We didn't know from which floor we had started, but it became apparent that from the 50th floor down the dungeon had taken a drastic turn. While it still possessed monsters, the monsters were… more specialized, as in, the floor we had started on was filled with 'Shadow panthers' only, the floor after it had rabbit-like creatures called 'Kick rabbits'. Cute huh? Well no, they weren't cute at all! Those bastards were terrifying. They possessed incredible speed, agility, had the ability to create something similar to air barriers which they used to hop off to change direction in mid air and worst of all they could kick the air producing air slashes - projectiles that can cut stones in half.
The best way to deal with them, no, the only way to deal with them is to take them by surprise, because if they spot you, they'll use their incredible aerial acrobatic abilities combined with long range attacks to completely demolish you. It wasn't easy to deal with them at first, but we somehow managed.
We spotted a battle between two of them, waited for one of them to take the other down and to start eating. Then, cloaked in a 'shadow step' spell which allows me to conceal my presence and the sound of my footsteps I slowly approached it from the behind, lifted my blade in both hands, tip down and stabbed it straight through the skull.
Lets see if it tastes any better than the 'Shadow panther'. Nope, the same. Well whatever, at least we gained the 'Kick rabbits' power and skills. Both mine and Alex's agility and speed increased considerably, Alex gained the skills 'air barrier' and 'air slash' while I surprisingly only gained 'air barrier'. It seems even using the 'devourer' skill the abilities you can gain depends on the individual and the deeper we went and the more we ate the differences between us became even more apparent.
Going deeper we encountered giant, greenish snakes that hunted by petrifying its victims with their gaze. Just like with the 'Kick rabbits', we ambushed them with their pants down so it wasn't really a fight to brag about. After eating them we both gained 'resistance to petrification' and only I, to the deep disappointment of Alex, gained 'petrifying gaze'.
The monsters weren't the only ones to become more specialized. The dungeon began to change as well.
After ten or so floors, we entered a floor bathed in light from the above. It looked like a dense forest of extremely tall trees. At first I was understandably confused, I even thought that we had somehow reached the surface until Alex pointed out that this place had a ceiling. It was filled with all kinds of insect monsters.
The most worth mentioning were these huge 3 meter tall praying mantis monsters that could perform 'air slash'. While they weren't as fast as 'Kick rabbits' they were far stronger and tougher. The others were four meter long venomous beetle-like monsters with incredibly sturdy exoskeleton that no matter what we did, we couldn't pierce.
The reason we were able to move down as fast as we did until now was because of the 'petrifying gaze', that to tell you the truth, I heavily relied on, leveling it up as much as possible by using it as frequently as possible, but that came to a stop here, because these monsters either had immunity or they were simply too strong for it to take effect.
I had noticed my 'petrifying gaze' gradually weakening before while fighting increasingly stronger and stronger monsters, but didn't connect the dots that it might stop working full stop against these monsters. I guess 'petrifying gaze' is a good asset against monsters that are 'B' class or lower and can't be relied on against anyone stronger. Against these monsters, I had to leave my comfort zone and start thinking out of the box, that is where my alchemist comes into play.
We spent hours fighting these darn bugs with no luck, the mantis was too powerful and dangerous to approach so we tried to use long, sharp, burning, wooden sticks, but the bug would just use 'air slash' to immediately put it out. The beetles, on the other hand, seemed virtually indestructible. It was slower than the mantis, so we were able to go all out with our blades. We even tried to roll it over to go at its belly but it was futile. It was simply too heavy for even us with the strength we had already gained and enhancing our bodies with mana.
Finally Alex came up with a solution for both of them.
"First of all the beetle - if we can't slice it into pieces before cooking and eating, let's reverse the order" Alex said with a smile. "Then we will worry about the praying mantis-like monster."
"What… exactly do you mean by that?"
"It's quite simple really, let's cook it alive" was said to me with the most innocent smile. This guy is quite scary.
"Alright, how do we do that? I'm no expert, but I am pretty sure our pan isn't big enough for that."
"Oh, we'll just go with an old fashioned potato in a fire method. Now then, help me to make a bond fire big enough to fry that bug." For some reason he looked really amused and I was starting to wonder whether or not this sicko might kill me in my sleep if I displease him in any way.
We did as we agreed and dug a huge hole, made a big circular fairly flat bonfire in it consisting of highly flammable materials which took us a better half of a day to complete and finally all the preparations were completed. Once again, let the hunt begin.
As per our plan, as usual, I acted as a bait and lured one of those beetle monsters to the fireplace. It, honestly, wasn't that difficult since they aren't fast, so there was no way for it to get close enough to me to attack. Once the beetle monster was directly in the middle of the bonfire, I made my escape, just as Alex, who was waiting near, lit the fire with a spell.
After that the grueling part of our battle began. The fire was strong, but the beetle was resilient. As soon as the fire started, it tried to flee. Our job was to use the skill 'air barrier' to run around the entire fire and erect air walls where the monster was going to prevent it from escaping.
It was a tough job. The fire was fierce, it was scorching hot just being near it. The smoke got into our eyes, blinding us, the smell of burning keratin was awful and the screams of the miserable, panicking insect filled our ears. But we kept up. We kept up until the end and finally after what felt like an eternity, the beetle monster died. We were exhausted, sweaty and felt awful for what we had done to it ( at least I did ). It was in order to survive. To survive and to get stronger, that is what matters now.
After we 'cooked' it, it was easier to open up its shell. The beetle monster's flesh wasn't any better than that of other monster's. It had that all too familiar scent of ammonia and the other indescribable smell as well. The only difference was the overpowering smell of char and burned keratin. No matter how deeply we dug into it, we couldn't find a piece of flesh that wouldn't smell of fire, so we had no choice, but to eat what we found.
After eating we gained a considerable boost to our durability, 'poison resistance' 'venom resistance', 'stone skin' and 'venomous bite' skills. These skills were brand new to us, so we were etching to try them out and what better way there is to do that than to train on lesser bugs on this floor.
We leveled up the 'poison resistance' skill by eating poisonous plants. At first we would get sick from a few petals of poison beauty - a highly poisonous flower, but after a while we were able to eat them like salad.
Next up we increased the level and familiarity with 'stone skin' by fighting each other and lesser monsters on this floor to the point that we could activate it in an instant right before receiving a hit.
Finally we practiced 'venom resistance' and 'venomous bite' by well… just biting each other a bunch of times. Now we were ready. ready to take on the praying mantis monster.
As usual, I attracted the monster's attention. It attacked me with 'air slash' skill creating a huge dust cloud where I stood. 'Air slash' - an ability powerful enough to cut down trees was easily blocked by my 'stone skin', when the monster saw it, it attacked me with a few more 'air slashes'. when it saw that I was unharmed, the monster came closer and slashed me with it's blade like front appendage. At this point, I was a bit scared. 'Stone skin' is a powerful defensive ability, but it has a major drawback. It consumes far too much mana even when activating just before receiving a strike.
My mana was running out, but that was to be expected and now the monster's full attention was on me. As the praying mantis-like creature was preparing to strike again, Alex jumped down from the tree head been perched in and delivered an 'air slash' of his own, decapitating the monster in one blow. Man, I wish I had that ability.
After eating and gaining the monster's power, our strength, mana capacity naturally increased. I was hoping to gain the 'air slash' skill this time, but it was not to be. What surprised me was that Alex's 'air slash' improved drastically. It seems that it is possible to stack the same skill in this way. Cool.
After obtaining all the abilities on this floor we could, we decided to stay on the forest floor for some time to train, adapt to the changes and recuperate. It took us around a week, give or take, to fully clear this floor and to learn to use all of our abilities to the perfection. It was a tranquil and peaceful time which I enjoyed to the fullest. Of Course there was fighting, but at that point our opponents seemed like children to us.
Me and Alex became something similar to friends, although I haven't had a friend in something like ten years, so I wouldn't know. He told me a bit about himself. I, on the other hand, stayed silent.
Apparently his father is from a rich Chinese family - Long family which is pretty famous around LA and his mother was one of his numerous flings. For a while, three years to be exact, Alex's father would visit him, his mother and baby sister, one year younger than Alex, but then the head of the Long family - Long Hua - the grandmother found out and got royally pissed.
Alex's family was still getting some money to support themselves, but they were shunned as family breakers. Yup, Alex's dad - Long Oo.but I'll call him Oo Long (named after tea, I guess) was married. With kids no less. What a shocker, right? His wife, who knew about her husband's lax rules on fidelity and seemingly tolerated it, wasn't happy about potential hairs to the family fortune and didn't waste any time implanting the same vile ideas in the heads of her children.
To the whole family the Joneses were just an eyesore, humiliation and potential money grubbers, even the kids thought the same way excluding and bullying them without mercy, Oo Long didn't seem to care either. The only family Alex acknowledges and actually loves is his little sister and mother.
It was strange to see how the two of us, who grew up in similar conditions, turned out so differently. Maybe the fact that Alex had someone that cared about him and someone that he cared about gave him strength or maybe he was strong from the beginning because he persevered while I broke. He had lots of friends, was good in all school activities, always smiled while I on the other hand excelled at being a useless loner with behavior issues.
Hell, he even smiles now, after his friend group, that he cared so deeply about, had sacrificed him. Not only that but the priestess of the team was apparently his long time girlfriend. Pretty messed up if I do say so myself. And yet, the bastard keeps smiling. I kind of admire that.
After the week was up, we packed up and mutually decided to continue our journey. I wonder what kind of hardships, what kind of adventures, and powers await us. If the monsters get even tougher will we be able to defeat them? They will get tougher - that's a fact, but I feel that if we work as a team we might be able to get through this. No! We will get through this. With Alex as our leader and me as the bait we can defeat anything!