Gone are days of my 1 minute long herculean strength. I can use it for 10 minutes no problem. There are 22 dots for now. Somewhere around 27 seconds for each. It is doable. Their gravity spell will cause some delays, and their sizes are different too. Bigger once are most likely more powerful. I need to kill some without HS. So, 4 to 5 hits on the head, 3 if lucky.

"I knew it. That bison thing could not have been a normal beast. It was most likely a boss."

Don't get me wrong. These guys are strong. As strong if not stronger than the flame lion, and they are just mobs. What made the flame lion harder to kill was its size and vitality. These ones are very small compared to him.

The first one came from the front. A bit smaller than the previous one. Similar looking. Activating my speed boost and strength boost I took off before he had a chance to use his magic. Any kind of move that hinders your movement is the worst kind of move in my book. Let's say someone used a move that insta kills you and and another one that kills you slowly. I would prefer the first one.

Rolling to the pointy side I hammered down on the monkey's skull and vertebrae joint. He tried to grab me by his hands. Evading them by jumping back I tried to hit the same spot but another one jumped from my side and punched half of me.

Nothing broke, just some bruises here and there, but I got stuck in a boulder in a bad angle. Using seismograph the other monkey locations got clearer. '30 seconds, and they will be on me. Fuck it. Let's use HS.' Breaking out of the rock I activated herculean strength and darted toward the nearest monkey.

Let me tell you what a clusterfuck that was. Monkeys punching other monkeys. Me punching their heads with hammer. Rocks flying everywhere, but nothing, nothing was more annoying than those pesky high gravity fields. One moment you are running just fine, next moment you are making out with pebbles.

When all was over, I was left with 23 bodies of headless rock monkeys and black patches all over my body. There were some who had a few other parts missing as well, but that's not important.

I arranged a few boulders like the monkeys and hid under it. I wasn't really thinking anything. I just did it. It was better than lying around under the open sky and who knows, maybe it was the latest trend in my extended species! Sitting down in my rock igloo I started eating the monkey cores.

These monkeys have much more value. The 20 of them is worth around ⅙ th of the entire 30th level. Each pop is giving me around the same mana as the flame lion. One thing to mention, I don't really turn into a semi animal like I used to. I thank the flame lion for that, or I would have turned into a chimera by now. That being said, I still don't know there the king monsters are.

Now then, let's talk about gravity spell. First of all the heavy feeling is gone. And I can perform the small gravity field too. You just select a place with your eyes, channel mana through the pattern and voila you have…

"Shhhiiiiitttttt, I need to find the atomic combination again."

I want a cigarette or weed or both of them or just tobacco will do. When I first saw the forest on 21st level I was so hopeful. I almost made a hand loom too. Then the designer kicked me in the balls. 7-8 types of trees, 10-15 grasses and a few vines. That's all it had. Not even a fucking fruit tree. But Echo, you could have eaten the same fruits these trees use to reproduce. To that I say, go eat a pine cone why don't you! Just because everything's a dildo if you are brave enough does not mean you should fuck yourself with a cactus.

Anyway, after taking rest for a time I sat down for meditation. Finding out new combinations is not easy. I needed to use the magic a lot to get the hang of it, then wait for it to all click together. When I finished searching for the combination my beard had grown by a few millimeters.

The gravity atom is the simplest one I have seen so far. It has one particle in it. But connected with it there is another atom. I know it's not a gravity atom because when I used it individually, nothing happened. When I apply gravity atoms to a particular part of my body it attracts nearby objects toward that part. [Your own magic does not affect you.]

"I suspect it is the target locking part. If my theory is correct it will open up a lot of options for me."

Trying out what I thought of, I was overjoyed. It worked. If I converted one atom to targeting one and another one to fire. They formed a bond of their own. I didn't have to do anything. The only thing bugged me was, when I fired the molecule into a cluster of atoms all atoms changed into fire type. 'Maybe they don't have energy?'

Confused, I tried the same experiment with only a targeting atom. This time they changed. 'Hmmmmm…… so the magic atoms will take elemental change as priority?' Thinking this I tried the same thing with different elements. My theory was correct. Normal magic atoms take elemental transformations as priority.

I devised a new plan. Converting the atoms differently then moving them close together did the trick. That was that. My next predicament was, putting an element on the ground does nothing. Not nothing at all, but almost nothing. It's like spilling water on the ground. In the correct situation it can be dangerous but in most cases it does nothing. Putting more mana molecules does not help either. It just prolongs the time.

There is something else. When I use the gravity magic like the monkeys I just have to select the place in my mind. When I use it on my own I feel like I am doing it. I couldn't properly gasp that feeling as of yet but I have a feeling that it is very important.

__________

I take back what I said. Being able to target an element does wonders. You just need to target your enemy's body.

As I mentioned before, this place has a lot of monkey nests. My first approach was to poison them to death. Setting the poison under them did not work, nor did coating them with poison. What worked was a mix of air magic and poison magic as it made a mist of poison. Worked as in, it made them angrier. I waited for a longggg time but the monkey did not die.

Next I tried fire. Result was a little better but it consumed a lot of mana. It was not worth it. Ice however, worked like a desperate employee in a half dead economy. First I froze them, then I shattered their head before they could react.

A few days passed. I lost count of how many monkeys I had killed so far. There were a lot of them. This area was much different than other areas. It felt like someone shuffled all the monsters from level 31 to 40 and put them here. It's easy to guess because of their linear strength progression.

There are a lot of animals here, but I am afraid that they are just food for the monkeys. I killed them too. Any amount of increase is an increase, and it solved my food shortage problem.

Another few days passed. It was night time. I was standing on top of a hill. In the distance fireflies were not twinkling. I narrowed my eyes. I was a little sad. The scenery was beautiful. Only the fireflies broke my immersion. I was too familiar with that light to be fooled.

"Tiger tails. That is I am sure of. Question is what are they? Predator or prey?"

I went to investigate that in the morning. Turned out they were almost the same ones from the 20th floor plus the markings. Except these ones used earth magic. Spikes from the ground to be specific, and used their tails too.

I learned about the earth molecule composition, but could not figure out the spike part. Following the tigers footsteps works fine but the spike shape is not given by a specific atom like the targeting ones. I decided to keep using the pattern for the earth spike spell.

"I still don't know where the thunder cunt lives."

I don't where the monkey boss or tiger boss lives either. There is a big hill farther down the road. I think the monkey boss lives there.

So, like what any sane person would do I pulled aggrow of around a hundred monsters and ran toward the hill. Why? Don't ask me, even I don't know how my brain works. Luckily the monkey boss was not there.

After burning all the furry creatures and freezing the rock ones my gut started churning.

"Wwwooaaakkk……."

I vomited. I don't know why, but the burning smell of living beings got me. I could hear their cries. My ears started buzzing, my head started pounding really hard. After vomiting a little more I ran away. Found an empty hole on the ground and sat down.

Tears touching my face, I was full of regret. Why did I burn them alive? There were so many ways I had. Why did I want to torcher them so much? Why am I acting like a madman?

I don't know. I don't have an answer for any of it. What is the point of fighting? Killing. It's not like I can go out of this place. When was the last time I saw rain?

That day I missed rain. I hate crying. When I was young I cried a lot. My cousins used to call me lemon. Just a little press and it will start dripping. I like it when it rains. Rain makes me feel less miserable.

__________

I had a dream. I saw that dream whenever I was sad or worried. In that dream I was slipping on someone's lap. She creased my hair gently and said 'live'. Everytime I tried to talk to her, I failed to move my lips. Is this a dream? Or a memory of my mother? Why is her face always so blurry?

I woke up tired.

"Ahhhhhhh… fuck, my head hurts so much."

Washing my face in water made me feel refreshed again. When I tried to burn the meat, the scene of tigers burning kept repeating in my mind. I persisted. I had to eat. Belly filled, I walked toward the big hill. Even with so many beasts it's still so quiet.

"Huh? Where are the carcasses?"

The burn marks were there so was the blood but the bodies were missing. Suspecting something wrong I activated speed boost and ran away from that place. as I was running away the ground shaked a bit then stopped.

"Yep, not ready yet."

The dread that ran down my spine was much sharper than what I felt toward the flame lion when I first saw him.

From then on I avoided that hill. It took me a month or two to clear out 90percent of the mobs there. On a sunny day like every other day. I was walking around to find new prey. Suffice to say I got comfortable burning monsters alive by now. That was inevitable. I tried to not do that, but after getting hit by their attack my compassion ran away from the window.

So, I was walking and came across a hole on a small hill. It didn't look like a save point so I didn't immediately enter it. The cave was running downward in a 45° angle. 'Is this something like the tiger's nest they had on the 20th floor!' I thought. Curious, I climbed up to the cave entrance.

Looking down my face automatically contorted like that of a constipated individual. It was the tiger king. Sitting down it was the size of a dumper track. 6 legs. Front four close together. A little weirdly elongated body. It looked at me and started wagging its tail.

"Eh?? What's going on! Do you want to be my friend? Sure, I will be your friend. But you still have the red eye so I don't really trust you. But I do really want to pet you. Fuck…"

It was not wagging its tail toward me. It was preparing a spell. A big fuck off fireball at that. Bigger than me. Almost as big as the cave entrance. I jumped down from the entrance, avoiding the fireball. It flew out, hit another small hill in the distance, and now there was a lake. The tiger did not come out of his cave. Maybe he thought I died. I don't know. I don't even want to know.

"Let's not fuck with him either. I think I should clear out the mobs of every biome first."