I opened my status window.

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Name: Aurelia LV8 [Neonate Snake]

Specie: Cerastes Vipera

HP: 92/92 Defence: 74

MP: 60/60 Intellect: 64

SP: 85/85 Magic: 33

Attack: 88 Agility: 81

Skills:

[Poison Fang: LV4] [Bite: LV4]

[Venom Rain: LV1] [Scent: LV2]

[Silence: LV4] [Rapid Strike: LV2]

[Heat Sense: LV5] [Grip: LV4]

[Stealth: LV4] [Appraisal: LV3]

[Buoyancy: LV1] [Steel Skin: LV4]

[Rugged Scales: LV4]

[Leap: LV2]

Titles:

[Apostle] [Coldblooded]

[Commander] [Hero]

Unique Skill:

[Devour]

Attributes:

[Obsidian Horn] [Mind Chain]

Resistances:

[Impact Resistance: LV4]

[Pain Resistance: LV4]

[Wind Resistance: LV1]

[Shock Resistance: LV2]

[Faint Resistance: LV2]

[Paralysis Resistance: LV1]

Experience Points: [551]

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Wait, 551 Exp points?!

What an amazing harvest of experience points!

I was surprised to see I had accumulated so many.

Was this what it felt like to be rich overnight?

Now, I no longer needed to be content with just window shopping. If I could rub my palms together like a villain I would have.

And so without wasting any time, I quickly accessed the system and the store's list displayed the available skills and items.

Skills: [Dragon Scales: 250XP] [Mark: 100XP] [Mana Sense: 220XP]

Items: [Labyrinth Atlas: 300XP] [Dimensional Box: 350XP] [HP Recovery Potion: 50XP]

What? That's it?

Where was that damned [Poison Resistance] skill?

I confronted Sensei. "Why is [Poison Resistance] not there anymore?"

«The quest is still active, purchasing the skill now would be cheating. So it was removed.» He answered with a laugh, while I seethed in rage.

What sort of twisted logic was that? I was so mad.

Even if it's reasonable, I'm still mad.

My current situation was looking more and more bad as I again calculated how little time I had without taking the antidote and before my body succumbed to poison.

When I left the cave the timer on my training nestling's quest had [192 hours] left. Then I ate the mushrooms a while later, and the poison took effect. Then I got abducted by the wasps and awoke with the timer at [132 hours].

I checked my timer again.

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[Quest: Train Nest Mates]

[Time Remaining: 122 Hours]

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Now the training quest had elapsed to [122 hours]. From the moment I awoke in the hive I had 35 hours left of my grace period to search for an antidote and from that time 10 hours had been spent.

So with roughly about 25 hours left, I was currently headed towards a very painful death.

Now that [Poison Resistance] was unavailable, what was I supposed to do?

For Sensei to remove the very skill I needed right now was too much. He was essentially playing with my life.

«There's no need to glare like that, Aurelia.» Sensei's voice preened in delight. «Let me explain it to you since you don't already realise. Even if you were to buy the skill, [Poison Resistance] at LV1 would be ineffective in your current situation anyway. Considering the potency and the amount of poison you ingested, once the grace period ends there isn't much a LV1 skill can do to help you. For such a unique poison, only its antidote would work.»

I felt a chill.

Was I going to die again so soon?

Sensei continued on in his irritating tone. «But I suppose getting it isn't entirely useless, it would keep you alive for a while longer after you reach your breaking point, at least a bit longer than you would without it anyway. But It would be interesting to test how much a skill like [Pain Resistance] would progress in such a situation.»

Ahh...What kind of horrible mess did I get myself into, and why did it seem like this person was thoroughly enjoying it.

So, instead of dying quickly, I would stay alive to endure more pain until my heart inevitably gave out?

And of course [Pain Resistance] would definitely rise in level in such a scenario, but what use was that if I was going to die anyway.

My fear turned into full blown terror. I was beginning to panic and that was not good. I had to calm down and focus.

According to the timer, I had 25 hours left until I face the sudden death. But there should be a way out of it, right? There was always hope, right?

Right?

I began to slither around wracking my brain when I caught sight of the corpse of the dead builder wasp. I looked at it with a solemn and pensive look.

Was that my future?

The antidote had been growing nearby to the poisonous ones all along and I regretted not eating it right away. But I was under the effect of the poison's delirium and hysterical. I couldn't recall if I had picked it up or dropped it after the fight with the wasp.

Either way I did not have the antidote with me right now. It had been lost somewhere in the time after I got captured.

My first thought had been to return to the forested area where I found it in the first place. But I'd have to get out of the hive first, and to do that I needed help. Which brought me back to my current situation.

But after seeing the hive and how things were progressing - none of the hosts I rescued had woken yet. I realized that even if my plan were to succeed, there wouldn't be enough time for me to make it out and find the antidote.

I had to think of an alternative solution.

I recalled the description of the poisonous mushroom, Sairon's Bell and suddenly the thought struck me. Why didn't I think of it before?

The appraisal results had mentioned that it only grew in places of heavy bloodshed. I realized there was a similar place in the hive that meets the conditions.

If the memories I'd gleaned from the wasp were anything to go by. Somewhere in this hive was a chamber filled with corpses, consumed so often that their copious blood stained every inch of the ground. In a place with that much bloodshed, it was possible for that same mushroom to be growing there.

It was a 50/50 chance, but it was still worth a trip and I have no other choice either so I just hoped my luck wasn't too bad.

But that was just another problem in a long line of problems that I didn't want to think too hard about, after all the quests and horrible hoops I had to jump because of Sensei. If I didn't find the antidote there, I would have to risk it and try to escape with my host wasp. The end.

With my thoughts organized, I bit into the fleshy shell of the wasp and began to eat. I need to replenish before the start of the operation.

But what was this feeling of being watched?

I looked up and saw the unconscious lizard on my left and a particularly pissed off wasp staring daggers at me on my right. I locked eyes with it and took a large bite out of its brethren, unbothered by its silent judgement.

Hmph! I would eat you too if I didn't have a use for you, so you better behave.

«It is thinking 'how can my abductor be such a glutton'.» Sensei offered his thoughts.

"Are you sure these are the wasp's thoughts, and not yours?" I retorted immediately, still pissed off.

Before Sensei could reply, the captured wasp started crawling away with a visibly terrified look, as if trying to prove Sensei's point.

But I couldn't care less as I continued to eat the builder wasp. It couldn't climb anyway.

I helplessly sighed at my choice of food. 'It wasn't as though they were tasty either.'

But the wasp I ate tasted...different. It was foul and rubbery in texture but also weirdly...spicy?

What was this strange flavour?

Rather than simply refilling my stats, it gave me a feeling of enrichment unlike ever before. It was oddly fascinating. I suddenly had more energy and my body felt lighter. I continued to eat more of it, delighted at the feeling, until the system gave an alert.

〚Devour has reached maximum satiation for specimen『Melior Hesperia』

Evolution tree of 『Ailith Vespoidea』has been modified. 〛

〚Would you like to acquire attribute『Stinger』(Accept | Reject)〛

To say it was an alert I'd been waiting for was an understatement. I was extremely happy and curious at what form my new attribute would take.

I immediately accepted it.

〚Activating status effect. Success〛

I was hit by the familiar stinging sensation down the length of my body.

Directly on both sides of my coils I felt a stinging pain spreading from my horns down the length of my body to meet at my tail in two rows.

The scales in the area hardened and needle-like spines extended from their tips. It was irritating as the spines continued to grow across the length of my body, but not very painful after being subdued by [Pain Resistance] so I looked on with curiosity.

They appeared both delicate and sharp with a silvery metallic sheen, very much like the spine of a feather quill.

Laid over each other they resembled an array of deadly spikes.