Another explosion rocked the water. The cause? Void Javelin, of course. I had been carpet-bombing the lake almost since I woke up, and I was making decent headway with my levels, but I was starting to get worried. Just now, I had fired my tenth void javelin into the lake without getting a kill.

Were the aquatic monsters growing wise to my tactics? Or did I overfish the lake? I couldn’t know which answer was the right one, but the facts of the matter were that I wasn’t getting any more kills. I got a bit annoyed at the prospect of actually having to run around and search for a fight since I had gotten used to the cushy life of throwing explosives into the lake.

All I had to do was lounge around and throw a spell every now and again and I just gained levels for free, essentially.

I did manage to gain another three levels so far, but that meant I still had three more levels to go that I needed to earn the old-fashioned way. Namely, actively hunting. I briefly considered assigning my new attribute points so I could get Wisdom to one hundred and so completing one of my bonus objectives, but decided to wait until I was level twenty. There wasn’t much point in getting that single point in, since I’d only get my reward upon evolution anyway.

I quickly entered the meditative state to activate my void connection, in order to fill my VMP pool before setting out on the hunt, being careful not to get ambushed while being connected to the void. While doing so, I mulled over the mysterious words the void bartender left me with.

Something about how the void was full of stuff, but at the same time not. A concept that I felt I could vaguely understand, but couldn’t quite wrap my head around. I couldn’t really experiment during the void connection, so I’d have to wait until I slept and visited the void properly.

With my mana reserves completely topped off, I jumped off the palm tree I was sitting on and started zipping through the oasis, uncaring of what might see me. I’d actually be glad to be noticed, as that would spare me the effort of looking for prey.

At this point, there were no real threats to me left on this layer, or so I felt, but I still made it a point to not get careless. After all, I was still kinda squishy. My damage output was crazy, but if somebody got a few good hits in, I would still be in trouble.

I used my tentacles to launch myself off the trees, zipping past colorful fruit bushes, when I finally spotted something to kill in the form of a giant ladybug. Its shell was mostly brown, the same color as the desert sand, dotted by big, green spots. I quickly realized that the color in those spots was swirling around, and I felt like I was being coerced to do… something.

Hypnosis?

I managed to quickly shake off whatever it was trying to do, unsure of why it was so easy. Maybe my highly mutated brain helped me out here as well. Whatever the case, I peppered the bug with a stupid amount of poison spears until it collapsed dead. With how mana efficient the spears were I could churn them out without having to worry too much about my reserves. And while I already unlocked the next higher spell in this particular line, the poison bomb, I don’t think this particular spell is going to become useless anytime soon.

It did some decent damage and I could machine gun fire them off anyway. They also had the benefit of not announcing my presence to anything close enough to hear the explosion the poison bomb or the void javelin made.

I quickly shoved the bug's corpse into my inventory, adding to my ever-growing collection of dead monsters. I’d need to hold a feast soon in order to get my attributes as high as they could be if I wanted a proper shot at the hunter. Plus, I could use the points to spend in the void… Provided I managed to find my way back to the bar, or any other kinda vendor.

I continued zipping through the forest, making short work of any and all monsters I encountered, shoving them into my inventory. Eventually, I came to the huge gash the hunter left during that stressful night. By now, new trees and shrubs were already sprouting out of the charred ground, a testament to how unnatural this planet was.

Or maybe this was normal for other planets? I really shouldn’t judge things based on my knowledge of earth, because none of that applied to the crazy things I’d seen during the past few months. Since the foliage here didn’t provide much cover, if any, a quick high jump revealed that barely any monsters were hanging out in this part of the oasis, so I turned around again, setting my sights on the outer rim of the oasis, skirting the desert.

I might venture into the dunes for a bit to see if there were more things for me to hunt.

I kicked off with my tentacles, using the trees and boulders as stepping stones to launch off of. I was getting pretty proficient at this, parkouring my way through the oasis, and enjoying the speed I could now achieve. Screw all that time I had to slug around at a snail's pace!

I really enjoyed myself, my goal of killing my way to level twenty becoming more of a side quest, as I tried going as fast as I could, pulling off tricks, and training myself to go faster. I sometimes forgot due to the whole “my life being in danger constantly” thing, but there was fun to be had, even in this absurd situation. Sure, I could only enjoy this respite because of how powerful I had become, but damn it all! If I didn’t make time to play around every now and again, I might go crazy.

I really enjoyed this newfound freedom, no longer shackled by my crippling addiction, debt, and society.

A few loops around the intact portion of the oasis later, I finally hit level twenty. I almost missed the notification because I was having such a blast racing around and quickly taking out anything that I saw, but when I did I finally slowed down and came to a rest on a palm tree.

The system was inviting me to evolve, which I obviously declined. I still had bonus objectives to meet, and I was starting to suspect that I might get even better evolution options depending on how high my attributes were. So I directed my attention toward my spendable points.

I had eight attribute points from leveling up, and I was only missing a single point in wisdom to hit one hundred, completing my first bonus objective. In a bold decision, I decided to dump the leftover points into Luck. Not only would I need every shred of luck I could get if I planned on hunting the hunter, but Luck points were also worth a pretty penny in the void.

As soon as I crossed the threshold of one hundred, the system notified me of my success.

You have completed a bonus objective!

Reach 100 in a single attribute (Chosen Attribute: Wisdom)

Congratulations!

Achievement: Wisdom King (B)

The first attribute to reach one hundred in a traveler's status will be crowned, making the attribute more effective.

Reward: Crowns the Wisdom attribute, making it your main attribute. Anything relating to Wisdom will receive a sizable bonus.

Neat!

Looks like I was getting a little reward on the side in the form of an achievement. This one seemed like a pretty generic one, judging by the description and the rank. I briefly wondered if it would have been wiser to make intelligence my main attribute, but there’s no point crying over spilled milk. Not like I knew this was going to happen, anyway.

My status showed another hefty increase in my MaxMP, which was the only tangible way I could tell that my Wisdom attribute had indeed improved. If I wasn’t going to worry about Wisdom before, I definitely didn’t need to now. It was time to bring my other attributes up to speed as well.

I briefly wondered if something would happen when all six attributes were at a hundred, but quickly dismissed the idea. If I waited long enough, Gluttony would probably get me there for free.

Then there was the capstone skill of my skill tree waiting for me. I had accrued a total of seventeen skill points, which was enough to buy the last ability since it only cost fifteen.

Polonic Chance (A)

All of your poison spells have a very small chance of inflicting the deadly poison status, instead of the regular poison. Deadly poison deals ten times as much damage over time as regular poison.

Additionally, there is a tiny chance of instantly killing your target.

What a great skill to have!

I had been looking forward to buying this ever since I saw it for the first time! Sure, it only added small “chances” to my poison spells, but considering that one of my attributes was Luck, I had hopes that this would increase my chances of triggering these additional effects more often.

Wouldn’t it be nice if I could just one-shot the hunter with this?

There’s no way that’s going to happen, but hey, a slug can dream, can’t it?

With my points spent, I took a quick look at my DP situation. I was getting pretty close to the 20k DP I needed to purchase the “Load of Cash” achievement, which would grant me double the DP from my kills. Needless to say, this was an ability that I needed. Just a straight-up multiplier for the rest of my existence? Sign me the fuck up!

But then my eyes fell on one of the other options I still hadn’t bought. For “just” 5k DP, I could purchase myself a second skill tree slot. Now, it was pretty obvious that this would just enable me to get a second skill tree, not actually giving me one. Thus the low price. I still didn’t exactly know how I would go about getting myself another skill tree, but I was willing to bet that I could get them from specific evolutions.

Should I buy it now, just in case I got offered a skill tree when I evolved? Would the skill tree go to waste when I didn’t have an available slot? Or could I slot it in whenever I got another open slot later?

I stared at the option for a while, cursing the system because it was always so damn vague and didn’t answer any of my questions. Eventually, I just gave up, pushing the decision back until I was ready to evolve. If the hunter killed me, it wouldn’t matter anyway. Thinking of which, it was time for me to prepare.

And right now, preparing meant that I held a feast for myself! There are monsters to be eaten and attribute points to be gained!