Chomp~!
Biting down on the delicious sandwhirl fish that she had just caught, Scaly felt that the pain she had just gone through was entirely worth it to fill her stomach for the first time in a long time. Even more so because she discovered that it was easy to clean her eyes by jumping into the oasis and just opening her eyes underwater, a trick she wished she discovered before rolling around on the ground for another five minutes before somehow having moved to the edge of the oasis and fallen in.
Problem was, though the sandwhirl fish was delicious and she enjoyed it, it was gone too fast and made her yearn for the ability that the adventurers seemingly possessed that allowed them to enter the sand ocean to hunt monsters without having to worry about sand getting in their eyes.
Her desire to learn about this ability soon enough, reaching the point that she took to the sky and searched for a group of weaker adventurers nearby to try and learn from them how to enter the sand ocean without having to worry about sand getting in the eyes.
Unfortunately, she was bound to end up disappointed, as the reason why they didn’t have to worry about sand getting in the eyes was some kind of unique equipment that they placed over their eyes so they wouldn’t have to worry about sand getting in their eyes, a gadget that she wouldn’t be able to use, as there weren’t any that fit her in the first place.
The one positive being that she learnt how the adventurers were able to navigate and hunt within the sand ocean where seeing their surroundings should have been impossible.
The method in question requires either a special powder that they pour into their eyes, a liquid that is also poured into the eyes or some kind of unique spell for the eyes that allowed them to see through the sand and spot any incoming monster.
No matter what it was, all the methods of seeing through the sand were essentially rendered useless to her, as it wouldn’t be of much help if she didn’t have any way to protect her eyes inside the sand ocean.
Chomp~
Biting down on the fish bone that she had already picked clean, Scaly froze for a brief moment before throwing the fish bone aside, her mind already starting to work overtime as she attempted to come up with a way to solve the problem of getting sand in her eyes. Her solution to the problem almost immediately leaning towards her, needing to come up with some kind of spell capable of protecting her eyes from the sand.
New problem being that she had no idea what magic to use to try and come up with a way to protect her eyes.
Starting with her strongest magic, water magic, she could see a few ways to make use of it to protect her eyes with water. The main problem being that it would drain a lot of her mana just to ensure that mana remained in place protecting her eyes.
Next was wind magic, but that seemed even more troublesome. Shifting her attention towards the recently obtained dream magic, but... The difficulty of that magic left her wondering if she would end up wasting a few days on a type of magic that seemed rather unsuited for the task of protecting her eyeballs from the sand that wanted to get in and irritate them.
As for lightning magic... She wasn’t planning on frying her eyeballs by accident and turn into a blind dragon.
Leaving behind her least developed magic, ice magic, a magic that she had neglected in favor of her already powerful water magic and versatile wind magic useful for increasing her speed.
Different from the rest of her magic that seemed to be hard to use to protect her eyes, ice magic seemed simple enough, as all she really needed was copy the eye protection used by the adventurers with ice magic and protect her eyes with an ice version large enough for her to wear.
But... The level of her ice magic was simply abysmal compared to something like her water and wind magic, being nowhere near the level where it was simple for her to come up with a new spell, as she needed to put some serious effort into coming up with the spell itself.
The effort in question being her taking full advantage of her now sizable mana capacity to conjure up countless small eye protection gadgets made of ice before she finally had the ability to form one that fit her and worked perfectly after she attempted to stick her head into the sand ocean.
Only real downside being that she needed to supply the ice protection covering her eyes with a constant stream of mana to ensure they didn’t melt or got destroyed by accident.
Still, it was far less if she ended up using water magic to protect her eyes instead.
Not to mention, her ice magic that had remained stagnant for who knowns how long, leveled up and reached level 4. The same level as her lightning magic. Making her once again realize that it wasn’t just her ice magic being neglected, but her lightning magic had ended up suffering a similar fate.
But what could she do? Her dragon breath skill had essentially replaced her lightning magic as her strongest single target ability, causing her entire attention to shift towards her water magic, as it increasing in strength also helped boost the strength of her dragon breath skill.
"Hey, isn’t that the dragon everyone is searching for?"
"Yeah, it looks pretty like the reports stated. Especially the scales!"
"Should we report its location? I heard a lot of people are paying good money for it."
"Don’t bother, we aren’t the only ones around here, didn’t you see the others rushing past us not long ago? Undoubtedly went to sell the location of this dragon to those strong adventurers eager to hunt down a dragon."
In the end, as she pondered over her forgotten magic for a bit, a few voices belonging to a group of adventurers passing by the small island she was on top of, caught her attention and having already solved the first problem when it came to entering the sand ocean to hunt monsters, there was only the problem of how to see within the sand left before she could dive in without hesitation and start hunting down the delicious sandwhirl fish...
"Ah!? It... It’s looking this way!"
"That... I heard it didn’t attack anyone unless provoked, we should be fine..."
"It’s coming this way..."
And it just so happened that the solution to this problem was rather simple to solve, as all she needed to do was pay these adventurers a visit and seize the powder or liquid that they made use of to see beneath the sand-
Thump~!
Not hesitating in the slightest as she jumped over landed on top the sand boat barely enough to fit her after unfurling her wings for a few seconds to glide through the air to reach the sand boat with the group of adventurers on top of it.
[Human, Flawed Hunter, lvl 34]
[Human, Sand Alchemist, lvl 32]
[Bearkin, Flower Mage, lvl 34]
Although they were stronger than the weaker adventurers she had encountered so far on the first floor of the dungeon, she had little to no interest in them, as her gaze instead focused on the powder located on a small table between her and the three adventurers too scared to say anything, let alone scream in fear.
BANG!
Next second, Scaly smashed her head into the table as she made sure that the sand vision powder got into her eyes. Feeling as the powder was properly absorbed and didn’t irritate her eyes in the slightest like the sand had. Smiling with satisfaction as she looked over the edge of the sand boat and saw how the sand ocean seemingly peeled away before her very eyes and revealed a lively scene below where both adventurers and monsters were countless.
Any thought of dealing with the group of three adventurers staring at her in disbelief having already vanished as she spotted a large sandwhirl fish passing by below-
Whoosh~
And without the slightest bit of hesitation, she protected her eyes with her newly invented ice glass spell to protect her eyes before jumping headfirst into the sand ocean. Not even glancing back once as she disappeared into the sand below.
"What... What was that...?"
"I don’t know... It just slammed its head into the table with the sand vision powder on it..."
"Do you think it’s some kind of sand vision powder addict...?"
"That... Maybe? I don’t anything about dragons..."
Leaving behind three very confused adventurers who had no idea what they had just witnessed. Only able to stare speechlessly towards the now destroyed table with bits of sand vision powder scattered around it.