Chapter 26: 24. The crystal caves.

Urgh.

I was waken up by the rumbling of the cave here, the circle of stone around me wasn't destroyed and I was able to sleep mostly peacefully.

Now, I need to see how well my wounds are doing, my body doesn't feel too bad, so hopefully it'll be better.

[Lisa] lv. 13

Species: Small Drake.
Status: normal.
Stats:
Hp: 63/141
Ep: 69/69
Sp: 87/87 (max: 138)
Strength: 86
Defense: 70
Energy strength: 58
Energy defense: 49
Speed: 129

My hp is barely in the middle, not good. I should have appraised myself before I slept, but... after all of that? I was too tired to do that.

I shouldn't look back at the past, for now I should just occupy myself with the current situation.

Even though I feel that I just want to stay here, surrounded by these rocks, I can't stay here. I have to go on.

I open up a part of the wall around me, no need to waste all of my EP and remove it all.

The sight outside was something else, I didn't notice it earlier, but this place is actually quite bright compared to the other locations I have been in, I guess I took my eyes for granted for a pretty long time.

But there is no time to admire the view, I need to find something of a similar strength to me so I can level up more, and I do have something in mind.

Fighting the giant crystal crab is a no go, but I do remember seeing it predate on other smaller crabs. So I'll have to find some of them.

I start to exit the cover of the crystals, but the moment I do, I see the giant crab moving closer to me. I instantly return back into the cover of the Crystal's when I realize that.

Damn it, even exploring here is not safe, the crab is roaming around here, and if he gets me. It'll be really bad for me, I think that I may be able to barely outrun it, but if I get in the range of his pincers or whatever they were called. Then I'll be squeezed to death. This place is really crappy, there's a joke to be made there, but quite frankly, I'm not feeling it right now.

I want to go back to how I was, but for now, I'll have to be tough. I don't know if I'll ever be back to how I was, but that isn't important right now, if I break right now, I'll die. I can do this!

Alright, now I'll plan more properly. Thankfully, the crystals I'm hiding in between right now, has more than one exit, so I'll just go to the other side that doesn't have the crab basically guarding it.

When I go over to the other side, a giant humanoid creature made of crystal had got up from the ground. What the hell?!

[Crystal] lv. 18

Species: Crystalline Apoikia.
Status: normal.
Stats:
Hp: 340/340
Ep: 200/200
Strength: 253
Defense: 366
Energy strength: 180
Energy defense: 110

Damn it! Why?! These strong ass monsters come at me from everywhere, can't I ever catch a damn break?! I'm literally at my limit!

I wish I had something to relieve all of this stress I'm feeling, anything right now would be a godsend. Cause I'm honestly a little sick of this.

Haaah, there is no point in complaining, I'll only make myself feel worse if I complain. I just need to adapt, luckily, I still have my stealth skill.

I'll also have to start appraising all of these giant crystals, just to avoid the possibility of one of them being alive.

I start climbing on the crystal, when I reach a high enough space, I activate stealth and start walking around the crystal.

From up here, I could see several other enemies, there was one more of the crystal giants, but that one was extremely far away, the giant crab and the other crystal giant were separated by a giant crystal wall. And the crab looked like it was searching for something.

Okay, the crabs are almost definitely hiding, I'm weak so I can understand their mindsets a little bit, But hopefully I'm stronger than them though.

Alright, I should try energy perception to maybe feel them out. From this far away, I wasn't exactly the best at sensing, but I could feel out a couple energies, although I can't really tell how exactly powerful they were, I at least know they are weaker than the giant crab.

After getting my location, I start moving across the crystals while appraising them, luckily all of the ones I landed on had the same description, it was also quite an interesting one:

[Crystals of Eden]

[Crystals that are formed by a mixture of extreme temperatures and soul remnants. The soul remnants may gain sentience.]

That means these crystals I'm walking on right now are souls? That is... quite disturbing, I would have liked to not know that.

For now, I'm not going to focus on the corpse rocks, and I'll just keep on going to the location of the energy signals.

I sneak over there slowly, this wasn't a race, and if any of the large ones saw me, it would be over for me.

[Proficiency of skill "Stealth" reached the required amount. Increasing skill "stealth" to lv. 4]

The stealthier I am, the less likely I'll die. So a level up like that is something welcome.

When I finall reach directly above the energy signal, I see a hole with crabs resting in them, they were trying to blend in with the other Crystal's around them, and they were doing a pretty good job at it. But that isn't what's important, I need to know how strong they are.

[Crab] lv. 8

Species: Small infested Karkinos
Status: normal
Stats:
Hp: 80/121
Ep: 34/34
Sp: 64/64 (Max: 110)
Strength: 56
Defense: 112
Energy strength: 23
Energy defense: 63
Speed: 25

Gauging its strength from just that was rough, I also didn't know it's weak points which was something else, but it's almost definitely the underbelly. And as for stats? Well, it's hard to say, but I think I could win against it. But there were three of them, and now I'm damaged.

My speed stat is way higher than theirs, so if I just stay out of their reach and attack them, I'll eventually win. The only thing I need to focus on, is the space and if one of those super monsters come here.

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I can also just stick to this crystal and fight them, it'll be slow, but I think that I have a pretty high chance of winning if I just play it carefully.

I move around the crystal to be directly above one of them, the other two were quite far away from this one, I have to beat this one quickly. I can't go for a drop attack, since those spikey crystals will skewer me, and I probably won't even pierce it. Damn it, this battle here will decide my fate, if I can't win against those little crabs, then I will definitely die.

Wait, I have an idea. It's really risky but it is the best one that I have.

I go down the crystal and sneak up to the crab, the crab was still under the ground with only it's crystals appearing above ground. I kick the crystals with all my might, shattering a few of them and pushing the crab slightly, but more importantly. It made the crab come out of the ground.

The crab was a lot larger than I expected, it was even bigger than me, it's size made me start doubting my plan, but I still went on with it.

While I was behind it, I got down and picked up the crab from its behind, then I started pushing upwards with all my might. I started digging into the ground as I continued on pushing upwards, it's really heavy! I even started looking at it and pushing it with my eye of force to continue pushing it up. The crab couldn't turn around at me as I was pushing it up, but it tried clawing me with its many legs. The scratches burnt and hurt a bit. But my plan was already close to succeeding.

I could start hearing more scuttling noises, but the crabs were pretty slow and they were pretty far away, so I had some time.

Finally, I manage to push over the crab and upturn it, then I stand on top of it. It tried to throw me off with its legs but I smacked them away with my tail and I ignored the ones that did hit me. I then breathe in and use a paralyzing breath on it to stop it. After that, I start clawing at its underbelly. Even the carapace there was really hard. But it was undoubtedly weaker than those crystals, my leg still kind of hurts from attacking that crystal after all.

The other crabs were getting close right now, since I was on top of this crab it should buy me some time, but I need to finish this one off quick.

I jump up and push myself upwards with my eye of force, then I drop on the crab with my claws, piercing through its carapace and making it start moving even more quickly. My claws nearly broke from that impact, but I had now curled my hand while it was inside the crab and started peeling its underbelly. It was really hard and the crab started speeding up whenever I started pulling harder. But then eventually, I pull off the carapace and throw it away. The other crabs had now reached me and were trying to throw me off with their claws, I breathe fire into the open flesh of the crab I was standing on before jumping away and retreating to one of the walls.

The crab had started struggling, but had eventually stopped, the Crystal's covering it had stopped glowing and became dull colored, almost like they were breaking.

[Required exp amount reached. Lisa leveled up to lv. 14]

[4 skill points were added.]

[Stats increased]

Seeing the level up appear made my body feel fantastic, not only my body, but I even felt my mind clearen and my chest didn't feel as heavy. After breathing out, I started smiling. My luck is finally turning.

I run towards one of the crabs, then I jump towards its side to attack it. The crab reacts to my attack by slamming me with its claw, sending me flying towards the other crab.

The other crab was basically on top of me while I was going back up on my feet, and slammed me with its claw as I kept trying to stand up. I turn around and look at its claw then I start pushing on it with my eye of force to stop it, I stopped for long enough for me to escape from its attack.

Damn it, one single moment, one single moment was all it took for things to tumble back down. Hopefully I didn't take too much damage.

Hp: 101/148

Luckily, they didn't do much damage to me, but if this ever happened to me with an enemy that was stronger, I wouldn't be able to survive.

When I get back up, I start running and circling the crab, while being mindful of where the other one was, and then when I got an opportunity, I cut off one of its legs with all my strength, it was really hard and basically killed all my momentum on impact, but I managed to cut off one of its legs.

The crab tried to squeeze me in between its pincers the moment I had slowed down from my attack, but I managed to escape, and then I circled the other crab this time. I had managed to do the exact same thing to this one, and after removing its leg I ran away again. I target the 2 more legs on it's right as I avoided the other crab, and when the crab had lost all of the legs on one side, it was finally unable to move properly anymore.

Now was the time to deal with the other remaining crab, to be honest, dealing with it was not very hard, the most difficult thing about them was the fact that there were three of them, other than that, they were quite easy. Also, they were incredibly dumb, I repeat the same strategy on the remaing crab and it had worked, almost like they were just puppets or zombies.

I go up to the paralyzed crab, it tried to move towards me with its remaining set of legs, but it couldn't, I go over to its side then I turn it over and kill it. The crab went limp and the crystals on it's back greyed out and started cracking, touching them had caused them to completely break though.

And then I finished off the final crab in the same manner as the previous one, and it had roughly the same reaction.

[Required exp amount reached. Lisa leveled up to lv. 15]

[4 skill points added]

[Stats increased]

[Proficiency of skill "Hard-willed" reached the required amount. Increasing "Hard-willed" to lv. 8]

Phew, it's finally over, I'm really hungry after all of that, and I do have some food here. Ugh, thinking about how it will taste is making me feel depressed, but I need to eat.

Before I could eat, I started hearing rumbling, and the movement of many feet. Oh crap! I go over to a corner and then I use earth techniques to create a wall around me, my energy tanked quite a bit from that, but I just activated stealth and prayed to god that it wasn't gonna find me.

The sound of movement stops with the rumbling, and it stays that way for a while before I hear some scratching noises, after a while, I hear the sound of feet and the rumbling appears again. It started becoming more distant until it disappeared.

When I remove the wall, I see that one of the bodies were taken by whatever that was, the thin entrance that was in front of that crab had been widened by something. It looked like something had put its arm through there.

I guess I made too much noise which made this thing come here, not good, I'll have to be more quiet until I get strong enough to handle anything here.

I go over to one of the remaining crabs, I break apart one of their claws and then I take a bite out of it.

What... is this taste?! It's amazing! Oh my god and this was still raw! Imagine this with so many other things!

I actually started to get teary eyed from this meal, for so long I've been eating near inedible food, and I finally found something tasty, this food must have magic in it! It's making me feel better, like it's healing.

Oof, I must have over reacted for that, but hey, I was the one eating crappy food, but now I'm eating crabby food... yeah that was lame, if I told that to someone I'm sure they'd roll their eyes.

Anyway. No time to think about hard or serious stuff, I just wanna eat!

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