Chapter 585: Running Out of Food

Rustle~

Waking up again after what could be considered the first proper rest, she had experienced in quite some time, Scaly’s first action upon opening her eyes was to look towards the small flame flickering next to her. Giving off a subtle heat that dispersed through the cave and helped raise the ambient temperature to a level that was far more comfortable than the cold outside before the blizzard had descended upon them. If anything, it could even be considered comfortable and wasn’t too difficult to deal with... Although Scaly had a feeling that the flame heating up the space wasn’t entirely behind the environment feeling more comfortable...

Name: Scaly

Race: Dreamscale Dragon (2nd Stage)

Dragon blood: 47% (Rare)

Level: 49/50, 41%

Mana Heart: Third Circle

STR: 2067 |VIT: 4147| DEX: 2369| M: 7712

Magic: [Dragon Water Magic, lvl 9], [Ice Magic lvl 6], [Wind Magic, lvl 9], [Lightning Magic, lvl 5], [Dream Magic lvl 5]

Skills: [Dragon Bloodline, lvl 4], [Dragon Flight, lvl 8], [Poison/Venom Resistance, lvl 8], [Dragon Claw Strike, lvl 9], [Dragon Breath (Water), lvl 6], [Corrosion Resistance, lvl 4], [Pain Resistance, lvl 6], [Swimming, lvl 6], [Dragon Heart, lvl 1], [Endless Vitality, lvl 2], [Agility, lvl 1], [Brute Force, lvl 1], [Fear Resistance, lvl 1], [Mana Consumption, lvl 3], [Mana Circulation, lvl 4], [Cold Resistance, lvl 3]

Looking through her status for the first time since she had managed to escape from the Swirling Sands Dungeon, it didn’t take her long to discover the new skill that had appeared at the very bottom of her skill list. Cold Resistance.

[Cold Resistance, lvl 3]: No need to fear the cold, for you have grown used to it through experiencing the extremes. Grants you a certain degree of resistance against the cold and related magic.

Reading through the description of the new skill that had appeared while she had been asleep, Scaly couldn’t help feeling a sense of accomplishment.

Even though she hadn’t managed to find monsters to help increase her strength and bring her over the final hurdle that was reaching level 50, she had at the very least managed to gain something from the painful experience she had gone through. Not only gaining a better resistance to the cold environment she would find herself travelling through for the foreseeable future, but even a resistance to certain types of magic related to the cold- of which she had a feeling her ice magic was included even if it wasn’t explicitly listed.

Speaking of her ice magic, it was only now that she had some time to sit down and think about the situation that she realized her ice magic might be far stronger in this kind of cold environment where ice mana dominated and other kinds of magic were harder to use.

The main reason why she hadn’t realized this before, had to do with the fact that the magic she knew was all boosted by the environment to some extent.

Ice magic was understandably stronger, while water magic was related to ice magic and didn’t suffer any decrease in strength. On the contrary, it had experienced a miniscule boost in strength from her quick testing after she woke up.

Wind magic on the other hand had surprisingly experienced a far greater boost in strength than she had originally expected, something that also made her realize that her speed back when she had escaped from the blizzard with Verdell on her back had been far faster than normal.

Originally, she had attributed this to an increase in strength, but from the looks of it, it was because the environment helped strengthen her wind magic.

As for the reason why wind magic experienced such a boost in strength in this kind of frozen wasteland? She had a feeling it was related to those terrifying icy winds she had already experienced firsthand.

Finally, the reason why she discovered her other magic had been boosted in strength, her lightning magic.

Compared to the powerful trump card it had been in the past, her lightning magic had been severely weakened in the frozen environment.

Dream magic on the other hand was completely unaffected by the environmental changes from what she felt and entering the dreamscape would be just as simple as if she did it anywhere else.

In other words, while her lightning magic did weaken considerably, the rest of her magic experienced a small or large boost in power, something she was more than happy with, as she could just sideline her lightning magic while in the northern region and focus on developing her ice magic.

If anything, she experienced a boost in overall strength when all things were considered, as for her fire wielding companion... She had a feeling he was the one to suffer the most in this kind of environment, as his fire magic didn’t exactly fit in with the frozen environment. Not only would he be suffering from his fire magic being weakened like her lightning magic, but it would also require far more mana to use fire magic compared to normal...

Truly a hell mode difficulty that made it understandable why he had not returned to the northern region in the past, as it was essentially a place that would place countless restrictions on his strength and severely weaken him while fighting within the northern region.

In fact, as she realized how difficult her little friend’s situation was, she couldn’t help feeling a bit bad for him. Not that she felt anything more than that, as it was also him who had insisted on going to this place in the first place- and different from her who was unaware about the kind of negative state he would enter upon entering this region, he would undoubtedly already be aware of it.

Who knows, given how he had been more than capable of using his fire magic earlier, he might even have some kind of special skill that allowed him to ignore the unique freezing environment and wield his fire magic freely without any negative effects.

Rustle~

And as she was thinking about him, the dwarf in question stirred next to her before slowly opening his eyes inside his small personal fortress. Looking around at the darkness that surrounded him before, quickly realizing where he was and what situation he was in.

Rustle~ Thud!

Not wasting any time before rolling out of his little fur and pelt fortress constructed around his sleeping back. Meeting the cold wind that caused a slight shiver to run down his spine before he quickly began packing away the sleeping bag and the different monster furs and pelts that had helped keep him warm.

Soon enough, finding himself face to face with the hungry eyes of Scaly, causing him to look through the one spatial bag on him that he used to store his food. Only to find that the supplies that should have been ample and more than enough for him to survive for month on his own had already dwindled to the point where he was close to running out.

"...This is what I get for feeding a dragon..." Silently muttering this to himself as he recalled the different snack he had fed to Scaly during their flight to the northern region, Verdell couldn’t help feeling a bit regretful about his decision to try and build a tighter bond with the dragon through food.

Sure, Scaly had indeed become more likable of him in the process, but he was running out of food at an alarming rate, and he didn’t possess the same ability as Scaly and couldn’t consume mana to satiate her hunger.

Not to say that was impossible, but the skill in question wasn’t exactly a simple one to obtain if one wasn’t a large monster or dragon like Scaly, who obtained this skill naturally through evolution.

If anything, it might be a harder skill to obtain than the mana circulation skill given how the main difficulty of obtaining the mana circulation skill laid in the fact that one had to be lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time, while the mana consumption skill required immense practice and knowledge on the subject of mana to even begin trying to comprehend it, let alone learn.

For an adventurer like himself, this kind of unique knowledge reliant skill that required one to essentially become a scholar on the subject was completely out of reach. If anything, it wasn’t something that could be normally obtained nor was it something an adventurer like himself had ever thought about bothering to try and learn.

After all, food for an adventurer of his capabilities wasn’t difficult to obtain and with a small spatial bag on hand for storage, he normally had months’ worth of food on hand no matter where he went. More than enough to sustain himself.

Only now that food was running out did he realize how important such a skill might be in the extreme situations he might end up finding himself in.