Looking around herself for a potential way out of her current situation, Scaly found to her dismay that no matter how many times she looked at the surrounding foliage and trees, no escape path materialized. Meaning she had to force herself up on her feet before moving in the opposite direction of the adventurers chasing after her in an attempt to try and find some way to hide herself before she was found and surrounded by the group of powerful adventurers who by this point wanted nothing more than to finish her off after she had just killed three of their companions.
The one positive was that she wasn’t easy to spot amidst the thick foliage. Allowing her to move forward undetected even as the adventurers got closer to her location.
Ah? A hole...?
And in the process of moving through the thick foliage, she suddenly realized that a massive hole had seemingly appeared out of nowhere-
Waaaaaah!
And directly below her nonetheless, giving her little time react before she found herself rolling down the steep side of the massive hole that cut straight through the floating continent itself.
Only barely stabilizing herself midair after falling for a good half minute halfway down the hole itself. At which point she realized that the hole was the same as the ones she had seen on the bloody battlefield behind her. Main difference being that she didn’t see any dreamscape monsters lingering around the edge of this hole and only really saw a few large tunnels leading to who knows where.
But even if she didn’t have any clue about where these larger than normal underground tunnels led, there was no hesitation as she dove headfirst into one of the larger tunnels more than large enough for her to fly through and fight in case a need for doing so emerged.
Unexpectedly, as she continued moving through the underground tunnel, there was no dreamscape monster attacking her along the way like she had originally been expecting to happen around every corner.
No... It wasn’t just a lack of attacks from dreamscape monsters, but a lack of anyone at all that caused her to feel increasingly uneasy as she continued moving deeper inside the underground world of the floating continent. After all, from what little see had seen of the underground world of the floating continent that had been exposed it should be teeming with life. Not the current dead state she was faced with as she continued moving along the underground tunnel.
Unfortunately, even if this made her increasingly uneasy and want to turn around, she didn’t dare to do so, as she understood that there would be a group of powerful adventurers waiting for her the second she did turn around and left the underground tunnel.
At least underground, she could avoid the powerful adventurers. Unsafe as it made her feel, it was ultimately just a feeling and didn’t impact her safety directly.
Something that was proven, as she managed to travel slowly through the underground tunnel for fifteen minutes straight without encountering any problems along the way. Making her feel that the place should be safe.
And along with that, she decided to find a small cave connected to the large tunnel just barely large enough to fit her inside of it to hide away and fully recover her strength before making her way back out of the underground world of the floating continent. Not because it was bad in any way, but because she didn’t want to spend her time underground like she had in the past.
The main reason being that she couldn’t make use of her wings properly underground and the feeling of unease remained even if it had significantly lessened after fifteen minutes without anyone attacking her.
Rumble~
Closing off most of the small entrance to the underground cave she had claimed as her own during her recovery, Scaly conjured up some water to drink before finding a comfortable spot to settle down for a quick nap while she recovered her strength.
Of course, before she went on to fall asleep, she decided to first take a proper look at her status to see if anything beyond her general stats had changed during her time on the bloody battlefield that had brought her all the way up from level 1 to level 10...
Name: Scaly
Race: Dreamscale Dragon (2nd Stage)
Dragon blood: 41% (Rare)
Level: 10/50, 31%
Mana Heart: Third Circle
STR: 1647 |VIT: 3142| DEX: 1949| M: 5722
Magic: [Dragon Water Magic, lvl 9], [Ice Magic lvl 3], [Wind Magic, lvl 8], [Lightning Magic, lvl 4], [Dream Magic lvl 5]
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 6], [Swimming, lvl 6], [Dragon Heart, lvl 1], [Endless Vitality, lvl 2], [Agility, lvl 1], [Brute Force, lvl 1], [Fear Resistance, lvl 1], [Mana Consumption, lvl 1]
Looking through her status, there were indeed a few changes beyond the general stats that had taken place during her rapid progress over the past day. The most notable being that her wind magic had managed to increase from level 7 to level 8, something that had almost certainly happened because of how she had used wind magic alongside her normal attacks to increase her speed while moving through the bloody battlefield.
Other than her wind magic, one of the unique skills she gained when one of her stats had reached one thousand, had also increased in level. More specifically, Endless Vitality, the one tied to her vitality stat... And looking at how her vitality had just passed three thousand, she guessed that might be the reason why the skill had reached level 2.
And given how much it increased her lifespan from just being level one, she couldn’t help feeling a bit curious about how much it would increase her lifespan after reaching level two. At the same time also feeling a bit curious if it would do anything beyond increasing her lifespan now that it had reached level 2.
[Endless Vitality, lvl 2]: Bursting from overflowing vitality, your body has transformed and evolved. Taking another step in ascending towards a higher plane of existence. Lifespan has been increased by 100 years, +5 VIT per level.
Surprisingly, the lifespan increase hadn’t changed and was the same, but now there was also an increase in vitality with every level, something that she preferred over an increase in lifespan.
At the same time, seeing the increase in vitality, she also realized that this effect already seemed to have increased her vitality by a bit without her knowledge.
All things considered, though it wasn’t exactly anything major that had changed with the endless vitality skill reaching level 2, it was altogether a welcome change, as it helped make her even stronger than she already was every time her level increased.
Just from the remaining levels before her next evolution, the skill alone would increase her vitality by 200, something she felt more than happy about considering that the skill wouldn’t just disappear after her next evolution and would remain in place for a long time to come. Helping her in a similar way to her dragon bloodline when it came to allowing her strength to increase faster.
Who knew, the little increase in vitality provided by this endless vitality skill might prove to be the little bit needed to unlock a powerful seventh evolution in the future.
Thinking about such a happy future, Scaly slowly found herself drifting off to sleep. Safe in her temporary little home where she began recovering her strength a bit faster while sleeping.
...
At the same time Scaly drifted off to sleep, the group of adventures that had been chasing after her had already gathered around the large hole in the ground that cut straight through the floating continent and revealed the sky of the dreamscape below.
"The dragon disappeared around here..."
"Underground... Huh..."
"Indeed, it looks like it..."
But even though they knew where she had gone, none of them dared to step forward to chase after her.
The main reason being that different from Scaly who was mostly unaware of the underground world of the floating continent, they were fully aware of just how deadly it was compared to the surface that seemed almost tame in comparison.
For this reason, though the underground tunnels seemed peaceful on the surface, none of them wanted to step inside those tunnels. Lingering around the edge of the hole for a good half hour hoping to spot Scaly but ultimately finding no trace of her as they all began to retreat away from the hole cutting through the floating continent.
Not because they had given up their search for Scaly, but instead because they sensed something massive moving through the underground tunnels and intended to get out of the way before they were noticed by the massive entity moving through those equally large underground tunnels...