Leaving aside what was left of the forest squirrel to rot on its own, Scaly wasted no time as she rushed through the forest in search of something more edible to fill her up compared to the rather disgusting forest squirrel that she had just bitten into. Hoping to find another mountain boar, as they were by far among the most delicious monsters, she had encountered during her time wandering through the mountain range of the fourth floor of the dungeon.
Of course, even a simple mountain rabbit would be more than acceptable to the current Scaly, as she was extremely hungry after now having gone an extended period of time without eating anything outside of the heavenly lake serpent heart back during the struggle between the heavenly lake serpents and the mountain gnolls...
Squeak!?
Ptsh!
[Gained 26 Exp]
CHOOMP-!
Luckily, it didn’t take long before she ran into an unlucky mountain rabbit that had just been passing through the forest without knowing about the dangerous dragon lurking inside of it. Resulting in Scaly filling up her stomach far faster than she had expected to, while at the same time also giving her a chance to relax and think about her current situation and what to do now that her strength had increased to the point where only a few monsters in the entire mountain range could threaten.
No... It wasn’t just a few monsters that could threaten her. Instead, it was only a handful of monsters that could threaten her with her current strength. Namely the drake she had seen when she had first descended down to the fourth floor of the dungeon, the mountain gnoll champion and the crimson flame knight human. Possibly also the mountain gnoll lord, but Scaly felt confident that she would be able to beat him now that her magic had become stronger. Especially if she got a chance to grow more familiar with her lightning magic.
The only problem when it came to training her lightning magic was that she would need a target to practice it on, but any target she could think of that would fit as a target also had the strength to kill her in case she messed up when using her lightning magic-
BOOOOOM-!
SQUEEEAK!?
In the end, because of this, a very unfortunate mountain rabbit found itself being the target of Scaly’s lighning magic, as she ended up choosing it to test on while at the same time watching out for any powerful monsters that might get attracted by the loud sounds caused by her lightning magic being used.
However, something Scaly had not expected ended up happening, as she soon found out that all of the monsters inside the forest disappeared after she used her lightning magic on no more than two mountain rabbits.
All of them having been scared off by the terrifying loud booms echoed through the forest whenever she used her lightning magic.
From the looks of things, the thing she had to worry about was not any powerful monsters coming to attack her. Attracted by the loud sound caused by the lightning magic, but instead the fact that any practice targets she had in mind would end up running away the moment she started practicing her lightning magic.
Even if she had the mana now that she had successfully condensed a mana heart to use her lightning magic up to three times in a row, she would realistically only be able to use it once or twice before all the nearby monsters had fled.
So, with that in mind, Scaly could only give up on practicing her lightning magic for now.
Instead, she decided to focus on trying to practice her wind magic. Trying to see if she would be able to use it to create an updraft of sorts that would then be able to either keep her gliding in the air for longer or allow her to fly normally.
Unfortunately, she did have this thought when she had tried to escape from the heavenly lake serpents, the main problem back then had been that she was simply far too unfamiliar with her wind magic and hadn’t really used it much since she obtained it during her fourth evolution.
On the positive note, as she began training her wind magic, it didn’t take long for Scaly to realize that is was far easier to practice compared to her lightning magic and in the end, she soon managed to increase the level of her wind magic to level 2 in a short period of time.
At the same time, she had also begun to slowly creep back in the direction of the mountain gnolls and their tribe to hunt for more of them now that her strength had increased, and she no longer felt the same fear that she had felt back then when first witnessing the mountain gnoll lord fighting the powerful heavenly lake serpent.
Of course, to ensure that she wasn’t detected by the mountain gnolls during her slow and steady approach of their tribe, Scaly made sure to not practice her lightning magic any longer. Instead focusing mostly on her wind magic and water magic.
Her ice magic didn’t really see much action, as she had pretty much thrown it to the back of her mind at this point in time, being far more interested in the wind magic that might allow her to soar through the sky like the drake she had seen in the past.
Even if ice magic could prove powerful in terms of combat, it was nowhere near the value of the wind magic that might give her a chance to soar through the air like a real dragon.
Not to mention, when it came to firepower, she still had her lightning magic that even surpassed her much more familiar and higher-level water magic.
Even her dragon breath skill was nowhere near the same level as her lightning magic in terms of power alone, which was also why she had defaulted to using lightning magic instead of her breath attack at this point in time.
Although, part of her still wondered if it would be possible for her to combine the strength of her breath attack with the raw power of her lightning magic in the future.
If she really ended up doing that, Scaly felt confident that even the powerful drake that she had silently crowned as the king of the fourth floor of the dungeon and the most powerful of all monsters on the fourth floor of the dungeon, would be killed when faced with it.
Of course, the mana required to execute such a powerful attack would likely be far more than what she had available even after her recent breakthrough following her mana heart condensing.
However, the main problem would not be the mana requirement in Scaly’s eyes, as it would only be a matter of time before she managed to increase the mana inside of her body. Instead, the main problem would be to increase the level of her lightning magic and gain more control over it than she currently had, something that would definitely be needed if she wanted to use something like a lightning breath attack.
After all, there would be a very real chance that the lightning might end up blowing up in her own face if she couldn’t probably control it, something that would be deadly considering that the main part of the breath attack was the fact that it came out of her mouth instead of being condensed in front of her like her lightning magic had been so far.
For the future... Yes... In the future, I will be able to do it!
Shaking her head as she thought about this to herself, Scaly focused her attention back on the important matter at hand. Killing the mountain gnolls and using them as fuel to further increase her own strength!
Given how many mountain gnolls should still be present inside of the mountain gnoll tribe and the fact that there was still no lack of powerful mountain gnolls, Scaly felt confident that kill them off would be more than enough for her to reach level 30 and start preparing for her next evolution.
If that was not enough, she already planned to go and kill the heavenly lake serpents still left alive.
After all, this was something she already intended to do, as the gestating dragon hearts inside of them would be extremely useful when it came to increasing the purity of the dragon blood inside her own body.
Hoping that she would at least reach a purity of 25% or maybe even 30% before she had to go through her next evolution with the help of those heavenly lake serpents.
At least she hoped they would be able to help her get that far, as she honestly had no real idea how much longer their hearts would be useful to her before they ended up being rendered completely useless like the inferior quality dragon blood flowing through their bodies had been.