I put some distance between myself and the flowers behind me and stopped.

I did not want to continue moving north as my instincts were screaming for me not to.

I changed my map's filtering option to Low Foundation establishment and up.

There was no monster in a 700-meter radius which I found to be incredulous, I changed it to Mid Body Refinement and up, and still nothing!

Now, I was certain something was up. I had never seen a more desolate place such as this one.

I was even more sure of my decision not to go forward, I found a relatively ordinary-looking tree and hid between its leaves and branches.

I gently put the dark white spotted gecko and brought out one of my three dark green pills, these pills were truly magical I had no idea how were they able to compress this much healing properties in this tiny thing.

I had tried a pink pill before, so I knew how they should be used.

I opened his mouth using my mana and guided the pill to it, the pill had a certain mechanism that allowed it to melt the moment it comes into contact with any type of saliva.

Its previously marble-like texture and appearance slowly turned into liquid.

The liquid quickly made its way into his throat then stomach, and I hurriedly put the tip of my left uninjured wing on his forehead and started controlling my mana to move around his body.

Thanks to his small size, I was able to get a general idea of his body fairly quickly.

This type of mana that I was using was very special, I had the idea of incorporating spiritual energy's property of information transmission into mana, this way anything that my mana comes into contact with gets sent to me in great detail.

After gaining in-depth knowledge about his body, I let go of the liquid because I blocked it earlier to maximize its efficiency.

The liquid should be tempered with mana, or in other words, it should be activated by coming into contact with mana for a better result.

Since he was unconscious, I should be the one to do it.

After doing so, the liquid was no longer passive and motionless it seemed to a gain life of its own and was raging, but in its rage, there were only good intentions so to speak. To heal and restore.

I moved the raging liquid to different parts of his body mainly the seven openings he had all over his body.

I noticed that he did not have any other injuries so I was able to separate the liquid into seven equal parts and let them do their job.

After a while, the wounds started closing, and his previously flickering and weak life energy gained more vitality and vigor.

[Quest Achieved Successfully. Rewards: 200 Karma Points, 20.000 Experience Points, 6 Stats Points, 2 Skill Points]

I completely forgot about the quest!

No, it was more like I thought I had already finished it. Every quest I had done so far ended directly after killing the enemy or pulling off the victim, so I thought I already got it.

However, I could not pay it any mind due to how intense and quick everything was developing.

This quest required healing, at least that meant the gecko was able to live.

Due to my previous hunting session and now the quest I was not too far from leveling up.

After seeing that everything was good, I took out one dark green pill and put it in my mouth.

I controlled the pill's healing properties with my mana just like I did with the gecko and guided them towards my injuries.

Sigh...

I had never fallen into uncontrollable danger like this, there was no safe path to take.

If I continue east I'd encounter the flower's true body. North, even more dangerous. West, uncharted territory of possibly a monster equal if not more dreadful than the flower. South, was the flower's territory but at least less dangerous.

That is if nothing changed!

As the pill was doing its job, I opened my status window to allocate my free points.

[~Status Window~

Host: Zed - Umbra Storm Eagle.

Titles: {Blazing Heart}, {Truth Seeker}, {Dauntless Spirit}

Level: 33

Experience Points(Exp): 70850/74000

Rank: Body Refinement(High)

Health Points(HP): 351/351

Magic Power(MP/Mana): 381/381

Spiritual Energy(SE): 424/424

Magical Resistance: 41(28)

Physical Resistance: 42(29)

Spiritual Resistance: 38(45)

Vitality: 68(102)

Strength: 73(106)

Stamina: 55(81)

Intelligence: 75(112)

Agility: 64(96), Dark: +19, Nearby Enemy: +16, Sky Dash: +19.

Spirit: 89(178)

Available Stat Points: 6

Available Skill Points: 6

Karma Points: 325

[Skills]

[Quests]

[Shop]

[Map]

[Inventory]

[Party(Locked)]

]

*Hiss*

Just as I opened it, I heard a hissing sound in a nearby high branch.

Looking up I could see a very small and cute white snake on the branch above my head. I was mesmerized by its unearthly beauty and sparkling icy blue eyes.

It looked like a juvenile snake.

The acid in my eye suddenly acted out on its own sending tremendous pain jolting through my brain, and I immediately woke up!

How did this small snake get here? I hurriedly used my appraisal on it, and to my sheer horror, I was shocked to find that nothing appeared!

Which only meant one thing, this harmless small snake less than a meter long had a way higher spirit than me!

I was almost frightened to death, the pain I felt all over my body somehow turned even louder.

As I was falling deeper and deeper into the pits of despair at my inevitable doom.

The snake opened its mouth and spoke, "A tiny little Body Refinement bird beyond the Zedinac domain, how peculiar..."

*Hiss*

When I heard it speak, I was not terrified but on the contrary, I regained hope.

Whenever I met any monsters before due to the barrier of language the only outcome was a fight to the death because we could never come to any agreement or something like that.

However this intelligent snake's ability to talk represented endless possibilities to me who was already at rock bottom facing an apex predator that I could never dream of escaping.

Even though its presence did indeed take me by surprise and I was terrified, I still was but I was no longer the helpless chick that was constantly shivering in the face of adversity. Even though, I was just shivering in the face of adversity just a while ago.

This little spontaneous and timely banter with myself did help me ground myself a bit and let go of my fear, then my mind started moving a thousand miles a second trying to think of the best way to get out of this.

I noticed that the higher either my intelligence or spirit stats go up, the lighter my mind becomes in connecting the dots and processing information.

I quickly caught the nonaggression in its eyes, it was unbothered, bored, and not really interested. It was only mildly curious but I could tell I did not evoke any strong emotional reaction in it, I was not strong to make it fearful, nor was I valuable to make it excited.

However, this would not change the fact that it'd definitely gobble me up just to try something different or probably to hear my screams to ease its boredom.

From her voice, I noticed that she was a female snake.

A realization hit me.

I had to be special in her eyes, something worth more than just a meal but not so special that she would kill me.

I needed to be interesting, a toy!

I had to be different than anyone she had encountered before.

If she encountered monsters stronger than her they'd terrify her, monsters equal to her they'd fight, and monsters weaker than her would be afraid and flee immediately.

If she was terrifying I'd just pretend not to be scared and engage in some play of some sort, but she was very pretty and looked harmless. So, even monsters weaker than her would try to attack her when she appears all of a sudden.

"Screech!"

I playfully spread open my wings while looking at her curiously and moved closer to her, however inside I was freaking out!

The only way I was able to do this so confidently was because talking with her was my last option, so knowing that I still had that option gave me the backbone to try my plan.

She seemed surprised, I could see it in her eyes as she approach me slowly, "Oh so you don't want to eat me?"

I knew that it was rhetorical no body refinement monsters could talk, other than learning the language they needed a strange bone at the front of their neck that I was only able to develop thanks to some energy in the scroll that taught me language.

She was slithering very slowly, when she reached the edge of her branch I thought she was about to climb down but she continued and I witnessed a strange scene!

She was slithering mid-air, just like an eel swimming in a lake, only this lake seemed invisible.

As she got closer, my heart was about to jump out of my mouth. Due to how intense and slow everything was happening, I was sure that if some abrupt noise occurred all of a sudden I'd completely lose it and do something unpredictable like run.

However, I needed to play it cool.

Due to how small she was, when she got closer to me she started coiling around my neck slowly as if afraid of breaking it.

"Poor baby, who injured you like this? Could it be that nasty flower? But why didn't she kill you then?", She kept moving around my body while speaking to herself.

Sensing the intent behind her tone, somewhat motherly but also sarcastic at the same time I played along by making pitiful noises.

God this is embarrassing.

"You are pitiful indeed... eh what is that", As she was going down my leg she saw the gecko!

Shit!

I almost had everything under control only for a variable to appear, think think.

Since she seemed to pity me a bit, I moved towards the gecko and nudged it gently with my closed beak, and tried to make her see the inventory ring I had in my claw.

"Oh? Is he your friend, he also seems to be injured? This is fun...", Just as I thought I was doomed since I no longer had any control over how the narrative was going, she saw the ring and immediately forgot about the gecko.

"A storage ring? Where did you get this?", She uttered with a stupefied voice, then she controlled her mana and removed it from my claw.