Aqua

  That’s more monsters than I was expecting, but whatever. The plant monster is fighting rather hard against all of them.

  It’s also proving just how much stronger this plant monster is than the other monsters in the area. All because of the mana it was dutifully absorbing from the area around the magic ore.

  But still. Even a large predator can be taken down by numerous smaller ones.

  So I watch as the monsters of all kinds attack the massive plant. Tearing out roots and vines and occasionally even some of its buds.

  All while the plant monster wraps its vines around the monsters and tears them apart.

  Turning this into a much larger battlefield than what I was able to do earlier with my own abyssal servants.

  I feel a faint smirk stretching across my face as an idea comes to mind.

  And the chat responds to my smirk in the corner of my eye.

  [She’s smirking. Why’s she smirking?]

  [Probably has something up her sleeve.]

  [Is she going to make abyssal servants out of the monsters the plant is killing?]

  [Yeah, probably.]

  [Definitely.]

  [Without a doubt.]

  [that’s our Aqua. sitting back and taking advantage of the monster’s work to get more servants.]

  “How rude,” I mutter with a slight frown. “I would never take advantage of someone else’s work without contributing.”

  [Oh, really?]

  [She responded!]

  [She’s reading our messages!!!]

  [Don’t you do that all the time?]

  [Wait, does she not realize?]

  “Of course I contributed,” I add with a firm nod of my head. “I’m the one who destroyed the caves and brought these monsters here. So of course I get a piece of the pie.”

  […]

  […..]

  [okay then…]

  [Yeah, that adds up.]

  I ignore them to focus on the monster battle in front of me.

  The monsters continue fighting with tooth and – for the few of them that have claws – claw for a while against vine. All the way until the last monster attacking the plant monster finally dies.

  But right when I’m about to go out and try extracting blueprints from all the monsters out there, something happens that goes against my plan.

  Another monster arrives.

  One radiating a bright, purple light that instantly gives me a splitting migraine. Filling my head with pain as I feel incredibly disoriented.

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  A mental attack.

  I grit my teeth while holding my head and closing one eye. Reducing the pain and disorientation by about half of its previous level.

  But it still hurts like hell, and I feel very dizzy. And nauseous.

  I feel a chill run down my spine as I notice light purple color beginning to run through my veins. As if this mental attack is also poisoning me somehow.

  And the chill feels even more terrifying when I think about my mental stat. The MEN stat.

  If I didn’t have the MEN hidden stat, then just how bad would my condition be right now? Would I have died instantly?

  Or would I have been crippled?

  Regardless, I know at the very least I wouldn’t be making it out of this battle alive without this stat.

  Damnit.

  I really wasn’t expecting there to be a mental offensive monster here in the Viridian Ocean.

  It’s an ocean full of poison after all. And I’ve rarely ever heard of any poisonous monsters that affect the mind.

  To my surprise, even the plant begins to make loud screeching noises in pain. Clearly proving that it is affected by mental attacks.

  It also has purple liquid glowing under its vines as well. Showing it’s poisoned just like me.

  But unlike the purple liquid running through my veins, which isn’t really spreading much and seems to be fighting itself – no doubt because of my REGEN stat – the purple liquid in the plant is spreading fast. Also implying that the plant has no defense against mental attacks.

  I focus on the direction the light is coming from through one eye with my other still closed. All the way until the source of the light finally enters my sight. And it’s… unusual.

  The monster is in the form of a large creature with a slimy eel’s tail and the front of a fish with what looks like a dislocated jaw and a large purple lantern hanging from its head. All with several rows of razor sharp teeth going all the way through its mouth until it reaches its throat.

  And its eyes… they’re just disturbing.

  Pitch black orbs that make it impossible to tell what the thing is looking at.

  Oh, and the eel tail sticking out behind it seems to be over a hundred meters long. And it’s covered in scales that are leaking out poison and occasionally flapping kind of like ventilation gaps on some machine. Where they open up, expel gas, and close all at once from time to time.

  So I just see the thing slowly slithering towards the plant monster while leaving a massive cloud of purple poison flooding the water behind it.

  But the most terrifying thing about the monster isn’t any of that.

  It’s the thing’s level.

  [Poilark Mindruin Eel – Level 401]

  This thing is over a hundred levels above me.

  Hmm.

  I’ll keep an eye on the battle and see what happens. It’s also almost eighty levels above the plant, with the plant already being weakened.

  But the problem is that if this thing decides to take over the area after the plant is killed, whether by me or the eel, that would make my entire hunt kind of pointless.

  Then again, the reason I’m trying so hard to kill the plant is to stop it from digging underground and regenerating.

  I purse my lips for a moment before firmly nodding my head once.

  Right. That’ll work.

  Now, with a plan in mind, I watch the plant swim up to attack the newcomer monster. Only for the newcomer monster to surprisingly struggle when it comes to physical attacks.

  But the thing is quickly killing the plant through mental attacks still. So I’m guessing this monster is a glass cannon that is very weak physically.

  It’s actually taking quite a bit of damage from the plant.

  That said, I begin to quietly make my way over to the magic ore while using Abyssal Ruler to summon abyssal servants from the many dead monsters around the area. Which quickly catches the attention of the two fighting monsters to said abyssal servants.

  Then I do it again on the monster corpses that the skill failed on.

  And again.

  All while slowly approaching the magic ore.

  Eventually, the eel finally finishes off the plant monster. Letting me try to summon a servant from said plant.

  And to my surprise, I succeed summoning a servant from the plant on the first try.

  A grin spreads across my face as I reach the magic ore. At which point I send all of the abyssal servants straight at the eel with the plan to distract it long enough for me to mine the magic ore.

  So, while ignoring the hashtags in the chat talking about ‘mineraqua’, I begin to mine the ore.

  And I continue to mine it until I finally get every last bit of magic ore. Then I stash it in my storage ring and turn my full attention back to the monsters. Ready to flee from the incredibly high level monster.

  Only to be startled when I see all my abyssal servants tearing apart the monster with ease.

  Uh… huh?

  Then I realize the obvious.

  This monster doesn’t have acidic poison, and mental attacks don’t work on my abyssal servants.

  It’s almost like my abyssal servants were made to counter this thing.

  So it doesn’t take long before the thing finally dies, giving me nearly a dozen levels in the process.

  Huh.

  Well, that was nice and convenient.

  With that thought in mind, and while ignoring the chat spamming things about it being an unfair battle along with the mineraqua thing, I begin to make my way back to the Hunter’s City.

  To report my findings to the Guildmaster.

  Of course, I won’t be handing over the magic ore.

  Because that ore is mine and mine alone. It’ll be incredibly helpful once I find someone who can work with it.

  I won’t even need the stuff from Sponsorships anymore after getting gear made from magic ore.

  Preferably a weapon that I can infuse mana into to strengthen.

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