Green Viper's Lair

With the help of the map, Alex easily located the cave. Soon, he was standing in front of the cave opening.

The exterior looked calm, with no monsters in sight, so Alex stepped inside the cave. The cave was dimly lit, and eerie sounds echoed through its passages.

After walking hardly ten meters inside, his vision started obscuring.

"Damn it! I should have brought a torch light with me." He cursed as there was barely any illumination, and it was becoming tougher for him to see further as he moved forward.

He then cast <Dark Fire> and created a small fireball in hope of illuminating the cave.

Due to not having any mastery over this spell, his control over it was not good, making it unstable and uncontrollable at the moment.

Furthermore, the fire, being associated with darkness, provided some illumination, but it was hardly useful as it emitted a dim, eerie glow that bathed its surroundings in dark or shadowy light.

'The shop did have a night vision skill in the skill tab.' Suddenly remembering something, Alex opened the skill shop tab and looked for the skill.

He did find the skill, but he was currently empty on shop coins. Luckily, he had the cores of recently hunted Kobolds, which he could sell to earn some shop coins.

"Let's see how much is it for an F-rank monster core. System, sell the three monster cores in the system inventory." Alex ordered the system.

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[The host has successfully sold 3 F rank monster cores.]

[Shop Coins: 0→45]

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"What F rank cores only sell for 15 SC each?!" Alex was clearly disappointed at the amount he received. He atleast expected them to be sold for 20 or 25 SC each.

He was still short on 5 SC to buy the night vision skill. As the F rank skill costed 50 SC each.

And entering a unknown cave filled with Green Vipers and Dimwingeds with no vision was never a good idea.

"Sigh, Lets try to make a makeshift torch." Alex was not someone to easily give up.

In his previous life Alex had a lot of free time to spare as he was confined to either his room or a hospital room.

He there used to watch a lot of TV and also came across survival shows where he had saw one of them showing on how to make a makeshift torch using only natural materials found in a jungle.

He proceeded to cut a tree branch with his sword. He took a long and sturdy branch to which he wrapped a few thick towels along with toilet papers in between.

Interestingly Alex did not carry a lighter or torch but he did moved with storing other seemingly unnecessarily stuff with himself which somehow came in use today.

It may not come as a surprise but he obviously had no sort of fuel which he carried.

"Without any sort of fuel the torch won't last long but it will work for the time being." 

Alex casted a small wisp of <Dark Fire> which seemed to have done the trick and worked as fire starter and ignited the torch (in normal fire).

"Phew, for I second I thought I have to start a fire like a primitive if my magic didn't work."

Alex sighed in relief as he re-entered the cave. This time his surroundings were clearly illuminated.

Alex carefully delved deeper into the cave and encountered his first group of Green Vipers in a corner.

These reptiles were usually found in open grasslands where they camouflaged themselves to hunt their prey.

But occasionally, these monsters would be found in some secluded dark, humid environments either in breeding or in molting season.

This time happened to be one of those mating seasons, as Alex witnessed two of these Green Vipers coiled around each other and some engaging in what appeared to be a mating ritual of sorts by coiling their tails.

Alex wasn't polite to them as he immediately cast another of his new spells, <Dark Lightning>.

This time it was bolts of dark black lightning tendrils that instantly electrocuted the poor monsters on the spot, whether they were busy mating or finding their partners.

Not all of them died, as they were quite scattered, and Alex aimed at the most concentrated area.

He managed to kill around half of them in his first attempt, as the system notification promptly indicated.

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[The Host has killed an F rank Monster] X5

[+250 XP and +5 SP]

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The remaining survivors didn't take their pleasurable time being interrupted warmly, as they hissed at the sudden intruder.

On cue, some lunged at him, while others slithered toward him, all with the same intention: to bite with their venomous fangs.

The Green Vipers appeared to be faster than the previous ones he encountered, maybe in a rage of being disturbed?

They were not the only ones who were fast, as Alex was also faster than before. Using his enhanced reflexes, he casted <Dark Lightning> at the ones on the ground slithering toward him.

At the same time, he used the makeshift torchlight at hand to swat away one of the Green Vipers that lunged at him, barely dodging another in time.

'That was close!'

Now, only three of these Green Vipers were left, which he swiftly killed with three shots of <Dark Bullet>.

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[The Host has killed an F rank Monster] X6

[+300 XP and +6 SP]

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The <Dark Bullet> was his only spell in which he had the highest mastery. He was the most familiar with this spell, making its casting speed the fastest of all his spells.

"Fuck! It made me use <Dark Bullet>. I didn't want to use this spell, but I guess it was the only option."

The side quest required him to increase the spell mastery of three of his spells to D rank. And <Dark Bullet> was already D rank, so no use in using it for now.

He had only planned to use his other three Tier-1 spells in this hunt.

Now came the most disgusting part after the killing—harvesting monster cores. Alex decided to try a little shortcut trick but failed immediately.

"Argh! The system won't directly buy the monster core from its corpse even if I tried saving it in the system inventory."

He was now only left with the option to take out the core manually himself, then sell it in the system shop.

The monster cores of Green Vipers were right on top of their heads, so after a small incision, only he was able to spot it.

After selling the monster core in the system shop, he could now finally buy the night vision skill.

The makeshift torch was not going to last much longer, and it was also damaged a little in the recent swatting incident.