First step: observe.

  Their routine was painfully predictable. The elven mage would channel her spells, unleashing destruction while her two armoured warriors stood guard, ready to carve through anything that dared get close. The second mage, tucked beneath a hood, kept to the shadows, casting strange distortion spells that turned the warriors into little more than blurs of movement. Intriguing, really. I couldn’t help but wonder—did the spell have range limits? Could they only stay hidden if they stuck together? But for now, they worked as a well-oiled machine.

  The warriors would break away when monsters or scavengers wandered too close, making short work of them. The cloaked mage followed in their distorted shadow, always in sync. After each wave, they’d pause, gather the monster cores, and stand still there for a minute for whatever reason. Till then the first mage would mop up whatever remained with smaller, precise spells.

  Efficient. Ruthlessly efficient. It reeked of experience, of cold strategy honed by countless kills.

  Not that it surprised me. My mind was icy, the anger burning like a smouldering coal beneath the surface. I could almost hear the gears turning in their heads—these elves had found something valuable, some resource in these monsters. Maybe it was the cores, or perhaps their organs. Could’ve even been the raw experience, turning bloodshed into power. I didn’t know. I didn’t care.

  Like them, I had the strength to take whatever I wanted. To use it however I pleased. Why should I feel the slightest twinge of guilt? These elves were butchers, no different from me. They ambushed and sughtered creatures in this battlefield, and I intended to do the very same to them. For all I knew, they’d carved out a nice chunk of forest somewhere, built walls, set up fences—turned the dungeon into their little pyground.

  This was how things worked down here. The strong took. The weak got trampled. No room for guilt, no moral high ground—just survival, raw and unflinching.

  The monsters in this pce were little more than fodder. Their intelligence, if you could even call it that, was ughable. Especially compared to mine, already high, now sharpened further by two rounds of Gold-rank evolution. They could be baited, tricked, and dispatched with the barest hint of strategy. The elves knew it too. That’s why they lounged there, rexed and grinning, knowing these low-tier beasts posed no threat. The creatures were too caught up in their own frenzied bloodlust, oblivious to the quiet, invisible killers picking them off from a distance.

  It made me wonder—why didn’t the System warn the other monsters? Why hadn’t it alerted them to the elves? It wasn’t as though it cked the ability. It notified me, didn’t it? The moment I spotted them, the mission had appeared.

  Maybe there was a condition to it. Maybe the System only reacted once I became aware. But whatever the reason, it didn’t matter.

  I had to act.

  And I didn’t think.

  The underbrush rustled softly beneath me as I slithered closer to the group, heart pounding with a steady rhythm. The anger burned hot in my veins, driving me forward, the rage was sharper than any fear. Soon, I reached the edge of a clearing, where the elves had trimmed back branches and brush to create a tidy little vantage point of the battlefield.

  I crouched low, waiting, watching as the warriors descended once more onto the field. This was it. In a perfect world, I’d pick them off one by one like an assassin in a bad novel. But I wasn’t that cocky—not here. At the very least, I could throw a wrench in their tedious sughter. Shake up their well-rehearsed little routine.

  With a slow, deliberate breath, I focused. Four mana points surged into the fire gnd, warming it, igniting my attack.

  No more thinking—just action.

  Inch by inch, I crept forward, closing the gap between me and the mage left behind, her nose too far up in the air casting piddly little spells for her comrades. Clueless to the fact that I was right there, breathing down her neck. Perfect.

  I positioned myself, maw aimed, and let Fmethrower rip.

  Fwoosh!

  A streak of blistering fire erupted from my jaws, cutting through the air toward the back of her head. The fmes roared and hissed, burning with a ferocity that could melt bone. But just as the fire was about to make contact, it spttered against an invisible barrier, spreading out like molten metal against gss.

  Expected.

  A mage on the Fme Vixen path wouldn’t be caught dead without a shielding enchantment. Her reaction was immediate—she spun around, wide-eyed, her gaze frantically searching for the source of the attack.

  Too te. I was already gone, using two Quick Dashes to disappear back into the thicket. Stealth active, I watched her from the shadows, motionless, my breath silent. She fumbled, scanning the area with rising tension. But at her yellow stage? Please. She didn’t have any mana detection spells, not with the path she’d chosen. After a few moments of confusion, she exhaled, her guard lowering as she convinced herself it was a fluke.

  Ah, how delightfully naive.

  I shifted position again, the underbrush rustling slightly, but her inferior senses didn’t pick up on a thing. Those pointy ears of hers were just for show.

  I unched another torrent of fmes.

  Crack-boom!

  The fire smmed into her barrier once more, this time with a thunderous explosion.

  The fmes crackled uselessly against her barrier, struggling to gnaw through that irritating yer of defence. A fancy little trinket, no doubt—but even the finest of baubles can only take so much abuse. The mage, fully realising she wasn’t dealing with a campfire here, whirled around, her face twisted with fury. Whatever spell she'd been brewing got tossed aside, and she sent a vicious jet of fme from her hand, flinging it about like a crazed arsonist, scorching everything in sight.

  Fortunately, I wasn’t daft enough to hang about after riling her up. I’d already pulled back to a safer distance, well before she started her pyrotechnic dispy. Still, I could feel the heat simmering in the air. Impressive? Perhaps. But it was... cking. Maybe it was my natural fire resistance, or the simple fact that I’d already walked away from her earlier attempt to incinerate everything in her path—except me, of course.

  After a while, she stopped, her face contorted with irritation as she gred at the smouldering wreckage, clearly trying to sniff me out. Too bad, love—not about to roll out the red carpet for you.

  But she had other problems—her friends were in desperate need of a hand, and with an exasperated huff, she turned back to the battlefield, slinging smaller spells about while casting nervous gnces over her shoulder. And just like that, her back was to me again. Perfect.

  A few swift moves ter, I was in position, and I unleashed another searing burst at her barrier. This time, cracks appeared, spiderwebbing across the surface. Panic set in—her head snapped around, and she let out her first shriek of arm.

  Oh, bloody hell.

  Time to move. No second-guessing. Instead of retreating, I charged, unching another fire bst at her weakening shield. With a sound like shattering gss, the barrier crumbled, and her eyes went wide as my fmes engulfed her. She screamed—a high, gut-wrenching screech—as she crumpled to the ground.

  That was enough. I lunged forward, cws outstretched, momentum driving me. With a sickening thud, my cws buried deep in her stomach. Her eyes went wider still, shock and pain clouding her gaze. Blood sprayed from her mouth as I followed with another brutal strike, Echo kicking in for the final blow. Her staff slipped from her fingers, cttering to the ground like the useless stick it was.

  But just as I was about to enjoy the moment, a deafening roar ripped through the air. Something fast—too fast to properly track—hurtled towards me. Instinct kicked in—I dropped her lifeless form and bolted, just as an explosion tore the ground where I’d stood moments before. A smouldering crater remained, a smoking reminder of how close I’d come to being a pile of ash.

  One of her brutish friends had arrived. A hulking mass of muscle and barely-restrained fury, wielding an axe that looked far too eager to split me right down the middle. His eyes locked onto me, burning with a seething rage that promised nothing pleasant.

  I kept moving, my form a blur, meeting that brute’s fiery gre with one of my own. He clearly wanted to follow, but something else demanded his attention. Unfortunate. Seemed I hadn’t quite finished off the fire mage. My window to strike had smmed shut. Her entire team had gathered, and I pulled back into the shadows. I didn’t care what became of her, but she was in no shape to fight again anytime soon. I half-hoped the big muscle-head would come after me so I could y a proper ambush, but he stayed put. These weren’t mindless beasts after all—they were elves. Intelligent ones, at that.

  I tried. But I wasn’t ready for them yet. Especially not a group. More strength—that’s what I needed. More power. I dug my cws into the bark of a nearby tree, surveying the battlefield. The hill they’d been using as a base was now abandoned, and the mage I’d torn into was being force-fed a green potion by the hooded support. The axe-wielding brute kept watch while another, armed with a sword, harvested the cores and organs of the fallen monsters around them.

  I watched, fury simmering beneath my skin, as her wounds knit themselves back together. A high-grade healing potion, no doubt, given the speed of her recovery. Tch. I half-expected her to bleed out, but that damn elixir had pulled her right back from death’s doorstep. Still, she wouldn’t be fighting any time soon. A healing potion could patch up flesh, but it couldn’t repce what was lost—namely, her blood. She’d be out of commission for a while yet. Inferior methods.

  Now they were gathered, having a little meeting while keeping an eye on their surroundings. Was she thanking him? She bloody well should be, considering she’d be a corpse right now if it weren’t for him. The taste of bitterness clung to my tongue, but it was what it was. Once I mastered basic lightning spells, these little pests wouldn’t know what hit them.

  My gaze shifted to the fallen beasts, felled while fighting for their lives against these thieves. Numbness settled in, though a flicker of anger remained. My moral compass had long since skewed, but that didn’t change the facts. As soon as the elves vanished into the bushes, I turned my attention elsewhere.

  There was a heap of morphogen waiting for me. And I’d be a fool to pass up on that.

  ***

  Seemed I’d hit the wall—52 points of mana, and that was my lot. Every time I tried to swallow down more cores, the same message fshed up like a smug little reminder:

  [Mana Capacity Reached: Core Expansion Required for Further Increase. Evolution Necessary.]

  So, that was it for now. Still, I gathered up the remaining cores, only 13 left on the outskirts. Not much, but I tucked them under a nearby tree for ter. My little buffet of corpses had reached its limit too—I'd devoured around 17 monsters before my body threw up a metaphorical "no vacancy" sign. Even with the Macro-trophic sac enhancing my digestion, 17 beasts was no small feast. I suppose it made sense. A creature can only shove so much down before it all becomes a bit much.

  One gnce at the battlefield told me the fight was still in full swing. Roars and crashes echoed from the centre. Deafening. Relentless. The behemoth and the serpent were still at each other’s throats, neither showing any sign of backing down.

  Welp, I’d gotten what I came for. I’d disrupted those thieves, scooped up enough morphogen to fuel my next advances, and could feel myself pushing closer to the next stage. Physically, I was still raring to go, but mentally? I was drained. Exhausted, really. It was time to improve the Macro-trophic sac, get some proper rest, and finally sit down with Lotte.

  I needed to choose my Lightning Magic Path. Time to take that leap.

  Of course, that was assuming Lotte agreed to teach me.