Before the salamander could put up any resistance, Kurushimi raised her leg up above it. She then stamped down onto the salamander, pressing onto its back and holding it in place. Kurushimi retracted her sword and pulled it out of the salamander’s back. The salamander hissed in pain.

Before it could hiss and make any more noise, Kurushimi raised her katana and focused. In one swift strike, she sliced vertically across the base of its neck. Her blade cut through without much resistance. The salamander’s angry hissing quickly turned silent.

《You have leveled up!》

《You have leveled up!》

“Whew-! It has a higher level than the majority of the monsters but it was a fairly easy fight except for the part where I was nearly burned alive.”

Kurushimi wiped the sweat off her forehead again. Rather than the monsters, she felt the climate would kill her. It really didn’t make sense to her that the heat could change so much in such a short distance.

Kurushimi stood over the salamander, before dropping onto her knees and straddling the salamander. Holding onto the headless body of the salamander, she bent down and pushed her hair aside before biting into just below the base of its neck.

《Used skill: 『Fangs Lvl. 3』!》

Kurushimi sucked up the salamander’s blood and allowed it to flow down her throat. As the warm blood embraced her tongue, Kurushimi felt that it was a little different than the other blood she had tried. It was delicious but it was warm. Too warm. Kurushimi quickly jumped up and opened her mouth, holding her tongue out as she waved her hand nearby it.

“Haah-! Haah-! Hot!, hot!, hot!”

Even the blood of the monsters in this area was hot. Kurushimi felt that it may have been better to have gone along the right path after all. But she had already come here so she wasn’t going to go back. Holding onto her scarf, she loosened it a bit. There was the option of throwing away the scarf but Kurushimi immediately discarded the thought.

《Used skill: 『What’s yours is mine Lvl. 2』!》

《You have gained: +6 HP, +6 STR, + 6 END, + 6 SP, + 6 AGI, + 6 MP!》

Hiss-! Hiss-! Hiss-!

System messages appeared with the use of ‘What’s yours is mine’.When Kurushimi had just gone to look at the messages, she was immediately interrupted by the hissing of what she had thought she had silenced already. And it seemed that the hissing had increased in number.

Turning around and stepping off of the salamander corpse, she looked around to see numerous salamanders. Their numbers counted about 4. Not too much compared to numbers she had fought before, but the idea of multiple salamanders and potentially more popping up all shooting flames at her didn’t excite her. That, along with the heat, made Kurushimi decide to choose the other option instead of fighting. The Joestar family secret technique, the tactical retreat. Or simply put, running away.

Looking into the distance and seeing more salamanders crawling out of whatevers holes they were coming from, Kurushimi was even more affirmed on her decision. As Kurushimi began to hightail it out of there, the angry but slow salamanders attempted to chase. But with their short legs and fat bodies, they couldn’t even hope to run as fast as the nimble Kurushimi.

Kurushimi ran and finally stopped running when she couldn’t see the salamanders anymore. Without any more monsters in the near vicinity, she chose to sit down on the ground. The ground was made out of rock and quite hard but she had run for a while and wanted to rest and regenerate her SP, so she didn’t really care.

She had entered an elevated area as compared to before. It was a small mountain where dry and sandy rocks covered the ground. There was actually a surprisingly high amount of foliage around the mountain. Most likely due to the mountain working like a slope for rain water to fall down and collect at the bottom, allowing for plants to have the chance to grow. Or maybe it was because she had gotten closer to the right area.

Kurushimi hadn’t seen yet, but it was highly likely that over this mountain or a few more mountains, the forest area would begin again. Most likely leading into the huge crystal area with the incredibly high canisfang density. Kurushimi was happy that she had the option to check out the area if she felt like it.

“Haaa~ It’s so hot!”

Kurushimi sighed as she continued wiping sweat off her forehead. The heat was beginning to really annoy her. Kurushimi took her jacket off to reveal a sports bra underneath. She had developed a habit of wearing sports bras from the various physical activities her parents had forced her to do when she was much younger.

But even with the lesser clothing, Kurushimi still felt incredibly hot. It wasn’t really enough to reduce the heat to a comfortable level. And if she passed out from heat stroke in the middle of a fight- It wouldn’t end well. Kurushimi hesitantly opened her system menu.

“I’m going to have to get a skill after all…”

Kurushimi felt that it was a little wasteful to be using skill points on a skill she would only be able to use in one area. But she hadn’t bought a skill in a long time and had way too many skill points rotting in the back. Not to mention, this skill could be the difference between life and death during a fight in this area.

Kurushimi opened up the skills menu and looked through the skills that could help her with resisting the heat until she found one she had met the requirements for. Clicking on it, she opened up the description to have a look at it.

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Skill: 『Salamander’s blood Lvl. 1』

Skill type: Passive skill

Mana cost: 0 MP

PASSIVE: Transforms the blood to like that of the salamander. Excess heat is transferred into the blood and released out of veins at the surface of the skin into the surrounding area by radiation.

Skill requirements:

-200 skill points

-Requirement met

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“I wonder what the requirement was? It’s a little annoying that it doesn’t say the requirement after it's been met. Don't say it before it has been met either…”

“The requirement was most likely met when you drank the salamander’s blood.”

“So was the requirement to drink its blood?”

“No. I’d say that the requirement had to do with processing and understanding the components from the blood of the salamander. It’s likely that’s how eating the pullumskāl scale met the requirement for ‘camouflage’ too.”

“Ahh, that makes sense.”

Voice-san, being much smarter than Kurushimi, managed to deduct the likely requirement for the ‘Salamander’s blood’ skill. Satisfied with the explanation and the skill itself, Kurushimi went to learn the skill.

《Currently you have 2000 skill points.》

《The skill 『Salamander’s blood Lvl. 1』can be acquired by spending 200 skill points.》

《Do you want to acquire it?》

“Yep!”

《『Salamander’s blood Lvl. 1』 was acquired. Remaining skill points 1800》

The second Kurushimi learned the skill, she felt her blood instantly turn much hotter. It was a little painful at first, but then the heat slowly dissipated and her body became much cooler. Her body temperature had become similar to how it was before entering the scorched area.

Kurushimi looked at her jacket beside herself. Even with the new skill, Kurushimi couldn’t gimmick the idea of putting her jacket back on. Not wanting to lose it or carry it around like she was doing with her katana, she chose to wrap it around her waist. The arms of her jacket tied up at the front to tighten it securely.

“Oh-!”

Kurushimi gasped as she suddenly got an idea. She loosened up her jacket arms temporarily and held her katana. Positioning it above her waist, she moved it to the inside of her jacket and positioned the crossguard to make it rest on the top of her jacket, holding it in place. She then tightened the arms of her jacket once again.

The katana was held firmly in place against her hip. Kurushimi had been complaining a fair bit about having to carry around her katana everywhere and wanted something to hold it. She had considered making a scabbard in a similar fashion to how she made ‘Sword 1’ but this was much simpler.

“Well that’s useful!”

Kurushimi let out a smile as she looked down at her hip. Kurushimi felt quite satisfied with the solution and patted her katana on the side a few times before looking away and around herself.