Aqua

  I frown as I stab a large eel with my trident. Killing the thing and releasing more poison into the purple-tinted cave at the same time.

  The cave itself is like a maze. One that is filled with numerous paths all twisting and connecting together. Going up and down, with some of them completely looping.

  And the signal is going all over the place as well.

  If I had to guess, it’s getting bounced all over the place from the tunnels. Or something like that.

  I’m not exactly an expert at physics, so I could be entirely wrong about that.

  Regardless, it doesn’t change the fact that I have no idea which way to go. And I keep ending up looping around when trying to follow the signal.

  Also, I keep finding different ores scattered through the caves. Ones that would be worth quite a bit in the Alliance.

  But I ignore them since I need to deal with the monster causing the poison. Assuming it is a monster.

  After all, my mana won’t last forever. So eventually I’ll run out and won’t be able to protect myself from the poison anymore.

  And at that point, I’ll be able to go back and collect all the ore I can find.

  I continue making my way through caves for several hours while ignoring the comments in the chat talking about me getting lost. And that annoying miner aqua hashtag thing that they’re still doing.

  A thought comes to mind as I see those hashtags being spammed.

  Huh. Maybe I should just go ahead and avoid mining things until after I become the leader of Oceana. Since I’ll be a Leading Pioneer after that point. One who can turn off and on their livestream whenever they want.

  Then I’ll be able to mine without having to worry about a livestream watching me and making more clips to spread across the internet.

  Either way though, I need to find the source of this poison. That fact won’t change.

  So I continue killing poisonous monsters along the way for hours until I finally find something that can serve as a hint to the right direction to go in.

  Specifically the fact that the monsters are higher level the further away from the entrance that I get. Which means I should be able to follow the monster trail to the source of the poison by looking at their levels.

  Before that though, I make my way out of the caves to take a long break outside. Where there isn’t any poison.

  What with my mana beginning to run low and all.

  I spend around four or five hours until midnight resets my mana, then I go back into the caves while putting up my little barrier again. Only to find a lot more monsters filling the caves than when I left.

  Then again, it isn’t that surprising when I think about it.

  After all, this place is filled to the brim with mana. More mana than most dungeons have.

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  Or at least, of the dungeons I’ve been to.

  I slaughter the monsters while making my way through the caves. Just following the path made by the highest level monsters every time I find myself at a crossroads.

  But unlike the last time I was in here, it doesn’t actually take me very long to find some changes in the caves.

  Specifically the fact that there is more and more ore filling the caves the further I go. And the poison is getting thicker and thicker as well.

  [How large are these caverns, anyway?]

  [I swear there’s more precious ore in that one cave system than most planets have…]

  [Aqua’s going to be filthy rich when she claims ownership of Oceana…]

  [the mining industry and the metal markets are already in an uproar from this, I’ve heard]

  [The mining industry must be upset about all the ore on Oceana. But I’m sure the metal markets are already jumping at making deals with Aqua.]

  [I work at a mining company, and let me tell you, the boss is pissed.]

  [I bet lol]

  [Just how much poison is in there anyways?]

  [Who cares about that, I want to know how much poison it takes to fill an entire ocean with enough to be deadly to people!]

  I read the chat to pass the time as I make my way through the caves. And some of their points are pretty good ones.

  Like the whole ‘how much poison does it take to fill an entire ocean with enough to be deadly to people’ thing.

  Because that is a lot of poison.

  And for a monster to be strong enough to fill an entire ocean with that much poison? It must be incredibly powerful.

  Although it could also be more than one monster for all I know. So there’s that.

  Then again, the Qualta Ocean isn’t much better. Seeing as it is filled with electricity.

  And it takes a lot of electricity to fill an entire ocean with a constant current of it.

  I have to wonder just what the strongest monsters on the planet even are. And if they’re this strong at probably level five hundred or so, then just how powerful are the monsters in the Abyss?

  Considering that they’re in the five digits in level.

  It’s a rather terrifying thought, but my attention is quickly taken away from all that when I find the tunnel surprisingly opening up into a massive cavern. With a monster that I was not expecting to see down here.

  When I thought of powerful monsters with poison that could be behind all of this, I was thinking maybe something like a squid or a slug or even a snake.

  What I was not expecting was to find a massive plant underwater expelling poison.

  I blink at the sight of the thing.

  The monster itself has a large bud at the center of numerous flower petals and vines. With the bud itself opening and closing sometimes to reveal razor sharp teeth.

  And as if that wasn’t enough, some vines sometimes suddenly stretch out of that bud mouth to grab nearby swimming fish that it drags into its mouth.

  All while the flower petals release purple poison from some sort of itty bitty buds across their surface.

  And they are always releasing poison. Since, while some are closing, others are always opening.

  That’s just how many of the little buds there are.

  There’s just thousands of them all across the monster’s body.

  Holy shit…

  What’s worse is when I identify the monster, revealing its level to me.

  [Clyvlera Aquatica Tox – Level 324]

  This thing is over sixty levels above me.

  Even after I leveled up several times from hunting the monsters in the caves.

  I frown at the monster before looking around the cavern at the rest of the stuff in it. Including other plant monsters scattered across the cavern that are also expelling poison just like that main one. With some poisonous fish swimming around as well.

  But what’s worse is that the poison in here is so thick that it’s almost breaking through the barrier I’ve set up.

  In fact, something tells me that if I get hit by a blast of the poison directly then it will break through the barrier with ease.

  Alright, if that’s the case…

  Right as I’m about to start preparing, I notice the large plant monster spitting out small seeds that then just kinda plop into the stone of the cavern. Following which more smaller plant monsters grow from the seeds.

  So those plants really are from the large one…

  I watch for a few seconds before going ahead and summoning my abyssal servants.

  As for which ones? I don’t actually care right now.

  The poison here is acidic. So it’ll hurt the undead abyssal servants just as badly as the non-undead ones.

  Let’s see how well I fare fighting against plants.

  I don’t think I’ve really found any plant monsters yet down here after all.

  Here’s hoping the plant doesn’t have any stronger poison than it’s already using.

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