Leaving the home of the mountain gnolls behind without the slightest bit of regret after recovering enough to move around normally again, Scaly soon reached the location where she had faced off against the humans, mountain gnolls, dragon devouring slime and heavenly lake serpents not too long ago.
Seeing the now deserted rocky terrain that had several large indents and cracks created by the violent battle between the mountain gnoll champion and the crimson knight human, Scaly could not help wondering what had ended up happening to the group of humans after they had disappeared.
Did they leave the fourth floor of the dungeon and make their way back up to the third floor of the dungeon where they had come from? Or did they stay behind on the fourth floor of the dungeon?
Thinking about this to herself as she continued moving forward amidst the large rocks that had been scattered all over the place from the past battle, Scaly also decided to take a look at her status and see how much she had improved from her little visit to the mountain gnoll tribe. Hoping that her skills and magic had improved from the encounter.
The reason being that she realized the importance of increasing the level of her skill and magic. Getting more familiar with them and how to utilize them.
After all, if she hadn’t decided to train with her wind magic and how to use it try and remaining floating in the air beforehand, she wouldn’t have been able to escape from the mountain gnoll tribe as easily as she had towards the end of her escape.
On the other hand, she might have still been running away from the boggator and the mountain gnolls at this point in time...
Shaking her head as she thought about this, Scaly turned her attention towards her status.
Name: Scaly
Race: Young Tempest Dragon
Dragon blood: 18% (Common)
Level: 22/30, 16%
Mana Heart: First Circle
STR: 527 |VIT: 847 | DEX: 499 | M: 1142
Magic: [Dragon Water Magic, lvl 6], [Ice Magic lvl 1], [Wind Magic, lvl 3], [Lightning Magic, lvl 2],
Skills: [Dragon Bloodline, lvl 4], [Dragon Flight, lvl 4], [Poison Resistance, lvl 3], [Dragon Claw Strike, lvl 7], [Dragon Breath (Water), lvl 3], [Corrosion Resistance, lvl 2], [Pain Resistance, lvl 4], [Swimming, lvl 2]
Looking through her status, Scaly was first annoyed by the fact that she was a single point away from reaching 500 in her dexterity before noticing just how much her status had improved compared to before.
Not her overall stats so to speak, but her skills and magic had all grown by a lot compared to the last time she had looked through her status.
For one, her water magic, wind magic and even lightning magic had all increased by one level. Bringing about a significant increase in strength when it came to her magic.
At the same time, her remaining skills didn’t lack behind either, as her dragon flight and dragon claw strike and both increased to level 4 and level 7 respectively. Making her feel like she was getting infinitely close to leveling up her dragon bloodline.
Outside of that, there was also her pain resistance that had managed to level up for reasons likely related to her once again rolling down the side of a mountain.
Although...
[Pain Resistance, lvl 4]: You have endured pain beyond what is normal and have grown familiar with the pain- Maybe even a bit of enjoyment? Your journey as a true maso-
She didn’t like the way that the description of the skill was also evolving along with the skill. Not even bothering to read through the entire thing as she closed down the description of the skill, the moment, she realized that it was heading in a weird direction.
Forgetting the pain resistance skill, I also have to find a way to make use of the ice magic...
Deciding to ignore the pain resistance skill’s increasing weirdness, Scaly instead decided to focus her attention on her ice magic, the only magic that she could use, which was still level 1.
Although she had used it in the past, it wasn’t really a lot considering that her water magic had been far stronger.
To date, the only kind of ice magic she had used was a kind of ice shield to defend herself. Not really having used it for combat due to its rather high mana cost compared to water magic.
But on second thought, she realized that ice magic might be far more useful than she had first expected, as it would allow her to make different constructs out of ice similar to how she had seen humans or monsters use earth magic in the past.
In terms of defense, she had a feeling that her ice magic might prove to be extremely useful if she could create several thick walls of ice between herself and her enemy. Making up for the clear gap she had when it came to defending herself, as she had essentially relied on killing her enemy before they could kill her or hope that her scales were strong enough so far.
Whoosh~
With a new goal in mind, Scaly didn’t waste any time as she began to experiment with her ice magic while continuing to move forward.
One moment creating the familiar ice shield in front of her and the next moment creating a large ice spear before throwing it towards a nearby tree that it easily pierced through before hitting the ground, Scaly began experimenting in the offensive and defensive capabilities of her ice magic.
Of course, given that her ice magic was still only level 1, what she could do was extremely limited, and a giant ice spear drained far more mana than it should have normally. Almost draining all the mana inside her body from creating something far beyond her current capabilities.
Even then, it did give her a clear idea about the strengths of her ice magic, as it showed that ice magic did indeed have the ability to be used in combat and was viable for her to use in defending herself against attacks from enemy monsters.
Though... It was still far too weak to have any real effect against the monster she wanted to potentially defend herself against like the mountain gnoll champion or the crimson knight human.
For her ice magic to be useful in fighting such powerful monsters and humans, she had a feeling that her ice magic would at least have to reach a similar level to her water magic.
After all, it was not like her lightning magic that was inherently extremely powerful, but also difficult to use.
Her wind magic wasn’t a good comparison either, as she didn’t really use it for combat that much and more so used it to increase her mobility or to impede the mobility of her enemies.
Whoosh~
Thinking about all of this, Scaly didn’t waste any time as she continued practicing her ice magic so as to ensure she would be able to properly defend herself with a strong ice wall the next time she faced a powerful attack, while continuing to move forward. Scaring off any of the weaker monsters who spotted her along the way.
As for where she was heading now that she had decided to give up on continuing to hunt the mountain gnolls at the moment? She had no idea; all she knew was that she wanted to find the heavenly lake serpents and hunt them down instead.
The only problem was that she had absolutely no idea where the heavenly lake serpents were hiding at the moment.
The only thing she could go off was the direction she had seen them escaping from the battlefield in the past, outside of that, she was only guessing what direction to move in.
Unfortunately, she didn’t have an ability similar to the mutated dragon devouring slime’s dragon blood tracking ability or she would have long since been able to pinpoint the location of the heavenly lake serpents.
She did think about going back to the crater lake where she had first encountered them but gave up on that after remembering that they hadn’t shown any signs of returning to that place in the past and had instead moved in the opposite direction when escaping after the battle that had taken place while she had massacred the group of weaker mountain gnolls.
Following the past escape directions of the heavenly lake serpents...
Although not the brightest idea she had, it was at least somewhere for her to start when it came to searching for the heavenly lake serpents. Better than her just standing around outside the mountain gnoll tribe waiting for the heavenly lake serpents to make their next attack.
At least by taking the initiative, she would have a better chance of secretly killing a few of the heavenly lake serpents and taking the opportunity to increase the purity of her dragon blood by eating their hearts without being interrupted or attacked in the process.