My mind froze for a few seconds trying to comprehend what my eyes have just seen, it definitely was one of the roses from the walls, but this one was open and has teeth, how come a fucking rose has teeth? No, it’s more like, the rose itself is a mouth full of teeth which looks like a normal closed rose when it’s shut.

I harshly swallowed nonexistent saliva when I remembered that the cave was full of roses, which by the way, I previously thought were beautiful and relaxing to look at, but after they showed teeth, my opinion dramatically changed.

I grabbed another burning stick and pointed it toward the wall, only to see that the closed roses were now open and of course, full of teeth. I decided that the best option at the moment was to run away from the cave and spend the night on top of a tree, but that was when the harsh reality smacked me on the face.

What used to be the entrance of the cave, was enclosed with those plants, and full of open mouths waiting for me to approach. I cursed and quickly added more wood to the fire to ensure it stays on; and stood near it for a better chance at seeing any oncoming mouths.

Suddenly, I remembered the appraisal feature, so I looked at one of the roses and focused on it with the intention of appraising it. A second later, pink letters appeared above the rose.

*** Baby Bloody Veen (Rank 1) – Level 3 ***

I appraised a few other roses and found out that each rose is a separate creature and their levels range between one and five. It was hard to distinguish each one alone, but from what I could see, each rose is connected to about two meters long vine and the vine is connected to the wall or the roof.

I was grateful for the appraisal feature for giving me the name, stage, rank and level of the roses, but this information didn’t help much, I wanted more detailed information. While I was focusing on a dark red rose and wishing for more information, a transparent screen appeared in front of me, I looked at it with my eyebrows frowned and started to read.

*** Baby Bloody Veen (Rank 1) – Level 4 ***

*** Bloody Veen is a nocturnal monster type plant, during the baby stage of the first rank, this plant is highly sensitive against light. It sucks blood to Make up for the lack of nutrition from photosynthesis ***

My body trembled as I twisted my lips and started to swear left and right, first of all, what is wrong with this appraisal feature? If it can offer information like this, why it never did before? Why don’t I have a clear guide about what these skills can and can’t do? Why do I always have to find myself in shitty situations for the skills to appear?

Secondly, what the hell are those roses? A vampire roses? Will they suck my blood dry? Don’t tell me the red ones are red from blood, what should I do now?

I crouched near the fire and took short and quick breaths which made me inhale the smoke from the fire and started to cough. After a while, my cheeks were full of tears from coughing and my breathing became regular again, only then, I noticed that I almost had some kind of panic attack.

I cleared my throat and mind at the same time and tried to think of a plan; if I played my cards correctly, this cave can be the best place to gain exp., the vampire roses, I mean, the bloody veen are all in the baby stage of rank one, which means killing them should be easy, the only problem will be if they attack together.

By the way, let me explain to you what I know about the leveling and evolution system in this world. There are levels, stages and ranks; every ten levels can be considered a stage, and every three stages make a rank.

The most noticeable rank is the first rank, which can be considered the immature and growth period of each creature’s life. It consisted of the baby, youth and adult stages; after each stage, some kind of evolution occurred, and after each evolution, the levels restart from one.

The conditions to evolve from one stage to another in the first rank varied depending on each race, for example, demons evolve from baby imp to youth imp after a year, even if the baby imp didn’t do anything or killed hundreds of monsters, the level will remain ten and under until he/she reaches one year old.

From the second rank and upwards, the stages are almost non- existent in most races, the only apparent trace of the stages is the increase in the exp. required to level up or gained from killing another creature after each stage (Ten levels). Each rank has thirty levels, and the levels start from one until thirty.

After each rank, an evolution occurred, which varied according to the race. Evolution can happen to the shape and size of the body, stats, skills, resistances and/or magical abilities.

Back to the topic, it seemed that the roses were afraid of the fire; because none of them approached me near the fire, which made the area around the fire a safe zone. I arranged a few nice thick sticks at the edge of the fire to use as torches.

I licked my lips nervously and grabbed my dagger firmly in my right hand, while my left hand grabbed a new burning torch. I walked slowly around the fire and made my way to the entrance, even though I decided to kill the bloody veen to gain exp., I needed to clear the ones at the entrance first to set my mind at ease.

I stretched the hand with the torch in front of me; and made the burning fire touch the vines closing the entrance, screeches and shrieks echoed within the cave when I swung my hand with the dagger and cut through a few vines.