Chapter 13: Battle
After killing the tiger, Leo walked toward his prize - the orange-colored herb. When he picked it up, he found that his earlier suspicions were correct. The herb didn't burn his hand at all. When he placed it in his leather satchel, the satchel was completely okay.
At this point, he had been using the spell for a total of 45 minutes. He only had a little more than an hour before the spell would wear off. The options he had were to either finish killing two more animals, get the herbs, and then run out of the forest, or get himself to a safe place before the spell wore out and wait out the cooldown time.
He decided that waiting out the cooldown time was a better idea. But he still wanted to scout the area while walking toward his hiding spot. He paid full attention to the surroundings while walking toward the lake. The hiding spot he chose was the cave behind the waterfall since it could fit him comfortably.
While he was walking, he saw something interesting. In the distance, a herb gave a small shine before fading. He had already found another potential herb so he decided to go closer and take a better look.
He walked slowly toward the flickering light. The shine shone again making him more curious. He peeked through the trees to look at the source of the light. Behind the tree was a plant that was periodically emitting light. The source of the light was a low-hanging fruit that was dangling off the plant. In front of the fruit, a snake was coiled up in the grass.
The snake was bigger than the average snake. It was twice as long as him. The body was also as thick as Leo's. The snake would be towering over his under-nourished body and crush him. At this point, it had noticed him peering behind the tower. It hissed loudly and stood up.
The previously coiled snake slowly unraveled its body, revealing its true size. It was 5 meters tall and dwarfed him. It was a few yards away so he walked from behind the trees to face it. While he was doing this, he was calculating how he could escape with the fruit.
He hadn't really used any of his stamina to kill the sleeping tiger. So for this battle, he was full of stamina. He grabbed his knife and pointed it toward the snake. It hissed at him when he showed his aggressiveness.
He immediately ran around the snake, hoping that it would take more time to move because of its lack of limbs. He was wrong. The snake moved lightning-fast and almost caught up to him.
He saw the snake coming too close to him and jumped up, kicking against one of the branches to jump over the snake. He landed behind it just as it bit the spot where he had jumped out. The snake only found wood in its mouth. It closed its jaw and a piece of the wood from the tree got torn off like it was bread. The snake opened its mouth and the crushed piece of wood dropped out.
As he saw this, he understood that the scale of the battle was different than what he envisioned it could be. He immediately ran toward the fruit that was behind him and away from the snake. The snake was away from the fruit since he had lured it toward him.
This was the perfect time to steal the fruit. He had planned this out because his main purpose was only to steal the fruit. Trying to kill the monster wouldn't bring him any profit. He wasn't going to be able to carry their bodies back to sell them anyways. It was also too dangerous.
However, he had miscalculated the speed of the snake. He was able to grab the fruit off the plant, but by the time he had thrown it into his satchel and taken a few steps, the snake had lunged forward toward him. He dodged the bite by rolling away. The satchel got away from him when this happened. The snake smacked its tail against him.
He took the blow and felt a crushing pain in his stomach. During this time, the snake coiled itself around him and squeezed him. The squeezing of his chest snapped him back away from the pain. He immediately used both of his arms to stop the snake from biting him.
The tree was a very good example of what the snake bites could mean. His right hand still had the knife. He then switched to stopping the head with only his left hand and stabbed the knife deeply into the scales of the snake's neck.
The snake stopped trying to bite Leo. It started squeezing him with even more power. It was trying to kill him before he could kill it. He realized that it became a battle of speed. To make the wound bigger, he grabbed the knife with his right hand and dragged it up. The knife sliced the head of the snake and tore its brains. The snake stopped squeezing him and fell down, dead. He immediately got himself out of the snake's lock hold.
After grabbing his satchel the minute he got free, he was planning to leave immediately. But when he grabbed his knife from the head of the snake, he saw a shiny stone right next to the butchered head of his victim. He grabbed it. It was an interesting stone that was a little shiny.
He just threw it into the satchel and into the same pocket as the fruit. He then quickly started walking towards the lake. It would be a 30-minute walk according to his estimates. He could run, but he wanted to conserve all of his energy.
The battle took a huge chunk of his stamina, and he had spent 45 minutes there. Now, Leo only had 30 minutes of the spell. During this time, he would have to get to the lake and swim toward the waterfall. And the biggest problem was that he would have to face the crocodile.
Chapter 14: Third Herb
After walking for ten minutes, Leo felt he had recovered a decent amount from his fight with the snake. It was time for him to start picking up the pace toward the lake. He started jogging toward the lake to be quicker since he would still need body strengthening to get to the cave quickly.
He would also have to account for the fact that he was only going toward the general direction of the lake, but he might be off by a little bit. He would have to start paying attention for the sound of the waterfall while jogging so that he would change his course in the right direction.
After 10 minutes of jogging, he heard the sound of the waterfall. The familiar sound of the water crashing on the rocks guided him. Since he was near the lake, he stopped jogging to calm his body. He needed to take a minute to catch his breath before diving into the lake.
After catching his breath, he dove into the lake and started swimming toward the waterfall. He stayed alert for the crocodile but didn't see anything throughout the swim. He finally reached the waterfall and went through it to enter the cave behind it.
Unlike before, the cave was only 7 feet deep. It could fit three people comfortably though. He went forward to the end of the cave and sat down, slowly catching his breath. With just two minutes left for the spell to end, he was about to undo the spell himself when he realized something was off.
There was a shadow looming behind the waterfall. He knew immediately what it was before it got any closer. It was the crocodile. He immediately dove away from his current spot while grabbing the knife that he had set down a second ago.
A crocodile lunged through the waterfall and dove into the spot where he was sitting at. This time, there wasn't any barrier that helped him. It completely missed him and sat still on the ground. Without giving it any time to move, he immediately jumped onto the back of the crocodile and stabbed its head.
With repeated use throughout the day, the knife just chipped when it hit the scales of the crocodile's head, leaving a scratch. The knife still dug in slightly, breaking some of the scales, but the wound barely did any damage. The crocodile shook him off its back.
He only had a minute left before the spell would wear off. The crocodile moved back a little when its attack failed. But before it could get away, he jumped onto the wall to leap onto the crocodile's back again.
This time, the crocodile dodged. It then tried to snap Leo in half with its jaws. He narrowly dodged it by diving away. Mid-dive, he rotated mid-air and used the nearby wall to propel himself into the crocodile.
He grabbed the neck of the crocodile the minute he got near its back to make sure he didn't jump too far. He then stabbed his knife with all his strength into the same spot where he had previously tried to stab it. This time, the knife dug into the skull, cutting into its brain. The crocodile struggled for a second before laying limp on the floor.
Leo immediately collapsed on the floor. He had gone through too much action and adrenaline. he needed to rest. But he also had to get back safely. The spell had worn off seconds after he killed the crocodile. He just lay on the floor to rest.
While he was resting, he needed to look out for any threats. So after a few minutes, he pushed his body onto the stone wall and used it as a backrest. He put himself the furthest away from the lake and patiently waited. He was waiting for the time before he could reuse the spell again whittled away.
The reason he had to wait to reuse the spell again was that his mind was slowly recovering. Even though he had a ton of magic in his mind that would come back after being used, it took a toll on his mind to actually perform the magic. He would have to exert and control the magic to do what he wanted it to. The only way to decrease the cooldown would be to build his mind like a muscle.
As he learned magic and gathered more magic, he would eventually make a star. By forcing his mind to hold that magic, and using the magic to build his mind as well, he was essentially making his mind stronger.
Leo slowly regained his stamina while his mind was recovering. He knew that he couldn't actually try and find another herb at this time. Because he was very low on stamina, he would have to go back very quickly after he recovered. He was very suspicious about how strong the crocodile was. It was as strong as the snake. To avoid any danger, he decided that he would leave immediately.
After roughly an hour and a half passed, he stood up. Now that he was completely recovered, he cast another Body-Strengthening Spell on himself. He then peered out of the lake without immediately leaving the vicinity cave. He chose to take a proper look at the lake. This confirmed one of his guesses.
On the lake was a lily pad, on top of which was a red lily with water dripping out its petals. It was emitting a shine, so he suspected that it was a valuable herb. Because the crocodile was so strong, he guessed that it had definitely started getting closer to a magical beast. But that would mean that it would need to eat magical herbs.
That's why he thought there could be a magical herb nearby. Maybe that was why it was always so violent whenever it saw Leo - it might have thought that he was trying to steal the herb. But now that it was right in front of him, he was going to do that anyway.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
200+ Power
Ranking 
0 Power
stone 
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