If I’m right, around sunset I should be able to catch groups of dragonfish returning to the shallows. If possible I want to avoid the deeper waters and the things that want to eat me. If I can hunt in the shallows, it will be much safer and it might even be faster.

  For now, I just relax on the beach and craft some obelisks while I wait for sunset. It turns out to be a good thing that I have been working on them since Lizzy contacts me. She has run out of obelisks already, so I use the map to find out where the most recent obelisk was added.

  Once I have a location, I fly over and give her half of what I have crafted recently. Once she is on her way again, I gate back to the castle and leave the rest for Kechara. No one is around, so I gate back to the island and go back to crafting while I wait.

  When the sun starts setting, I get back into the water and start swimming around and scanning. At first I don’t find anything, but after about an hour I find a small group of dragonfish. I was right, they head into the shallows as it gets dark and I think I know why.

  There are probably nasty things that live in the depths that don’t like the light. When it gets darker up here, their hunting range increases and the dragonfish head to the shallows to avoid them. Then, in the morning when it gets light out, they return to the area to hunt.

  5 Dragonfish defeated! 125,000 Exp gained!

  This group was even smaller than the ones I found in the morning, but I soon detect another group. One after another small groups start entering my scanning range and I rush to hunt them. I manage to find four more small groups to hunt before it gets completely dark and I return to the island.

  21 Dragonfish defeated! 525,000 Exp gained!

  Absorb Activated: 26 Evolution Points gained!

  At this rate, one more hunting trip like that and I should get enough to evolve. Once I evolve I can focus on just hunting to gain exp and try to get my last level. The best part is that nothing tried to eat me the entire time I was hunting the dragonfish.

  I go back to crafting more obelisks until I run out of stone, then I go to get more. Luckily, I marked the islands of stone on the map so it is easy to find them again. I gather enough stone to fill my ring and then return to the island to craft more obelisks.

  I spend the entire night making them and then eat some breakfast as the sun rises. As soon as I am done eating, I take off and fly to the east to look for a new hunting area. I don’t want to overhunt any single area and risk damaging the drake’s food source.

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  Besides, I may need to come hunt the dragonfish again before my next evolution. So, I would prefer to spread my hunting out and not decimate the population in a single area. I fly for about a half of an hour before I enter the water and start scanning the area.

  When I don’t detect any dragonfish immediately, I proceed to swim further east. A few minutes later I detect a small school ahead of me and I head towards them. There are only ten of them, but I still catch up, deal with them, and then put them in my pouch.

  10 Dragonfish defeated! 250,000 Exp gained!

  As I finish putting away the bodies I have the sudden feeling of being watched. However, my scan doesn’t show anything big enough to be a threat to me, but I can’t shake the feeling. I resume swimming to the east, but the feeling stays with me, it feels like I am being hunted.

  It is unlikely, but I suppose it is possible that something has evolved a way to hide from mana detection. There are all sorts of weird ambush predators in the oceans of earth, so it would only make sense for it to be the same here. If something evolved to use mana to hunt, then something could evolve to hide from it.

  I try to look around as I am swimming, but I don’t see anything following me. My eyes are fairly limited underwater, that is why I have been relying on my scanning. A few minutes have passed and the feeling has only gotten stronger, something is definitely stalking me.

  The problem is that my scan shows nothing but normal sized fish and empty water. I doubt whatever is hunting me can make itself look like a normal fish, so it must be showing up as empty water. I try altering my scan to look for a clump of moving water, but that doesn’t work at all.

  When that fails, I next try using the scan to check for different mana densities in the water. That doesn’t work either, the mana is not evenly distributed through the water. So, instead I do the opposite and look for voids in the mana, specifically moving ones.

  This finally shows me something useful, whatever is hunting me is hiding its mana. My scan now shows me a void that is moving at about the same speed I am and it isn’t far behind me. However, even with as close as the scan says it is, I can’t see anything when I look back.

  However, I know where it is now and I could probably escape it, but I am curious as to what it is. I also would love to know how it is able to hide so well, so I can’t just run away. I use water mana to separate it and myself from the rest of the water, then I release my breath weapon.

  My lightning doesn’t kill it, but it does break whatever method it is using to camouflage itself. It has the back half of a shark, but the front half is made up of three snake-like bodies and heads. If anything, it looks a lot like the hydra I fought ages ago in the demon lord’s arena.

  I guess it might be an aquatic hydra, or maybe a hydrashark, but the name doesn’t really matter right now. What matters is that I can see it and it knows that I can see it, but it doesn’t try to run. When it realizes that I have spotted it, it puts on a burst of speed and charges right at me.

  To be honest, staying to fight is rather stupid, but I am in a bad mood because I don’t like being hunted. So, I meet the beast head on, intercepting two of its heads with my claws, but letting the last head bite me. It bites me on the shoulder, but at the same time I bite the back of its neck.

  My bite does much more damage to it than it does to me, at least that is what I think at first. I really wasn’t expecting something this big to be venomous, but I can feel a burning sensation from the bite. Although, considering how good it is at hiding, it is an ambush predator so poison does make some sense.