21 The Reservoir's Island

With the moon now high in the sky, Astur and Elizabeth finish circling around the reservoir. While pouring the contents of her Enhanced Basix EXP Potion into the water, Astur had also been on the lookout for a way to the island in the centre. But not only did she find now way to the island beyond swimming, but her luck also hasn't been too good.

Down to her last few cigarettes, Astur looks at her status and frowns.

"Why do I keep getting the same one, this isn't what I need right now."

"What's wrong now? Are- ah!" Elizabeth asks, tripping over a tree root.

"Heh," Astur laughs.

"Very funny…" Elizabeth says, picking herself up and brushing the dirt off her dress.

"Yes, it was, that made me feel better. Good to know I'm not the only unlucky one."

"Well good for you," Elizabeth rolls her eyes at Astur's remark. Turning her attention away from Astur for a moment, Elizabeth notices that they're being watched by the monster in the area, especially by the ones that have been drinking the water. "Hey, did you notice the gaze of the monsters? Something doesn't feel right about them."

"Now that you mention it…"

Like Elizabeth, Astur also takes note of the strange looks they're being given by the monsters. Inspecting with her Scholar's Eye of Insight, Astur finds that much like when she fed the Armourdillos her special potion, she can no longer see the level of the monsters here. However, unlike in the previous area, the monsters that live near the reservoir already had a relatively high level ranging from level 25 to level 30, while the strongest of them had already been beyond Astur's inspection ability, like the giant bear and the white stag.

"Your right… and I think I know why too," Astur says, looking at the two potions in her hand.

[Enhanced Basic EXP Potion (Super Rare)]

[Grants large amounts of EXP. Diminishing returns for multiple consumptions are less than the standard Basic EXP Potion. Has bonus effects when used on non-sentient and non-sapient beings.]

[Grand Evolution Elixir (Legendary)]

[Causes the user to lose randomly lose between 100 and 300 + 1% to 15% HP per second for one minute. Has a low chance of granting a lesser derivative ability based on Astur Sera Kojuuin. Grants a bonus to the next racial advancement. Grants a massive amount of EXP. Has bonus effects when used on non-sentient and non-sapient beings. An individual can only consume one of these in their lifetime.]

While standing around the water's edge, the giant bear that had been swimming in the water moves over to Astur and Elizabeth's position. Neither of them had been paying attention, catch them off guard as Elizabeth tumbles back as soon as she notices the bear. Astur on the other hand isn't as startled and quickly notices the direction of the bear's eyes, staring at the Grand Evolution Elixir in her left hand.

While Astur knew this was a giant bear, between the previously large distance between and the water distorting its shape, she couldn't get a complete grasp of its size. But with the giant brown-furred bear right before her eyes, Astur can safely say that if the bear stood on its hind legs it be around three times taller than her, close to 5.5 metres tall.

Astur stores the other potion away before pointing toward the elixir, "this will hurt," she says making a pained expression while trying to mimic the actions of an injured person, "but it will make you stronger if you survive," she continues while flexing her nonexistent muscles to the bear.

Seeing the bear nod its head at her, Astur raises her brow slightly, surprised at the intelligence of the bear. Due to drinking the potion infused water all this time, the bear's intelligence has been significantly raised, and while it can't quite speak like the Armourdillos now can, the bear does understand what Astur is saying.

Since first seeing the bear, Astur had already decided to give it the elixir regardless of whether or not the bear wanted it, but at least this way Astur looks like a half-decent person, giving the bear a choice, even if its only the illusion of choice. But seeing the bear does want the elixir, Astur comes up with a solution to her problem.

"Take us to the island over there and I'll give you this elixir without any trouble," Astur says.

During this whole exchange between Astur and the giant bear, Elizabeth has been silently standing behind Astur wondering why she's trying to engage in a conversation with a monster. From what she's learned, monsters are called such because they aren't intelligent and make decisions entirely on survival instinct and don't possess the true thinking capability that Humans and the like have. But what surprised Elizabeth the most is that the bear can actually understand and is even holding a basic conversation with Astur, even more so once she sees the bear turn it back to them while it indicates with its head to step onto its back.

"If a monster can understand and effectively communicate, then is it even a monster?" Elizabeth wonders silently as she looks on with a mixture of both amazement and confusion.

"We have permission, so let's not waste it," Astur steps onto the bears back, pulling the baffled Elizabeth along with her.

Moving across the water, Astur had already known that her illegal dumping has had more effects than just strengthening the monsters who drank the water. While the reservoir has diluted the potion causing it to lose its strange shifting colour, the effects still remain and are likely to stay that way for a while. But from Astur more recent observations she can notices that the unique colour hasn't been completely done away with as she can spot a couple of areas where the bottom of the reservoir is subtly shifting colour in a way that's invisible under the moonlight from the shore. Astur can see some marine life gathering around these areas and comes to the conclusion that the potion might have more effects in these areas.

With a different perspective of the reservoir, Astur makes mental notes of the various monsters in the water and finds there to be a very noticeable lack of large predatory marine monsters. Astur had long since noticed this feature but wasn't completely certain of it with just a single perspective of the reservoir. Other than terrestrial monsters soaking in the water, most of the monsters in the water are small fishes. While Astur does see some otter-like creatures off to the side and other semi-aquatic creatures that look to be a salamander, there aren't any true marine apex predator. But after Astur thinks about it, she doesn't see anything wrong with it. This is an isolated natural reservoir with large terrestrial predators roaming around, if there was a large marine predator in the water it probably wouldn't survive too long simply due to the lack of food.

After a couple of minutes, the bear arrives at the sandy beach of the southern part of the small island as Astur and Elizabeth step off its back.

As the bear turns to face them, Astur takes out the elixir and says, "are you ready, this is going to hurt?"

*roar*

The bear lets out a low roar and nods its head.

"Then open up," Astur says as she pours the elixir into the bear's mouth.

Like the Armourdillos before it, the giant bear begins to tremble as its health rapidly drops. But having been a much higher level compared to the Armoudillos that Astur had fed previously, the bear has a much higher total health than them and isn't in any imminent danger for the time being, but Astur takes out a Health Potion and feeds it to the bear as a precaution since she can't see its health.

Thinking the bear will probably be fine, Astur goes on ahead to explore the small island with two thoughts in mind, find a space to move her house to and clear out any potential dangers on the island.

Much like the outer edges of the Sea of Trees, the island is populated by various large evergreen trees on the periphery, but rather than vegetation growing thicker towards the centre of the island, it remains at an even spread with plenty of room to manoeuvre around. The fauna on the island consists mostly of the small otter-like critters Astur had previously seen in the water and other semi-aquatic monsters, but she cab also see some small monkeys in the canopies overhead.

Using the last of the Enhance EXP Potions she recently made, Astur open the vials and just leaves them lying around for the monster to take as they please while she goes to what she believes is the best part about this island. Astur finds some Blast Trees as well as more Psychedelic Mushrooms growing behind them.