Looking at the mystical floating clouds while feeling the pristine blue water brushing against her scales as she slowly drifted along the weak current, Scaly found herself lost in a state of bewilderment. Not understanding where she was nor how she had suddenly gotten to this strange place from the heart of the giant ant nest.
Sure, it was good that she had managed to escape the potential danger of having to face off against the gluttonous giant ant queen and her swarm on her own, but at the same time, she had no idea if this new place was any safer. Not to mention, part of her had still been planning to take down the gluttonous giant ant queen even if it did end up putting her at danger of dying. The reason being that there was no way she would give up such a great opportunity to increase her own strength and it wasn’t like she hadn’t gone through deadly situation in the past.
The only real difference this time around compared to past deadly encounters was the fact that she herself was stronger now and had more abilities to make use of to try and ensure her own safety... And the group of skilled adventurers wasn’t entirely dead. If she just killed the gluttonous giant ant queen before they were wiped out, they should be able to provide a distraction for her and help deal with some of the giant ants that would surely be enraged the second their queen was killed off.
Feeling a bit depressed about the fact that she might not get a chance to kill the gluttonous giant ant queen, Scaly swam towards the edge of the lake before making her way towards the edge of the small floating island. Sad as she was about the sudden disappearance of the gluttonous giant ant queen, there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it, as her most important goal changed from killing the gluttonous giant ant queen to figuring out where she had ended up and how she had suddenly ended up in this strange place.
So far, her guess was that she had either been successful in her attempt to enter the dreamscape or she had ended up somehow stumbling into a dungeon by accident. Odd and unlikely as the latter was, it wasn’t entirely impossible, as she had heard from a few humans during her time hunting weakened monsters throughout Howling Cave City, that dungeons could appear anywhere at any time for no apparent reason.
It wasn’t the only bit of information she got from the different adventurers back then. Another piece of information she managed to obtain was that the Howling Cave Dungeon she had been born inside of and spent most of her life inside so far, had appeared in such a way. Appearing in the middle of a large cave that was known as the Howling Wind Cave that had later been dug up as Howling Cave City had been built around the dungeon entrance.
Although... Most of what she heard was a lot of colorful words from the adventurers as they lamented over their own bad luck to find themselves facing a dungeon break in person.
Shaking her head a bit as she remembered some of those colorful and unique words that would make even a seasoned sailor blush, Scaly plopped herself down at the edge of the small floating island. Staring down into the colorful clouds below her where a few other small islands could be seen floating around with a slightly larger one barely visible in the distance.
Part of her wanted to spread her wings and explore this unique place, but at the same time, she understood that recklessly flying around might end up with her attracting the attention of some powerful monsters lurking within the colorful clouds that looked harmless on the surface.
Instead of that, she decided to take her time to examine her status. Knowing that if she had truly ended up entering the dreamscape, her dream magic should have increased in level...
Name: Scaly
Race: Dreamscale Dragon
Dragon blood: 31% (Uncommon)
Level: 35/40, 44%
Mana Heart: Second Circle
STR: 1007 |VIT: 2337 | DEX: 1309 | M: 4022
Magic: [Dragon Water Magic, lvl 8], [Ice Magic lvl 3], [Wind Magic, lvl 7], [Lightning Magic, lvl 4], [Dream Magic lvl 3]
Skills: [Dragon Bloodline, lvl 4], [Dragon Flight, lvl 8], [Poison/Venom Resistance, lvl 5], [Dragon Claw Strike, lvl 9], [Dragon Breath (Water), lvl 6], [Corrosion Resistance, lvl 4], [Pain Resistance, lvl 5], [Swimming, lvl 5], [Dragon Heart, lvl 1], [Endless Vitality, lvl 1], [Agility, lvl 1], [Brute Force, lvl 1]
And indeed, her dream magic had increased from level 2 to 3, though... Her swimming skill had somehow also increased in level during the few seconds it had taken her to swim to the edge of the lake.
Thinking about it, it should have just been because her level in swimming had already been close to increasing in level, with the last little swim pushing her over the edge, but for now, that wasn’t what was important. Instead, it was the fact that her dream magic had indeed increased from level 2 to 3. Meaning that she shouldn’t have fallen into some random dungeon that spawned directly beneath her without her noticing and should instead have managed to successfully enter the dreamscape.
This realization, outside of filling her with a sense of excitement, also made her wonder how she was supposed to leave the dreamscape. After all, if she was able to enter it, she should be able to leave as well.
With that thought in mind, Scaly focused her attention towards her dream magic to see if the description of the magic had changed and could provide her with some useful information on how to potentially leave the dreamscape.
[Dream Magic, lvl 3]: Allows the use of simple dream magic to enter and leave the dreamscape. The inherent magic spell Gate of Dreams already exist in your head, search a little... Will you?
Roaaaar~
Letting out a somewhat irritated and at the same time embarrassingly cute sounding not so dragon like roar in response to the abrupt change that took place at the latter half of the description, Scaly lowered her head slightly before silently following the suggestion to search through her head for any memories of the Gate of Dreams spell that had been mentioned in the description.
It really is there...
And after only a few seconds, she did indeed find out that a new memory had suddenly appeared in the back of her mind at some point. Allowing her to instantly learn this new spell without any training. In the process, she also learnt where the spell that had suddenly appeared in her head had come from.
The spell, Gate of Dreams, had been imprinted into her mind or soul as the description of the spell conveyed to her, the second she had managed to successfully enter the dreamscape. In other words, it was a spell that would be granted to anyone who managed to successfully enter the dreamscape, a gift of sorts from the dreamscape itself.
As for what the gate of dreams did? It was rather simple; it was a spell that allowed one to open a gate to enter and leave the dreamscape.
At the same time, with one’s mastery over dream magic increasing, one would also be able to directly use the Gate of Dreams to view the material plane from the dreamscape itself to see where one would end up after leaving the dreamscape.
Of course, viewing the material plane from the dreamscape had a downright terrifying consumption of mana, as even Scaly, with her impressive mana pool felt that she would barely be able to gaze into the material plane for four seconds covering an area 1 meter around herself.
Or in simpler terms, the ability to gaze into the material plane with the Gate of Dreams was rather useless to her, as her mana would dry up far before she could find any enemies she might want to ambush.
Her only real way to make use of the Gate of Dreams would be to increase the level of her dream magic and increase the area covered when she attempted to gaze into the material plane from the dreamscape.
But outside of this not so useful for now second ability of the Gate of Dreams, she now had a way to return to the material plane and join the battle against the gluttonous giant ant queen. Not just that, but she now also had a clear way to escape after killing the gluttonous giant ant queen.
The only problem she discovered about escaping into the dreamscape was that the Gate of Dreams wasn’t something that could be cast instantly, but took some time to use, while also being rather easy to disrupt. The one positive was that she could move while using it. Meaning she would just have to avoid getting hit while trying to escape through the Gate of Dreams into the dreamscape...