Continuing to struggle with the slime, Scaly thought about all sorts of ways that she could use her water magic to reach the core of the slime, but in the end, all of them would require her to gather her mana for an extended period of time. Time that she didn't have with constantly having to stop the slime from getting too close to any dangerous areas on her body.

At the same time, she was also slowly running out of mana as she continued trying to force back the slime and keep it at bay.

Although the magic she used for this was only the weakest water ball, she wouldn't be able to endlessly conjure up water balls without any rest. Even if her mana pool had increased significantly since her evolution, it wasn't endless.

For this reason, Scaly began growing increasingly panicked with each passing second that the slime remained stuck on her body. Even reaching the point where she was no longer looking down on the dragon devourer slime and genuinely began to recognize it for its name of being a dragon devourer.

After all, from what she experienced so far, it was indeed a slime that seemed to be perfectly made for attacking her, as none of her attacks seemed to work on the slime no matter what she did.

Rustle~

In the end, she ran out of ideas of how to use her magic to destroy the slime core and could only rush into a nearby bush to try and force the slime of her body by rubbing it against the branches of the bush.

Whoosh-!

However, much to Scaly's surprise, this seemingly dumb tactic ended up working, as the slime that had been seemingly attached to her body was caught by one of the branches before being flung into the distance. Soon enough disappearing into a ravine not too far away from her current location.

That… Was far easier than I expected…

Not knowing what else to think as she stared towards the ravine that the dragon devourer slime had fallen into, Scaly could not help wondering whether or not the slime had ended up dying from the fall.

However, this thought didn't last for long as she remembered how hard it had been for her to kill it.

Not to mention, if it did really end up dying, she should have received the experience for killing it. After all, she was the one who ended up causing it to get sent flying into the ravine just now.

Even if it fell into the ravine, it should still be alive and trying its best to crawl out of the ravine to get to her and try to devour her again.

Shaking her head at the thought as she thought about this, Scaly didn't want to continue lingering around the ravine where the dragon devourer slime was located.

Not planning to end up in a situation like the one she had found herself in only a few seconds earlier.

At the very least, before she encountered another similar situation, she had to find a way to protect herself against monsters like the dragon devourer slime with her magic.

Unfortunately, to do so, she would have to find a new way to apply her water magic. Either by creating a new and faster water magic spell or by using her water magic to somehow envelop her body in a protective layer that could fight off any slimes that might try and devour her.

The last one among the two would not only be helpful for a smaller slime like the dragon devourer slime attaching itself to her body but should also be useful in case she ended up getting swallowed by a larger slime like a mountain slime again.

With that in mind, Scaly began to experiment with her magic while she made her way deeper into the mountain range. Trying to create some kind of protective layer around her body with her water magic.

In the end, after travelling for a little over a day, she finally succeeded in creating a protective barrier of sorts.

The only problem was that the thing she had ended up creating the shield with was not the flowing water she was familiar with, but instead something completely different, a solid form of water.

[Ice Magic lvl 1]: Allows the use of ice magic, requires water magic to use.

Looking at the new skill that had appeared in her status, Scaly was shocked to discover that she had managed to learn a brand-new branch of magic through her experimentations of trying to create a barrier or shield around her body.

The shield or barrier she had managed to create was not the full body protective barrier she had wanted to create originally but was instead a floating flat circular ice shield that she could use for either protecting herself against flying objects, magic or just throw at her opponents like the things created through her water magic.

Of course, the strength of the ice shield was nowhere near even her weakest water ball, so it didn't really make much sense to use it for anything other than defending herself for now. Especially considering the mana required for ice magic was significantly more compared to her water magic. Possibly because ice magic involved the creation of solid objects compared to the liquid ones for water.

Even with all of that in mind, Scaly was still overjoyed at the fact that she had managed to learn a brand-new magic related to water magic. Even more so considering that she clearly felt her water magic growing stronger after she acquired the ice magic.

So, with that in mind, Scaly decided to take a look at her status to check if something other than the newly appeared ice magic had changed with the appearance of the new magic.

Name: Scaly

Race: Water Dragon Hatchling

Dragon blood: 3% (Inferior)

Level: 8/10, 81%

STR: 193 |VIT: 340 | DEX: 147 | M: 467

Skills: [Dragon Bloodline, lvl 4], [Dragon Flight, lvl 2], [Dragon Water Magic, lvl 3], [Poison Resistance, lvl 3], [Dragon Claw Strike, lvl 5], [Swimming, lvl 1], [Dragon Breath (Water), lvl 3], [Corrosion Resistance, lvl 2], [Ice Magic lvl 1]

Looking through her status, Scaly became even happier when she discovered that the level of her dragon water magic had indeed increased in level after she acquired the ice magic.

Outside of that, Scaly didn't know how to feel when she discovered that the level of her corrosion resistance had increased.

Part of her felt happy that it made her stronger, but another part of her was filled with shame remembering how she had been humiliated by the dragon devourer slime behind the increase in the level of her corrosion resistance.

In the end, she could only shake her head and throw the thoughts of what had happened with the dragon devourer slime to the back of her mind, as she continued moving deeper into the mountain range while killing any monsters she encountered along the way.

…

Growl~!

Grooowl!

As she had already spent a rather long time travelling through the mountain range, it wasn't long before she ran into the first batch of mountain gnolls from the gnoll civilization located at the base of the largest mountains in the mountain range.

Luckily for Scaly, she wasn't discovered by this group of gnolls, as they were busy hunting down a large monster. Giving Scaly more than enough time to inspect them and check out how strong they were.

[Mountain Gnoll, Hunter, lvl 41]

[Mountain Gnoll, Hunter, lvl 43]

[Mountain Gnoll, Trapper, lvl 37]

Only this strong…? Isn't the gnolls supposed to be stronger? Or perhaps the stronger gnolls reside inside the gnoll city and don't go out to hunt?

However, different from the terrifyingly powerful gnolls she had expected to see when she inspected them, she was left surprised at how weak the mountain gnolls were.

Of course, they weren't that weak when compared to the gnolls back at the third floor of the dungeon, as they would still be ranked among the strongest of the forest gnolls.

It was just that she had expected the mountain gnolls to be stronger considering how they seemingly dominated the core of the mountain range.

In the end, it made her believe that the stronger gnolls should be residing back inside the gnoll city they had built and just didn't normally wander out.

After all, the strength of the gnoll hunters in front of her was barely comparable to the different monsters she had encountered along her way towards the tall mountains and the place where the gnolls resided, some even being stronger than these gnolls.

Should I just kill them?

Thinking this to herself as she observed how the gnolls fought with the large monster they had ambushed, Scaly was just about to jump into action and join the fight to kill off the gnolls when a loud rumbling sound echoed out not too far from where the gnolls were busy fighting.

Instantly catching both the gnolls and the struggling monster they were hunting off guard, as they, along with Scaly, turned to look in the direction the sound had come from…

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