I finally found it! Before me was the opening of a tunnel, which most definitely was going down! And not just a little, it was a pretty steep descent.

At this point I had checked quite a few tunnels, so it took me a moment to realize what I was looking at once I laid eyes upon it. I may only be a level six monster, but the monsters up here barely took any effort to defeat. Of course, that was pretty nice, but if I could hunt down some tier-two monsters in the second layer, my leveling would become a lot more effective.

So I started going down the tunnel without hesitation. I kept myself attached to the ceiling, in order to be less noticeable to the most likely faster predators descending after me and made sure to keep an eye behind me at all times.

I didn’t know if this tunnel would bring me directly to the second layer, or if I would need to go through another cave before arriving there. Neither did I know if I could even tell when I reached the second layer. If it was just more caves, it would really be impossible, except for guessing by the monsters I found there.

At least my evolution goal would tell me when I reached the third layer.

For now, I’d just have to go down. No point in getting ahead of myself here. I was, after all, still an incredibly slow snail. I’d get there when I’d get there. Just like a certain famous wizard.

It was after what felt like a few hours of continuous descent when I felt the ceiling vibrate. Something was coming down after me, so I kept still and tried to blend in as much as I could. I could probably fight, but I wanted to see what was coming first.

After a little while, I saw what looked like a rhino barreling down the tunnel at an incredibly high speed. It was so fast that I barely had any time to take a proper look at it, but there was definitely something off about it. Contrary to the natural coloration the monsters had up until now, this rhino wasn’t the gray I’d expect from an animal like that.

Its color was a deep, earthen brown, and I was certain that I saw quite a few more horns, or spikes, decorating the body of this monster. This must be a freshly evolved tier-two!

The thing was already long gone by the time I’d properly realized this, it really was fast. I briefly wondered what the name of this species was, but it obviously seemed to be built for attack, with all these extra horns around its body. Judging by its speed, its tactic might revolve around rushing down whatever poor sap got in front of it.

Once the vibrations from the rhino ceased, I resumed my descent. Judging by how it took multiple hours for just one tier-two to come running down this tunnel, the rate of monsters evolving must be pretty low. Did tier-two monsters just kind of spawn in the second layer? I can’t imagine there’s be enough monsters to fight each other if that wasn’t the case. Especially in the later layers.

I guess some monsters were just privileged.

The tunnel was long, winding, and boring. Ever since the rhino came through, nothing else had appeared, and I was bored out of my mind.

Back in my early days on this planet, I’d use these long pauses between fights to strategize, or just generally be afraid of being spotted and eaten. Now, my battle strategy was pretty well laid out, and I had confidence in my skills to protect myself.

So, what I was left with was to theorize about the planet, the monsters living in it, and how the second layer might look like. But I’d already thought about all of these topics for ridiculous amounts of time, and I always arrived at the same answers.

I had no clue, and the only way to find out was to go and see.

There was nothing for me to explore in my status screen, and I didn’t have enough DP to buy myself the two skill points I could still buy. The only pastime I was left with was eating, and although my inventory had a sizable amount of food in it, I’d have to stop my descent to eat.

So, here I was, mindlessly crawling along with the ceiling, hoping for anything to happen. I couldn’t believe that I was actually hoping to get locked into mortal kombat at this point. Just a few weeks ago I was scared of even a low leveled hyena, and now I was looking forward to ending a monster’s life. Preferably a big one, since they gave out more rewards.

Yet, nothing happened. For hours I crawled. Sometimes the tunnel got a bit steeper, sometimes it took a hard turn. Both occasions got me excited since I might be getting closer to the second layer. But no, I was just faced with more tunnel. More rocks. More boredom.

Which meant, when I could finally feel some vibrations approaching from behind me, I almost screamed from excitement. Even though, I couldn’t.

I happily stopped for a bit, waiting for my second tier-two encounter. Oh, what wonderful creature would I encounter this time? I already had an inkling of what it could be, since the type of vibrations it emitted felt awfully familiar.

And truly, my guess was correct. A snake-like creature emerged from behind a corner, hauling ass down my tunnel. I couldn’t spot any obvious tier-two characteristics, but since it was here, it must have evolved in some way. I mentally prepared myself for a fight, looking forward to it, even, when I had a brilliant idea.

The snake was quite large. Nowhere near as big as the reaper snake was, of course, but big enough. I waited until the snake passed directly under me and released my grip on the ceiling, twisting my body so that I fell foot first. Just as planned, I landed perfectly on the snake’s back, holding on tightly so as to not fall off.

I nervously glanced at the snake’s head, waiting for it to show any sign of having noticed me plopping right onto its back, but nothing of the sort happened. I mentally smirked at my genius while rocketing through the tunnel at unprecedented speed. My agility may be locked at one, but my intelligence was sky high!

So I enjoyed a relaxing bus ride through the tunnel, no longer crawling along at a snail’s pace. I did experience something similar already, but this made me realize just how slow I actually was. The snake was cruising along with what I assumed to be a leisurely pace for it, but for me, it was as if I was riding a race car.

It hadn’t even been a minute, but we had already covered more ground than I could in ten. Content with the speed we were going at, I decided to relax for a bit. Once we arrived at the second layer, I’d just kill the snake.

Of course, I could just continue to use it as my personal mount, but I’d rather not leave my fate up to a stupid snake that could probably swallow me whole. No, it was much better to get rid of the problem as soon as I could. This would also let me dismount safely.

We slithered along for about another hour before I started noticing some change. Namely, plants. Every now and again, a spot of green could be seen among the drab colors of the rocks around us. For now, there it was mostly patches of moss, but I could spot the odd flower or two.

At the very least it would seem like the second layer wasn’t as boring as the first was.

Further and further we went, and the deeper we got, the greener our surroundings got. It came to a point, where everything was covered with moss. Until, eventually, I could see the end of the tunnel.

Well, it would seem like we had arrived at our destination, so it was high time to get rid of my taxi. Not wanting to take any chances, I started casting the giant spike. Thanks to the big investments into wisdom I’d made recently, I could cast it twice if I chose to. One of them was already overkill for most monsters, but two?

Well, I wouldn’t cast it twice either way, as anything that survived one giant spike could most likely be finished off with a well-placed spear or two. Just as we were getting close to the mouth of the tunnel, I finished casting my spell and activated it.

Needless to say, the spike that emerged took the snake’s head clean off.

You have killed a T2 Lv. 1 Acid Snake

You have been awarded 100 XP

You have been awarded 22 Data Points

You have leveled up!

So this thing was an acid snake, huh? Too bad its journey into the second layer got cut short. It was reassuring to see that giant spike was still able to reliably kill monsters that were tier-two, but there were some odd things about the rewards I got for killing the snake.

For starters, the amount of XP I got was suspiciously low. A hundred XP was comparable to what a tenth-level tier-one monster gave me, so what was the logic here? At least the system didn’t skim out on data points.

I also leveled up again, which was nice. I got another skill point from my level, and together with the last two skill points, which I could now afford, I had enough to buy the next unlock towards poison immunity. The unlock this time happened to be another skill for me, which I took a closer look at while eating the snake. I felt a little peckish after the long journey down.

Poison Needle

Conjure a needle of highly concentrated poison and launch it at your enemies.

Cost: 30 MP

The description was woefully short, but it seemed to be the counterpart to the poison spear, almost. While the poison spear was a flashy attack with plenty of kinetic energy behind it, poison needle seemed like an assassin’s tool. Small, silent, deadly. It would probably become my go-to skill for ambushing other monsters, while I reserved poison spear for more involved combat.

Even more interesting, the skill tree had an optional branch going off of the skill, of which the only unlock would strengthen poison needle even more. I’d definitely get that after I got my poison immunity.

I quickly finished off the snake, which gave me a few XP, an attribute point in agility and wisdom each, and a bad mood because I got even more useless agility. I threw the point I got from leveling into intelligence and turned to face the tunnel exit again. Time to go see what the second layer was all about.

Name: Gary

Traveler Tier:1 Type:Monster(P2W)

Species: Elder Slug

Level: 8

Max HP: 130(143)

Max MP: 308(339)

Strength: 6

Agility: 5(permanently fixed at 1)

Intelligence: 30

Wisdom: 33

Constitution: 20

Attribute Points: 0

Skill Points: 0

Data Points: 13

Skills: Fatal Poison Mucus Armor Lv.3(E), Compress Lv.3(F)

Magic: Fatal Poison Shot Lv.10(E), Fatal Poison Spear Lv.2 (D), Fatal Poison Mist Lv. 3 (D), Fatal Poison Needle Lv. 1 (D), Giant Spike Lv.1 (SS)

Passive Skills: Bottomless Inventory, Stealth, Turret, Giant Hunter, Gluttony

Mutations: Fatal Poison Mucus(T3), Mana Gland, Mana Concentration Gland, Mana Absorbent Skin, Spell Attuned Brain, Tier 1 Monster Eyes

Skill Trees: Poison Magic (1/1)