Dark vines crept along both sides of the valley walls, and many basin-sized holes dotted the surface. Seeing these holes made Silas feel uneasy, even though he didn’t suffer from trypophobia.
TIK TIK TIK
As Silas studied the holes, he soon heard sounds coming from them. Alert, he immediately hid behind a huge rock. Moments later, huge black crabs began pouring out of the holes one by one.
As soon as they emerged from their lairs, the crabs made a beeline for the Nightshade Berry plants. Upon finding the plants empty, their compound eyes narrowed sharply, and they began scanning the area vigilantly, trying to find the culprit. Loud, gunshot-like sounds echoed throughout the valley as the crabs angrily snapped their claws.
Silas shrank back, knowing exactly who they were looking for. The sight of the crabs left him stunned, and he swallowed hard, briefly imagining how delicious a crab barbecue would taste. But when their numbers grew, surpassing a hundred, he quickly decided to adopt a vegan diet—at least for now. He was confident he could handle a few of them head-on, but hundreds? No way. He wouldn’t even know how many pieces he’d be torn into by their pincers.
Silas silently retreated, sneaking out of the valley as the sound of snapping pincers gradually faded behind him.
In truth, these were the smallest monsters Silas had encountered in the forest so far, and he was itching to test his strength. But even a lion has to back down when facing a herd of buffalo, he reminded himself. He didn’t want to get carried away by his newfound power, especially since he wasn’t yet sure how dangerous the forest could be. Considering the massive size difference, he knew he could theoretically crush them, but doing so might warrant unwanted attention.
Silas decided to stay low.
Silas decided to leave the crab valley alone. He was confident that, with a few more levels of strength, he could handle a bunch of them swiftly and without any commotion. But trying anything now would be suicide.
Having already mapped out a rough outline of the terrain, Silas began to explore, looking for new fruits to consume. He wanted to increase all his affinities to 100, but to be honest, Silas wasn’t even sure if he could find the rarer elements—for example, light, space, and time.
He decided to put the matter aside for now. Thinking about it wouldn’t accomplish anything. Time was not something he needed to worry about, and Silas felt no pressure to rush his exploration or the acquisition of new affinities.
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So, the long grind began.
On the second day, Silas discovered a huge, abandoned cave. He wasn’t sure what kind of monster had once lived there, but he decided to make it his temporary abode—maybe a permanent one if everything went fine without any twists.
A month passed in the monster world. During this time, Silas hadn’t returned to the human world. He was fully engrossed in searching for affinity-related fruits.
Silas, who had reached 100 evolution points, reached the limit of Iron rank, but he still did not proceed with level advancement. Unlike humans, races such as the Nyxian Pride needed to create a magic core in their bodies to successfully evolve to Bronze rank.
Currently, Silas did not wish to create his core, as he still had not maxed out all his affinity points. Silas had grown to a colossal 41.3 km in length and 16.5 km in height—a true titan. Silas was even scared to unleash his current form here, as it would be like declaring war against all the monsters.
Thinking about his size, Silas considered a relatively unconfirmed theory circulating online. It suggested that different races fell under 14 categories. It was unclear who came up with this or where the idea originated.
The 14 categories were:
- Common (Normal)
- Uncommon
- Rare
- Epic
- Legendary
- Mythic
- Divine
- Ancient
- Eternal
- Transcendent
- Celestial
- Godlike
- Primal
- Exalted
People unsurprisingly concluded that humans belonged to the most basic category—Common. Even if species from the Common and Uncommon categories were at the same level, such as Voyager, their combat power differed greatly—like comparing an ant to an elephant.
Even if both were level 100, the elephant would be much stronger. However, exceptions occasionally existed that could bridge this gap.
Returning to Silas’ journey: after spending a month in the monster world, he had discovered 37 different types of affinities, most of which had reached near completion. Silas was even lucky enough to stumble upon a couple of advanced elements, such as lava and crystal, near one of the dormant volcanoes.
For example, his fire affinity, one of the core elements, had reached 98 points. He even managed to get his hands on lava fruits. These fruits grew on vines and looked like watermelons, but with red stripes instead of green. When opened, the inside resembled a basin of lava.
After some hesitation, Silas gulped down the fruit whole. It was spicy hot, and he almost burned his tongue in the process, but the taste was incredibly delicious.
The crystal affinity was a rarer find. Crystals didn’t grow on plants. Silas found them near fragile rocks inside the dormant volcano, where crystal-like mushrooms grew, sapping the rocks of their nutrients and turning them into fragile mud.
Silas was unsure whether to eat the mushrooms or not—they might have been poisonous. If he were still human, he would have refrained. But with his current body, there weren’t many things he feared consuming.
As he had guessed, as soon as he ate the crystals, the familiar notification popped up:
"Radiant Shroom consumed. Evolution points = 0.01"
"Crystal affinity = 0.01 Points"
Silas found over a hundred mushrooms, leading to a significant gain in crystal affinity points, and his daily evolution points quickly reached the cap.
Silas also realized that the resources in this land were renewable. If he was lucky, the fruits would grow back from the same plants after a few days. However, most of the time, massive monsters carelessly crushed his precious affinity sources underfoot.