When on earth had I gotten poison resistance?


    [“Traveling Spring Painter” gives you a pitiful smile and advises that you should try to keep a more keen eye on your surroundings.]


    [“Seeker of Magic and Knowledge” is disappointed that you don’t share his interest in learning.]


    [“Abandoned Bloodied Sword” states that you are learning, even if you are a little slow.]


    [“Lazily Reaping Souls” cackles and says with a sneer that you’ll be in their possession soon..]


    [“Golden Light that Shines on All” states that he doubts that.]


    [“Traveling Spring Painter” exclaims that she’d never allow you to have a foolish death.]


    [“Whispering Playwright behind a Mask” sighs and says that you aren’t dying currently so there isn’t much point in discussing it anyway.]


    “So I must have gotten poisoned when we were in the forest last time.” I replied to none of them in particular.


    [“Reflection of an Empty Throne” exclaims ding, ding, ding!]


    [“Seeker of Magic and Knowledge” frowns and states that it would have been stranger if you hadn’t gotten poisoned.]


    [“Playful Cat Hates Yarn” scoffs and says that you’re lucky to have a decent level.]


    They continued to bash on me for either foolishly never noticing that I’d gotten poisoned or for my panic about getting rid of the gum sap. I rolled my eyes and closed the GGC, there wasn’t much point in reading through that now anyway. I got the point. I needed to keep a closer eye on my status and make sure I don’t end up getting poisoned when I’m unaware.


    ~~*~~


    Poison Resistance [Minor]


    Description: User is able to resist minor poisons, effects will diminish based on the User’s mastery of Poison Resistance. User can increase their mastery by being inflicted with higher doses or a variety of poisons.


    Mastery: 9%


    ~~*~~


    “Well that’s pretty helpful. I guess we would have had higher poison resistances if we’d found that place naturally.” I felt even sillier about our little escapade into the forest.


    [“Gentle Autumn Breeze” is glad that you are beginning to understand the importance of a strong foundation and patience.]


    I noticed a message pop up as I was closing my system. Gentle Autumn Breeze was always comforting, and I smiled. I wasn’t particularly thinking about a strong foundation. I was more considering how quickly I could increase my poison resistance and wipe out the residents of the forest, but I wasn’t going to admit that to the gods after the miserable failure we’d had the day prior.


    Master, I’m not seeing him in the plains or the mountains. I might have missed him though, should I double check?


    No, just come back and try a quick fly over of the forest. Maybe he went here looking for something that might help.


    I turned back to the trees and sighed. The gum was slowly stretching down the trunks and piling up around their roots. Only about ten or fifteen trees were affected from what I could tell. Traveling through there was next to impossible, so I walked a few feet along the tree line until the gum was a tree or two from me and I started into the tree line. The Bungum trees in the outer area were shorter, and there were more of the smaller plants the further I got from the field.


    Most of the plants in the area were the bushes that I’d seen before. The ones that snatched the rock I threw and attempted to devour it. I knew to steer clear of those, but stopped to examine it.


    ~~*~~


    Olibane


    Description: A poisonous plant that utilizes prehensile vines to entrap anything that comes into contact with its leaves and drags the prey towards its base. The Olibane will attempt to crush the prey and digest it. The majority of the plant has small hairlike spines that are used to poison whatever it touches. Olibane Poison is a minor poison that can cause Confusion.


    ~~*~~


    ~~*~~


    Confusion


    Description: A debuff that weakens the User’s reasoning ability and mental faculties. This debuff’s effects can vary widely depending on the User afflicted and the situation that they find themself in, especially related to their mental state and emotions. It will heighten any mental effects that are already present such as Enraged, Fear, Berserk, Bliss, Hypnotised, Hallucinations, etc.


    ~~*~~


    I groaned, I noticed I could focus on the various effects that were listed and wondered how many I had missed that entire time. I chose not to view them since they looked pretty straight forward. “God, this place is the worst. Why did they have to put such a troublesome place next to such a lovely area of the Underhollow.” I whined.


    Master, I think I found him.


    Where? Why aren’t you sure?


    Well… I just found a group of monsters congregating around something so I thought it might be him.


    How far is he in the forest? Would it be safe to try to get him away from them?


    Not far, you could probably get here in a minute or two, but I’m not sure how safe it is to fight the monsters since we haven’t yet.


    I took a deep breath, we were both still pretty shaken from the incident yesterday. I was trying to push it down and deal with it later, I was scared. I was scared that if I stopped to think about it or stopped to take a break I wouldn’t be able to get back into it. The idea that the Underhollow was dangerous was something I nearly forgot. Everything had been so easy for so long.


    Alright, I’ll head that way if you want to test them out from a distance that’s fine.


    Okay


    Wait, what do they look like?


    Uhh, spiders I think?


    Oh, ok. Spiders huh?


    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    Yup, probably.


    Spiders weren’t too scary when they were little jumping spiders that just chilled on a wall and ate mosquitoes or something, but monster spiders… That, I was apprehensive about. I pondered about how they might look as I slowly and carefully made my way towards Aureus. The more we leveled up the easier it was for me to feel where he was, or maybe it was just because I was getting better at it. I wasn’t sure, especially since it wasn’t listed in any of our skills. The whole system and skills and mana thing was a bit strange honestly. I knew I could use mana outside of the system and basically create my own skills, but without the system it just felt like wandering in the dark.


    I kept a close eye on my status window, I didn’t want to end up poisoned and not notice it. Thankfully the only plants I needed to avoid were the Bungum trees and the Olibane, there weren’t any vines or mushrooms or large carnivorous plants. Well, there were but they didn’t obviously look like carnivorous plants. I made it about halfway before I realized I needed to keep an eye on the sky too. I panicked a bit and glanced around the canopy looking for something that wasn’t there. Either no monsters were around because of Jackson or I wasn’t quite deep enough in the forest to find any.


    I don’t even know if Jackson is his first name or last name. Bastard never even introduced himself and here I am trekking through the poison jungle to find him since his daughters are- his daughter and Paige need him. Who is she anyway? A niece? Babysitter? Some random kid he found? I guess it does make more sense that she calls him Jackson instead of dad now though.


    I grumbled as I made my way over, I could hear the wind slicing through something as I got closer. I stopped in my tracks, was it really such a good idea to walk over here? I mean there’s Bungum trees everywhere and they’re probably already bubbling up with their defenses. I could see a glint of Aureus in the distance through a space in the canopy, he looked fine on the status window. Thankfully, he hadn''t lost any health.


    Watch out! Aureus yelled through our connection, and a tree in the distance crashed down, it wasn’t even close to hitting me because of the angle it fell.


    I’m fine it wasn’t close to me, I’ll be there soon so don’t worry.


    That’s what’s making me worry.


    I laughed and finally was close enough to see them.


    ~~*~~


    Torixo Jumping Spider [Hunter]


    Description: An active predator that hunts in small groups and drags their prey back to a larger nest where the remainder of the colony lives.


    ~~*~~


    That description appeared along with their various status windows, they were all of various levels from two to six. Not too bad at all. Why was Aureus so worried about me? Did all monsters always have a description like that? Maybe I never noticed it because I was always trying to open status windows specifically. It seemed like the system always worked based on my own intent and key words, but if I wasn''t aware of them it was easy to miss it.


    On my next step I saw a football sized bug on the forest floor, nearly half of it was missing due to a hole in its chest… or thorax or whatever. On closer examination I found that it was a ‘Detox Bee,’ a monster that collected poison from plants around and created a cure through its honey. They thrived off of the toxicity that poison and venom created and the honey they created as a byproduct could also be considered a poison if eaten when not poisoned. A thin line between medicine and poison I supposed.


    “That would’ve been helpful before.” I muttered as I examined the bee, it looked more like a hornet than a bee. It had pincers in addition to a large stinger, and bright neon orange stripes. The black stripes between them had a slight red or warm tinge to them. “Well, I guess they wouldn’t give up their precious honey easily.”


    A few more of the bees littered the ground and before I realized it I was a few steps from a spider. It was huge. Not quite the size of a bear but definitely bigger than a dog. Either way, much too large for a spider. The edge that their size gave them was softened just slightly because they were a quite pleasant pink color. They were jumping around the area dodging Aureus’ aerial attacks.


    There were only three left out of what I estimated to be an eight spider hunting party, one level two that was hiding behind trees and a level five and six that were trying to attack Aureus as he flitted about the sky. Silken shots were sparingly shot past him or stopped directly by a fire or air attack. None of them had noticed me yet, or so I thought. A faint sound rustled above me and I glanced up as a fourth spider was jumping down on top of me.


    My heart skipped a beat, panic and instinct overtook me. After yesterday I was even more sensitive to things falling on top of me. I yelped jumping back barely in time, and swung my dagger down on the largest part of it I could. I could feel its hairs brush past me as it landed. It attempted to jump away, but wasn’t fast enough. I cut deep into it and took a leg before it could escape me and skitter back up a tree. My hand stung slightly where its blood had gotten onto me. Do spiders have blood? No, would it be considered blood?


    It glowered down at me from a perch in a tree, but it was struggling to hold on. It was already dead, I’d created a large gash in a third of its body, and at that point I was able to see that it was at 16/50 HP. It was only level three. The spiders’ stats were heavily skewed towards intelligence and dexterity, so their constitution and strength suffered. It put in one last attempt at hurting me and lunged at me from its position on the tree, fangs bared and dripping with venom.


    With a quick roll forward and a kick it was killed. The other two that were fighting Aureus seemed to have taken notice of me and were attempting some sort of escape with a large ball of silk. Jackson? I wondered as they jumped to either side while trying to dodge his attacks but also bring back their quarry. The level two was standing a few feet behind the two of them with a tree for cover as it had before. Huh, weird to see monsters with plans.


    Can you get Jackson out of there so I can properly kill these things? I’ve been trying to be careful since it’s dangerous for him and I don’t know what kind of variables to expect here.


    Okay, no problem Captain Aureus! I could feel him cringing at that, but ignored it and snaked my way through the trees and grabbed a hold of the large ball of silk. It looked too large to be just Jackson. Maybe they added each catch to it as they traveled? I tugged hard to pull it away from them, but the part that I had snapped instead. I repositioned myself lower to the ground and gripped the sides of it. Lifting it up was easy, but I’d created a new problem. The two higher level spiders were now trying to crawl over it to get to me since I was their new obstacle to getting it home.


    The instinctual fear of two giant spiders crawling me was intense. I nearly threw the whole silk bundle. I wanted to jump away from them, not sure why I wanted to jump in particular but I did.


    Now both of you are in my line of fire…


    I rolled my eyes, it wasn’t exactly my preferred situation either. I hadn’t practiced hands free elemental attacks much, but it seemed like the easiest solution to the ever closer giant pink spiders. Focusing on a water elemental attack and attempting to add rotation took a few seconds. I pictured two balls of water starting to form in front of my face as they got closer.


    Why don’t you just put it down?!


    Closer still, and the balls began to spin in my mind''s eye ever so slowly. Mana churned in my chest.


    Master! Just throw it! The silk will probably protect it.


    I could see the hairs on their legs and they were much too close for comfort, but it felt like the rotation wasn’t quite enough. I still had time. I could jump back and drop the cocoon if I needed to. Just a couple more seconds.


    Master!


    I know! I yelled back as I let them loose. My eyes squeezed shut as their blood and guts and bodies exploded.


    Seriously? You really overdid it. Aureus said flatly.


    I opened my eyes to find much more destruction than I’d intended. There was little left of the two spiders… and of a section of the forest past them. Uh… what about the little level two?


    The one that was hiding over there? Aureus asked with a huff and pointed towards a tree that had fallen from the blast. Several trees had basically exploded, while the further ones had half circle shaped holes in their trunks. The silk along the top of the cocoon was frayed and destroyed. Shit, I hope I didn’t hurt him.


    Can’t you experiment with stuff like that on stronger enemies? You have twenty five levels on them, did you think a regular attack wasn’t going to cut it?


    Sorry… You’re better at this and I haven’t had to practice much since we haven’t been fighting together so I guess I went overboard. I rubbed at the back of my neck as I apologized to Aureus. He landed softly beside me and started examining the ball of silk.


    “You wanna try to unroll it and sell it to Caro?” Aureus asked with a mischievous grin.


    “Jackson might be in here!” I chided him, but added, “After we get him out though that is a great idea.” I tousled his hair and grabbed my daggers out of my inventory again. I lodged them carefully into the silk.


    “Don’t overdo it this time.”


    “I know.”


    “You usually put too much strength into things.”


    “I know.”


    “You really have to be careful, Jacks-”


    “I KNOW!” I yelled in annoyance and glanced over at my familiar who was returning me an innocent look, but I knew he was doing it on purpose. I huffed my hair out of my eyes and carefully cut into the next layer of silk. It was a satisfying process, it reminded me of those videos of people cutting spools of thread. A few more layers and a few bees later we found him.


    “Oh, he’s dead.” Aureus said with a shrug. “Let’s go get the potatoes for the adventure!”


    Jackson limply rolled out of the silk and his skin was a bit dull. His face was slightly blue. Sure enough he looked dead. But his chest was rising ever so slightly.


    “He’s not dead.” I replied with a smack upside his head.


    “Ow! What?!” Aureus cradled his head as if it hurt.