orthoros

90 - Lava Fruit

Lucky break!

Luck has removed your negative status: Bewitched.

You will be immune to it for the next ten minutes!

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A sudden bout of clarity washed over me and it felt like the previously washed-out world slammed back into focus. I felt disoriented and nauseated as I looked around myself with confusion. I was sitting at the edge of ...

89 - Searching For Fruit

I was traveling to the fifth crater after having visited several others with fruitless trees. In every crater, I would explore, enjoy the sometimes vastly alien greenery, and study my spells while draining the massive trees of their mana to infuse my seed. My mana drain skill had already leveled twice, which was a nice side effect to this whole affair. I was getting close to the next crater, the giant tree a nice indicator for where to find them, since they always grew quite a bit higher than...

88 - Learning Magic

I had settled in nicely in the crown of the tree, constantly cycling my mana between draining it from the monster and infusing it into my seed. I quickly checked whether I could purchase another node in the magical truth skill tree, but I was short four points and the node I could buy wouldn’t help me with my studies anyway. I gave the nodes in the tree another quick read, finding three nodes that would help me figure out this whole magic thing. I’d gained the ability to read and write ru...

87 - Eximovere Tree

I rushed past a plethora of colors, the vegetation somehow getting more intense the closer I got to the center of the crater. The monsters I passed on the way were ignored as I didn’t want to damage this beautiful place. It would seem like some of the monsters agreed, a few of them seemingly taking care to not squash the flowers beneath them. It was odd to see the otherwise violent monsters tiptoeing around flowers of all things, but I wasn’t questioning their behavior. After all, it was ...

86 - The Crater

I was riding the hot air, using the updraft to stay in the air almost indefinitely. Curiously enough, I hadn’t seen any other airborne monsters. On the other layers I’d usually have to avoid or fight something with wings every now and again, but here? The sky was empty, aside from me and the occasional glob of lava that a volcano spit out. I passed by many volcanoes, big and small, huge lakes of lava, and larger areas that were spared by them.

These empty areas usually contained a l...

85 - Scouting

I was hopping along merrily, my new crystal friends thankfully also covering my tentacles, trying to figure out where to go. As far as I could tell, there weren’t that many spaces around here that I would give a good safety rating. Lava was flowing freely almost everywhere, the few spaces between the raging rivers the only solid ground far and wide. Since falling into the lava would mean assured death for almost all of the monsters around here, these solid footholds were fiercely competed o...

84 - The Sixth Layer

I sat on the elevator that was taking me down to the sixth layer, idly going through my status once again. I had gained a few new skills and I was making an effort to commit them to memory. Even with me regularly going through my skills, I sometimes forgot that I had certain skills, especially the newer ones. This had some dire consequences in the heat of battle, but so far I managed to squeeze through with sheer firepower.

Before coming to the elevator, I had attempted to locate a hunt...

7 Days Of Slug!

I've managed to write an entire seven chapters ahead, which is something I've been working on for a few months now. Every now and again I just managed to write more and decided that once I'd get to seven I'd do an entire week of chapter posts.

So, starting this Sunday with the regularly scheduled chapter, I'll post a new chapter every day for seven days! 

83 - Ruminations Of A Fanatic

I sneezed as a gust of wind tickled my nose. My eyes were fixated on the cave entrance, awaiting my pack's return. Swaths of snow drifted into the cave as the blizzard outside raged on, making the hunt harder than it needed to be. But surely, this as well, was a test from the lord. Ever since the fifth layer, the environment had become a lot harder to deal with. While powerful, my body didn’t really support swimming and diving, which had made the fifth floor a nightmare.

My entire pac...

82 - Sixth Evolution

Alright, here's the deal. It is no secret that I despise the formatting options on Patreon, since they are very barebones. I usually do the best I can with what I got to work with, but evolution chapters are better enjoyed with proper formatting, especially this one, since the colors are somewhat important. So here's a link to the google doc where it's been properly formatted. I recommend you read it over there, but if for some reason you don't want to or can't, here's the chapter anyway. Als...

81 - The Gem And The Moth

I threw the giant body of the progenitor into my inventory, once again surprised at the space I had in there. When the progenitor died, the entire room lit up with a magical light, and I could finally see properly again. I took a few moments to go over the fight again. I clearly had the upper hand, but that crazy lightning attack had been scary. If I hadn’t collected the scales, I might have died. Again.

The system might have designed that attack to be unstoppable unless you had the s...

Thank You!

I just bought myself a year of Author Premium on Royal Road, and it's all thanks to you guys! I've always looked at it like a neat thing to have, but ultimately, I couldn't justify to pay for it with my budget. I try to put the money I earn from the patreon back into the story in ways, to make sure the money you pay gets used to further the story.

I'm looking into having a new cover made for the story, and eventually will look into having the MC drawn at various evolution tiers. Commiss...

80 - The Underwater Temple: The Progenitor

I was stunned for a second when I realized that this thing was a tier-six monster. This was worse than a hunter! Hunters usually were layer-appropriate, fully leveled monsters that got some special bonuses. This dungeon boss was essentially a monster from the next layer down. I stared incredulously at the floating system text describing the progenitor. What the hell was the system thinking with these challenges?

As I was baffled by the audacity of the system, I suddenly felt a surge of ...

79 - The Underwater Temple: Hunting Scales

I stood in front of a gigantic door after having spent a stupid amount of time navigating the three floors of the maze. There had been a shit ton of traps, and it only got worse whenever I descended a floor, making my progress slow at best. On the third floor, I’d been advancing so carefully that I was reminded of myself pre-agility unlock. My fruit stock was dwindling, but I still had a lot. Thankfully I’d collected over two hundred on the third floor, but by using them as waypoint marke...

78 - The Underwater Temple: Dark Labyrinth

I followed the corridor for a while, the featureless walls glowing an eerie purple due to my void javelins. I occasionally stopped to look for anything out of place, but the hallway was as boring as could be, perfectly square, leading deeper into the darkness. Eventually, I came to a cross in the path. I had to choose between three different ways to continue, one to the left, one to the right, and another going straight. I couldn’t see any discernable difference between each path, but it sl...

77 - The Underwater Temple: Entrance

I slowly crept my way toward the temple building sitting on top of the Aztec pyramid. The advantage of being underwater meant that I could skip the stairs and just go there directly. I nervously kept an eye on my surroundings, keeping watch for any monsters laying in ambush. The numerous pillars gave ample opportunity for things to hide behind and I didn’t want to get caught unawares… again.

I had a track record of stumbling into dangerous situations due to either not paying enough ...

Schedule change

I gave my posting schedule some thought. It was mostly just a "when it's done" thing, but I wanted to bring some more consistency into it. At first I thought to do certain weekdays, but with my speed that would mean I'd need to post more or less than I usually do. So eventually I decided on releasing a chapter every 4 days. From now on, I'll post a new chapter every 4 days.

76 - Navigating The Ocean Floor

I spent some time half buried in the muck of the ocean floor to calm down a bit. Having some solid ground below me helped immensely with my admittedly high-strung nerves. I tried clearing my mind to force a reset in my brain, and it helped, mostly. It took quite some time until I felt like I was in a normal state of mind and finally able to look at my situation a bit more objectively.

I was in some pretty deep shit, to be honest. I had no clue how far down I was, for all I knew I could ...

75 - The Dark Below

When the giant eel snapped its mouth shut, everything went dark. I could feel myself being thrown around, a rough tongue trying to force me further down the eel's throat. I was completely disoriented as I tumbled around and smacked into various things. I’d activated both of my defensive abilities as soon as I’d realized what was happening and they were the only reason I hadn’t been smushed to a pulp by now.

I was just about to do something about my current situation when a large a...

74 - The Third Guardian

The third island was now clearly visible as I approached. This one had been even further away than the second island was from the first, and I’d spent about two hours just leisurely gliding through the air. I did have to engage in a dogfight when some weird raptor with wings decided he could take me, but that barely made a dent in my travel time. I getting fairly efficient with my mana management as well. If I spent about five-hundred VMP to make a void jump, I could glide for long enough t...

73 - The Second Guardian

I was cruising at a decently high altitude, afraid that some huge fish might jump up and snatch me out of the air. Whenever I lost too much height, I opened up a new void portal that would take me higher up, repeating the process a few times, until the next island was close enough to examine. I’d spent maybe an hour or so gliding, which meant the islands were pretty far apart. I pitied any travelers getting this quest that didn’t have any means to travel between the islands.

I say t...