Waking up fully recovered after an unknown period of time had passed, Scaly looked around the dark interior she had turned into her temporary home while recovering from her earlier escape from the baby kraken. Outside of a few scattered bones of the previous owner that had already been picked clean by her before going to sleep, there wasn’t much of anything inside the dark space. The only other thing of importance being the rocks that had been used by her to partially block off the entrance to prevent any other monsters from ambushing her while she was sleeping... And looking at the current state of things, she had ended up being successful in that regard. Avoiding any attacks while she was sleeping.
Good... Now I should be more than capable of dealing with any monsters that might come my way. Even if I run into that baby kraken again, I should at least be capable of fighting back!
Narrowing both her eyes as she thought about this, Scaly could not help smirking confidently as she slowly got up before moving to push the rocks blocking the entrance aside Now that she had recovered her full strength and had a good rest, she was fully confident in dealing with most of the monsters she had seen during her brief time in the underground section of the fourth floor of the dungeon.
The only real danger she had found so far was the baby kraken that was limited to the water and the heavenly lake serpents. The first being far too powerful, while the latter moved together in a large group. Making them difficult to deal with.
Outside of this, the rest of the monsters she had seen in the underground world didn’t really pose much of a threat to her, as she could deal with them with relative ease at her current level if she didn’t do something to attract a large group of monsters towards herself while hunting.
But... Now that she had managed to deal with the heavenly lake serpents and obtained what she had originally made her way down into the underground world for, she wasn’t too thrilled about continuing to stay underground any longer. The only problem was that she had no idea how to leave the underground world, as the original path was impossible for her to use unless she managed to learn how to fly instead of just gliding through the air.
Of course, even if she managed to learn to fly at the spot, it wouldn’t be that simple to leave the underground world, as she would still need the strength to fight against the powerful current if she wanted to go back the same way she had originally come from, something that she felt was impossible with her current strength.
So, with all of that in mind, her current objective was simple if she wanted to leave, become stronger or find another way out of the underground world... And given how both would require her to wander around the underground world, they could be done at the same time, as she would just focus her attention on hunting monsters in locations where there might be passages leading up to the surface of the fourth floor of the dungeon.
No... Not just up to the surface of the fourth floor of the dungeon, but even a passage leading down to the fifth floor of the dungeon would work out, as there wasn’t really much difference between the two outside of the fifth floor of the dungeon being more dangerous with how the strength of monsters seemed to increase the further down one went.
Honestly, with her current strength and the strength of the monsters present on the fourth floor of the dungeon, Scaly felt more than confident in being able to survive down on the fifth floor of the dungeon.
The only monsters capable of competing with her when it came to strength on the fourth floor were a few unique monsters who were far from normal on the fourth floor, like the heavenly lake serpents and the baby kraken.
For this reason, not only did Scaly feel like going down to the fifth floor of the dungeon would be fine with her current strength, but she also felt like it would be beneficial, as the stronger monsters down on the fifth floor of the dungeon would help her grow faster than the weaker monsters on the fourth floor of the dungeon.
After all, even if the danger was reduced with weaker monsters, it also meant that her growth speed was being severely reduced compared to if she had the chance to fight stronger monsters, who would not just give her more exp, but could potentially also increase the overall level of her skills faster than if she used them to fight off weaker monsters.
But outside of all this, Scaly was even more excited about the fifth floor of the dungeon for the simple reason that there might be other monsters with dragon blood present on the fifth floor of the dungeon... And given how anything but a certain overpowered drake had dragon blood strong enough to help enhance her dragon blood after she broke through the twenty percent mark, it was exciting to think about stronger monsters with purer dragon bloodline being present on the fifth floor of the dungeon.
Even if the chance of this being the case was still low, it didn’t dimmish her excitement in the slightest once this thought took hold, as her train of thought had slowly begun shifting from finding a way back to the surface of the fourth floor of the dungeon to searching for a path down to the fifth floor of the dungeon...
Rustle~
[Cave Spider, lvl 27]
As she crawled out of the small opening, she had managed to dig out through the rocks she had stacked up to block the entrance of her temporary home, the first thing she saw was a surprised cave spider that had been in the process of digging into the rocks trying to reach her-
Swish-!
Ptsh!
[Gained 614 Exp]
And without a single hint of hesitation, she made a move, sweeping her claws forward in a single slashing motion. Ending the surprised cave spider before it even had the chance to turn around and escape.
That... That was close...
Seeing the now dead cave spider on the ground in front of her, Scaly could not help feeling a slight shiver running down her spine.
If not for the fact that she had just woken up a few seconds earlier, she would have been completely defenseless when the cave spider dug out her temporary home. At which point she would have ended up falling prey to a far weaker opponent not so different from what she had done in the past to rapidly increase her own strength. Reminding her of just how important it was to find somewhere safe when resting, as a badly chosen location could easily end in a quick death without even knowing who had killed her.
Next time around, she promised herself that outside of blocking up the entrance to stop most passing monsters from noticing her sleeping location, she would also have to set up some kind of early warning system to wake her up in case there was any monster about to reach her.
The only problem was that she had no idea how to do something like that, as she didn’t really have any clue how to construct a barrier like she had seen the humans do through magic nor was she particularly skilled in constructing some kind of elaborate early warning system with a few rocks and some dirt.
Chomp~!
Chomping down on the cave spider that she had just killed, Scaly felt that it tasted distinctly different from the venom cave spiders and the metal legged cave spiders she had eaten in the past, a more common and boring taste, but she wasn’t really one to judge as she was far too hungry to think about any of this at the moment.
Although the monster she had eaten before going to sleep did fill her up to some degree, the feeling of fullness she had felt when going to sleep had disappeared completely when she had woken up.
For now, it looked like before she could begin her search for a path that either led down to the fifth floor of the dungeon or up to the surface of the fourth floor where such a passage might be easier to find, she would first have to fill her stomach.
Not just that, she also had to get something to drink, it was just that with her water magic, it wasn’t really difficult to get clean drinking water, as all she needed to do was conjure up a ball of magic in front of her and drink from it without allowing the floating ball of water to shoot out like originally intended.