Now that we have a new base of operations set up, I examine Ratina's soil manipulation in the menu.

Soil manipulation LV10 (Max) Max level skills will no longer level up, but they unlock the possibility of higher level skills.

I can't learn the higher level options by regular examination, so I use skill teach to pull up the list.

Ratina possible skills Burst of speed (land) Foraging Expanded mana pool Magic overdrive Higher tier attribute magic Minor cooldown reduction Ice magic: ice shard (conditions not met) Lightning magic: electric shock (conditions not met) Light magic: beam of light (conditions not met) Dark magic: beam of darkness (conditions not met) Fire magic: burst of flames (conditions not met) Water magic: torrential downpour (conditions not met) Wind magic: column of wind (conditions not met) Earth magic: rupture (conditions not met) Earth magic: stone manipulation Soil magic: enhanced fertilizer Earth magic: mineral sense

Apparently the skill teach menu is still an incomplete list if certain conditions aren't met, I assume that stone manipulation allows rocks to be manipulated instead of just dirt, while enhanced ferilizer may or may not be related to the farming skill. mineral sense might have been unlocked by magic sense and max soil manipulation, but could just as easily be a normal option for all I know.

I have no plans to spend my skill point on any of those as higher tier attribute magic is still my most likely choice if she can't learn it naturally, but Ratina has more magic she can try to learn during practice now.

As for escaping our island problem, there are four possible solutions to consider.

1. Build a boat and travel along the water in hopes we find another land mass.

2. Tunnel beneath the ocean to avoid fighting sea monsters, will be slower but safer considering the strength of sea monsters is unknown

3. Build a box that we use fire magic to throw around through the air, faster than the other options but requires Ratina to level up more to maintain and may still be a target for sea monsters and other flyers, also difficult to resupply should we run out of food.

4. Tame a monster or evolve one of my current ones to a flyer or swimmer and ride atop them until we find the next land mass.

5. Accomplish space flight like I had considered earlier, after achieving orbit re-enter the atmosphere at the largest land mass you see and hope you land near a human settlement without casualties, so many problems with this one I won't list them all, but it still an option if all else fails.

Assuming we can hunt creatures on the ocean floor from beneath them and avoid water pressure problems with water manipulation, option 2 seems like the best choice as the other options are too risky without more information, and I don't have the time to achieve option 5 if Steven is actively hunting me.

I wonder what he is up to by the way.

Steven POV: Fenrir utilized fire in my own territory again, it was near the base of what appears to be a human scout.

However I will not let Fenrir fool me so easily, even if a human was in my forest, it would be to difficult for an army of humans to reach here without bringing the attention of the ancient ones, so it is probably an explorer searching for rare monster breeds to catalog.

It would still be strange for such a human to come all this way however, so this is probably a misdirection by Fenrir, I don't know how he changed his wolf scent to be that of a human, but it is probably a skill of his because a smell a weird mix of human and mouse in some areas, along with a hippo and snake smell.

A mix between mouse and human doesn't exist, and a hippo doesn't live in a cave, Fenrir was truly careless to believe I would fall for such a ploy.

And stone tools, please Fenrir don't insult my competence, humans stopped using stone tools long ago.

I will find you Fenrir, and I will not be distracted by such obvious tricks.

Auxentius POV: I have ratina begin work on the temporarily named super tunnel while I take Nasby and Pythana to hunt, Nasby and I are really just going to be supervizing Pythana so we can intervene if she needs help while she levels some skills and gets combat experience.

I use my lecture skill while Pythana constricts, bites, ambushes, and swallows low level prey that I find with magic sense, and eventually spot a spider.

If this spider is venomous I may finally have a way of getting Pythana venom, and getting all of us some poison resistance other than Ratina who already has it.

I easily crush the spiders legs with magic, and have it bite me to successfully get poisoned

You have been poisoned by weak venom! -3 HP/minute for 3 minutes

I thought poison damage would deal a percentage, but that probably isn't the case considering how little damage it deals to me.

I wait for Phythana to reach full health for a bit as she still wasn't back to full health yet, and when she gets bit

You have been poisoned by weak venom! -9 HP/minute for 3 minutes

It seems that poison damage scales with your stats the same way other damges do, it won't help immediately in a fight but the damage will be substantial if the fight drags on for a while.

Adding a potential arachne to the team is tempting, but I am still holding on hope for a slime atm and don't have a free slot, so I bring the spider back to base without taming it just to use as a poison dispenser.

"Isn't it a bit cruel to treat the spider that way, this isn't like killing for food or experience, it is drawing out its pain" (Nasby)

"I didn't peg you for the type to have a conscious, if it makes you feel better I plan to let it go after we are done using it for training, it gets to level up its skills and not die by dealing with having broken legs for a few days" (Auxentius)

"Could you tell it that with telepathy then? The thing looks like it is scared enough to die any minute" (Nasby)

I inform the spider of my plans, and get a thank you in response, although I can tell that the spider isn't much more cognizant then Pythana because it had difficulties conveying that simple thought.

Pythana levelled up only once, and levelled up bite, constrict, and swallow once each. She also learned the assassination skill.

I still can't teach Pythana magic yet, but the link seems to have sped up her mental developement as she has already started speaking basic things.

"Me eat spider allowed?" (Pythana)

"No, there are other plans for the spider" (Auxentius)

"Spider pain touch bad" (Phythana)

"It hurts, but it is good for you, please bear with it" (Auxentius)

"Strength good! But pain bad. Now head hurt, difficult" (Pythana)

I continue to have the spider bite us after recovering to full health for the rest of the day, until all of us get poison resistance.

Poison resistance LV1 Takes less damage from poison based attacks

Pythana also finally learned lesser venomous fang.

Lesser venomous fang LV1 Your bites will poison your opponent for 1 minute, dealing damage per minute equal to your strength/their stamina x10 Possible evolutions Corn snake Gekko Greater worm Moray eel Brown sneaky snake Lesser viper Lesser cobra Snake assassin

Well snake assassin seems like a clear winner to me, sneaky snake seems to be just a lesser version and it is better to have a class better at all around ambushing then just better at poison.

I let Pythana begin to evolve into a Snake assassin, free the spider, and go to check up on Ratina.

Ratina has reached the rock layer some time ago, and suceedes in learning stone manipulation after two days of using the lecture skill stopping only to sleep.

This gets me another level of lecture in the process.

Stone manipulation does the same thing as soil manipulation, it just allows you to control different types of rocks and has a greater ability to compress or loosen the earth.

Pythana has finished evolving by this time into a snake assassin.

Snake assassin A snake far more adept at ambushing their prey than their fellow kin, they are experts at killing their prey before they have time to properly react, main stat strength sub stat dexterity Skills available Ambush Camoflauge Rough scales

I choose rough scales as ambush can probably be easily learned naturally and camoflauge isn't all that needed when she already has the hide skill, which along with assassination now has a level associated with it.

Hide LV1 Harder to be found by opponents based on the difference between your dexterities Assassination LV1 +8% strength on first attack Rough scales LV1 Physical contact with your scales deals damage to your foes while this skill is active

That was close..... if rough scales couldn't be deactivated then I couldn't be wrapped up by my future lamia waifu, that was quite careless of me now that I think about it more.

Pythana has grown substantially larger, she is now about half a meter long and twice as thick as she was before.

Even she is bigger than me in my baby body now, I am the smallest one among us once more, stupid baby body why must you grow so slowly.

I check up on the skills I can teach Pythana.

Class skills that can be taught Ambush Camoflauge Prepare terrain Evade detection (conditions not met) Minor evasion boost

The condition to learn evade detection is to have hide be at least level 5, but none of these skills look worth while enough to use my skill on.

I call Ratina back from mining so that we can get pythana the quick grower title and I send Ratina back to tunneling once we get her up to level 10 and she gets the quick grower skill.

Ratina levels up 3 times and Nasby levels up twice, Nasby levels up shield aura and trample, Pythana levels all her new skills twice and constrict once, I level up hidden potential and monster buff once each, and Ratina levels up water ball, dirt wall, and wind wall once each. Pyhtana also managed to learn ambush.

Ambush LV1: When you catch your enemies by suprise you will gain 3% movement speed for 1 minute

The next day I finally found a slime.

It wasn't hard to tame it, much like with pythana it was severely out levelled and no match for our group

Name N/A Race Slime, genderless Age 12 LV 8 Class Scavenger slime Rank 1 HP 40/40 MP 16/16 (+0.11/sec) Strength 21 Intelligence 11 Dexterity 14 Willpower 11 Stamina 29 Wisdom 11 Luck 65 Charisma 11 Skills Hide Escape LV8: +80% speed for 5 seconds when fleeing a foe, cool down 3 hours (debuff fleeing will last for the duration of the skill) Detect corpse LV6: can spend MP to detect corpses of animals within a certain range, greater MP=greater range Efficient energy usage LV8: Uses less food to survive Titles Owned by Auxentius Race skills Slime body LV7: reduces damage of physical attacks by 56%, increases damage from magical attacks by 72% Dissolve LV5: can melt down object within your body, heals HP faster when eating

The fleeing debuff prevents you from attacking or approaching your opponents, having escape, hide, and slime body is probably what makes the slime a good scavenger, although without escape the slime is fairly slow so most of them probably die before they level it up much making them so rare.

Scavenger slime A slime that feeds off of either weak monsters that fall into it, or corpses. An weak creature that is slow and can barely detect its surroundings, only the lucky ones will survive for very long. Main stat stamina, sub stat strength

I can tell after forming a magic connection with the slime that it has a strange field of perception for about a meter in every direction, it is similar to magic sense but subtly different and doesn't register as a skill.

Without that the only thing the slime could percieve would be corpses, so I suppose it can only start escaping when a predator is a meter away, and will have no way to know if it is running off a cliff or into another predators.

Slimes have it tough out here..... no wonder none of them found our base despite the pile of corpses we always have nearby.

I name her Slimerene and check what skills she can be taught.

Class skills that can be taught Enhanced senses Burst of speed (land) Sticky grasp Mimicry

I am very tempted to spend the skill point on mimicry as it could be op, but I will try to get her to learn it naturally first.

"Is it okay if I eat half the corpses in storgae master?" (Slimerene)

"Go ahead" (Auxentius)

She is suprisingly articulate considering the lack of a brain, at least I don't have to worry about her not understanding orders and trying to eat anyone.

I spend a month in lecture mode, finally having it reach LV10, while Ratina tunnels to teach Pythana and Slimerene new skills.

For Pythana she reaches hide LV5, lesser venomous fang LV6, and she learns all of her class skills.

Lesser venomous fang LV6 Your bites will poison your opponent for 3.5 minutes, dealing damage per minute equal to your strength/their stamina x16.25 Camoflauge LV1 Can slightly change color of scales to match surroundings Prepare terrain LV1 Increases the effects of ambush and assassination by 10% if you prepare the place you attack them at beforehand in a relevant manner Evade detection LV1 Harder to be noticed by detection skills, greater effect with higher dexterity compared to foes intelligence Minor evasion boost LV1 15 MP cost, cooldown 15, duration 5, increase reflexive dodges speed by 5%

Nasby manages to learn camoflauge as well, along with

Intimidating roar LV1 A roar to strike fear in weaker foes and provoke stronger ones, effects vary depending on opponent (There is no more specific information when Auxentius tries to find it) First aid LV6 Can heal 2HP of any target per MP spent, cooldown 1 minute Bunker down LV1 Reduces movement speed by 95% and increases defense by 25%, MP cost 30 duration 1 minute cooldown 1 hour Counter-attack positioning LV1 When counter-attacking from a prepared stance, damage +3%

Slimera managed to learn magic perseption,manipulation, and sense along with the fire,water,earth,and wind ball and manipulation skills.

She also learns

Mimicry LV7 Learns new skills 14% faster when obseving another using them as a reference Burst of speed (land) LV4 Spend 15 MP for a 8% increase in speed for 20 seconds, cooldown 10 only works on land Sticky grasp LV1 Can attatch yourself more firmly to objects based on your strength stat

Mimicry was massively useful for her learning magic, and I spent a lot of the lecture time focusing on levelling that up and teaching her magic.

I also learned some new skills by levelling my resistances and teaching Nasby first aid.

Fire resistance LV4 All resistance skills are like poison resistance Water resistance LV3 Wind resistance LV2 Earth resistance LV2 Poison resistance LV5 (While leving Pythana's venomous fang) Title masochistic tendencies Take 10% less HP damage from self inflicted wounds while raiting full sense of pain

None of my monsters wanted to level up their resistances by having me blast them with magic every time they reached full health, so I just did it alone and got that title in the process.

It doesn't seem like there is a pain resistance skill, I would prefer it if the title also gave one but it isn't that kind of title.

Ratina levelled magic manipulation once, stone manipulation to 3, and increased mana recovery rate to 8. Stone manipulation very clearly takes much longer to level than soil manipulation, likely all the skills requiring a max level predecessor do as well.

"Master I found something while tunneling, come down with the others" (Ratina)

"Alright, be there in a minute" (Auxentius)

The tunnel has already gone deeped than the ocean floor, and it has gotten to be longer than the island's diameter by a substantial amount, we need to be using air magic while down here if we don't want to suffocate and Ratina even made some seperate rooms to fill with air so that she can sleep safely.

When I arrive where Ratina is, she found an opening while tunnelling that leads to a chamber. There are mushrooms growing out of the ground and even some monsters roaming around.

I really hope we just found ourselves a dungeon......

Damnit I just had to raise a flag and jynx it didn't I?