Basil, so he began to run to reach it faster.

He found something new, thin vines were hanging from the ceiling with each meter he traveled, and a mist was filling the cavern, there still was no water, but the cold mist refreshed Basil a little. There was a heavy sound reaching him, like the one you would hear from a waterfall.

Some minutes later, he finally found the cavern's end and saw what he predicted, a waterfall. Basil was perplexed, he was expecting some river or pond at the end, but this would do. He didn't want to go back from where he came, even if that meant losing the rocks that were back in the other cavern.

First, he needed to quench his thirst. There were some small ponds all around him; he reached one, and instead of dipping his head, he put his entire body inside to wash away the goo and dirt from the journey. He got out and repeated the process with another, and then he slurped all the water from another that was clean.

Basil rested some hours in a bed made of moss near the water and slept to regain the energy he used. Sometime later, he began to analyze the curtain of water and its surroundings. Vines were entering the cavern, and blue moss was covering the entrance.

He was thinking about how he could go through it if he could at all. The gecko tried to pass one paw, but the water hit pretty hard and almost pulled him; this could not work. The rocks all around him were wet and slippery so that he couldn't climb like when he did in the dirt or the rugged rocks; the vines could work, but they were thin and could break with his weight. He could understand this with the cascade showing him the effects of a heavy object pulling something lighter.

Basil was thinking, "Where do I go? How do I climb? Is there something on the other side of the water? if I jump, is there a floor to catch me?" His little mind was racing. He stopped thinking and tried to see the edge of the cavern to at least answer one of his questions.

Below was blackness and not even a speck of light. Basil could see nothing more than a wall of rock; there were crystals with the colors he saw with his vision and some vines hanging. Nevertheless, when he looked up, the water covered everything: more vines hanging, moss, some crystals overlapping, and more water falling. He didn't need to close his eyes to the falling water because he had a membrane to protect his sight from some water drops.

That's when he got an idea by looking at the crystals. If he could get a stable grip on the rock, he could try to climb it towards the waterfall's summit. Now he needed to know. How? Like before, his first option was the vines, but only to use them as support.

Basil tried to climb one wall while using his teeth to bite a vine. At first, it was going fine, but it broke when he was in the middle of it, he fell to the floor with a and Basil got so angered at dropping that he didn't notice the spikes on his back nailed him to the floor. Basil tried to roll and found himself stuck. Without losing his cool, he started wiggling to get unstuck, and he stayed like that for some minutes.

When he managed to get out of his predicament, he got another idea after seeing the holes made on the ground with his spikes. "What if he did the same with his paws?" He started making something carefully, and some thin bone spikes grew atop his paw in a claw-like manner.

Basil tried to pierce the rock with it as you do with a punch, he only got himself hurt instead, and the bones he created broke from the strain. Next, he tried to make the same again, but this time reinforced the claws with more bone. It grew very slowly because Basil didn't want to hurt himself.

This time the rock won again, and Basil was wondering what he was doing wrong. He ejected all the spikes on his back so he could guess what they did to pierce the rock. He noticed that they weren't straight like the spikes he made in his arms; they were semi-thick, curved at the ends, and rounded.

Basil tried again with a new model, a single substantial bone spike, similar to the points in his back. It chipped the rock but didn't pierce it like he thought it should. Maybe there was something more to it.

Basil took a pause and tried to munch some of the vines lying on the floor. That's when he got it, it was the position of the spike, and from where you hit, he noticed this by sensing his teeth piercing the vine. Basil tried to create another Bone-pick at the side of his arm and tried to penetrate the rock swinging instead of punching. It was a success, but he noticed that this position strained his bone too much. He needed to create it in another place.

After some more minutes of looking for a suitable position to create the spike, he tried to put it below his paw. It was smaller and thicker this time, with the bone curved like the ones in his back. He swung at the rock, and it pierced perfectly. He didn't feel the strain of before. This event was a success.

Basil did the same with the other paws and tried to escalate the wall at his side. It was working! That's what this lizard would think if he could understand the euphoria of doing something creative. Now there was another problem. He could only climb in a straight direction and would need to move sideways. Also, the "Bone-picks" were a little flimsy.

He needed something else to have a firm grip; maybe more spikes could solve the problem. He knew what size they needed to be, so he created another nail at the side of the first one in each paw.

This time it felt more stable when he climbed, but maybe another would do the trick so he could be perfectly safe when doing the real thing. He created another one below the other two, it was even better, but now he needed to test it and see if his little experiments would work for real.

He got a good grip on the rock and started to get up slowly. They didn't break and felt right in his body. The next problem was. "What if he needed to rest? His body isn't capable of resisting being in such an unorthodox position for so long." He tried to create two more spikes from his torso with the same curved shape as the others, and with a little bit of balancing, he stuck himself on the rock with the help of these. With this, he could rest after a long climb and maybe sleep if needed. He was ready.

"Ok, I admit it, giving him that ability was the right choice." — Spoke Dusanog.

"Told you, but I am surprised at how he manages to utilize it. He is an intelligent wimp." — Answered Bik.

"He is very adaptative, indeed, and now he will try to climb that waterfall, but creatures are lurking in the shadows. I can notice that they are dangerous, but he can evade them without a problem if he is smart." — Implied Moraeus.

Mardok was silent and only looking at the screens intently. Bik was secretly smiling, waiting impatiently for what the little guy would do. Moraeus and Dusanog were silent, waiting.

Evalyne could only see what his champion made to survive his journey in her room. Preoccupation consuming her mind.