Chapter 13: Farming the Field
The boulder field was quiet at first. Gray drifted through the familiar gaps, his tentacles extended, reading the water for vibrations. The rock formations loomed around him like the bones of ancient beasts, their surfaces crusted with barnacles and swaying moss. He’d mapped every chokepoint during the hunter fight. Every narrow passage. Every dead end.
If he was going to hunt, he’d hunt here. The five percent bonus wasn’t much, but it added up. And more importantly, he controlled this ground.
A flicker of movement caught his attention. Near the eastern edge of the boulder field, a cluster of small shapes darted between the rocks.
[GLASS MINNOW]
Level: 3
HP: 18 / 18
Count: 8
’Glass minnows. Like the one that almost killed me on my first day.’
He remembered that fight. The panic. The clumsy stings. The desperate Static Discharge that had barely saved his life. He’d been Level 1 then, with ten HP and a skill set he didn’t understand. Now he was Level 8, with two hundred HP and skills that could wipe the whole school in seconds.
’How things change. Let’s see if I can pull them in.’
He positioned himself at the edge of the boulder field, where the rocks opened into a wide, sandy channel. His bell faced the open water, his tentacles trailing behind him toward the boulders. Then he let his Bioluminescent Pulse do its work.
The glow intensified. Pink and blue light pulsed in a slow, hypnotic rhythm, rippling across his bell in waves that seemed to stretch outward into the dark. The skill description had called it a "minor attraction effect on curious creatures." Minor. But minor was enough when you had patience.
The glass minnows noticed.
Their tight formation wavered. One broke away from the group, its tiny black eyes fixed on the shifting colors. Then another. Then a third. They drifted toward him slowly, cautiously, their fins twitching with each pulse of light. The school leader hesitated, then followed. Schooling instincts were hard to override, but curiosity was a powerful motivator.
’That’s it. Come closer. Follow the pretty lights.’
He pulsed backward, retreating deeper into the boulder field. The minnows followed. Eight of them, their silver bodies gleaming in his glow. They passed between the first set of boulders, leaving the open water behind.
’Perfect. Now just a little further.’
He led them through a narrow gap between two massive rocks, then another. The minnows swam in single file now, their formation stretched thin by the tight passages. By the time they reached the central chamber of the boulder field, they were no longer a school. They were eight individuals, separated and disoriented.
And the exits were all behind Gray.
’Party time.’
He activated Toxin Cloud.
The nematocysts detached from his tentacles in a silent, invisible wave, spreading through the water like a ghost. The sphere filled the central chamber from wall to wall, turning the narrow space into a killing box. The minnows didn’t even realize they were dying until the first damage ticks appeared.
[TOXIN CLOUD — 5 DAMAGE]
[TOXIN CLOUD — 6 DAMAGE]
[TOXIN CLOUD — 4 DAMAGE]
The minnows scattered. Panic rippled through the disoriented school as the venom seeped into their gills. They darted left and right, bouncing off rock walls, swimming deeper into the cloud in their desperation to escape. Their health bars dropped in rapid succession.
[GLASS MINNOW DEFEATED — 8 EXP]
[GLASS MINNOW DEFEATED — 8 EXP]
[GLASS MINNOW DEFEATED — 8 EXP]
[GLASS MINNOW DEFEATED — 8 EXP]
The notifications cascaded through his vision, eight kills in under fifteen seconds. The EXP wasn’t huge, these were weak mobs compared to him now but the speed made up for it. Sixty-four EXP in fifteen seconds. Zero damage, minimal MP spent, eight kills in seconds—the kind of efficiency that would make any grinder proud.
’Luring them into the boulder field was definitely the right call. With the five percent bonus, that’s... around sixty-seven EXP. Not bad for thirty seconds of work.’
He absorbed the corpses quickly, his oral arms processing the tiny bodies in seconds. His hunger percentage, which had crept up to fifteen percent during his rest, dropped back to five. The minnows tasted faintly of freshwater trout, a memory from a camping trip he’d taken alone years ago.
More flickers of movement caught his attention. The minnows’ panicked death throes had stirred up the water, and the scent of their bodies was already drifting beyond the boulder field. Gray extended his tentacles, reading the vibrations.
Something was coming. Multiple somethings.
He positioned himself behind a boulder near the chamber’s entrance and waited. The Bioluminescent Pulse continued its slow, steady rhythm, a beacon in the dark.
’Come on. The buffet’s open.’
Over the next several hours, Gray refined his strategy.
The pattern was simple. He’d drift to the edge of the boulder field and let his Bioluminescent Pulse draw in curious creatures. Small fish, mostly. The occasional shrimp or crab. Anything that responded to light and wasn’t smart enough to recognize a trap.
Once they were close enough, he’d pulse backward into the boulder field, leading them through the narrow passages. The creatures followed the light, their curiosity overriding their caution. By the time they realized they were being herded, it was too late.
The central chamber became his killing floor. He’d seal the exits with Toxin Cloud, then pick off the survivors with precision stings. If anything tried to flee, it had to swim through the venom to escape. Most didn’t make it.
[GLASS MINNOW DEFEATED — 8 EXP]
[SCUTTLE CRAB DEFEATED — 14 EXP]
[GLASS MINNOW DEFEATED — 8 EXP]
[SPINE-FIN DARTER DEFEATED — 22 EXP]
[TINY ROCK SHELL DEFEATED — 6 EXP]
The EXP trickled in, steady and reliable. With the boulder field’s five percent bonus, each kill added a small but meaningful sliver to his progress bar. He watched it creep upward with the satisfaction of a farmer tending crops.
[SCUTTLE CRAB DEFEATED — 14 EXP]
[GLASS MINNOW DEFEATED — 8 EXP]
[SPINE-FIN DARTER DEFEATED — 22 EXP]
[TRAIT FRAGMENT ACQUIRED: "Minor Evasion" — Collect additional fragments to unlock full trait at Level 10 Evolution.]
’Another fragment. Evasion, huh? That could pair well with SPD. If evolution lets me combine these...’
He absorbed the Spine-Fin Darter’s corpse and let the fragment settle into whatever invisible inventory the system used. His collection was growing. Minor Shell Plating for defense. Keen Senses for detection. Minor Evasion for speed. Each one a potential evolution path. Each one a piece of what he might become.
By the time Gray felt the first twinges of genuine fatigue, his experience bar sat at nearly sixty-five percent toward Level 9.
’Let’s rest first and continue when my MP is full again.’
He drifted back toward his shelter, his body heavy with exertion but warm with satisfaction. His MP had dipped to around forty from repeated Toxin Cloud deployments, but his HP was untouched. Two hundred out of two hundred. He hadn’t taken a single hit all session.
’This is how hunting should be.’
He slipped into the crevice and let his body settle near the sandy bottom. The familiar walls closed around him, and the shelter bonus activated with a soft chime.
[SHELTER BONUS: +50% HP and MP regeneration.]
’Level 9 is close. One more good session, maybe two. Then... evolution.’
He pulled up his status one last time before letting exhaustion take him.
STATUS MENU
Name: Gray Ashford
Species: Aurelia aurita — Common Moon Jellyfish (Bioluminescent Variant)
Level: 8
Title: Colony Killer
Stats:
· HP: 200 / 200
· MP: 42 / 170
· ATK: 6
· DEF: 14
· SPD: 14
· INT: 25
· LUK: 0
EXP to Next Level: 65%
Trait Fragments:
· Minor Shell Plating (1/3)
· Keen Senses (1/3)
· Minor Evasion (1/3)
Evolution Paths: [LOCKED] — Reach Lv. 10 to unlock.
’Three different trait fragments. I wonder if I can complete them before Level 10, or if they’ll carry over after evolution. Something to figure out tomorrow.’