The curse of the sun.
It was dawn. Soon, the sun's rays would cover the sky, the night would give way to the day and the lords of the jungle would run to hide in their burrows until darkness would reign again. But one of them decided to wait to devour its prey before returning to the dark nest from which it emerged.
The giant man-eating spider climbed down from the tree and approached the creature that had been trapped, wrapped in its web, only moments before.
The spider had been lucky. That night no matter how patient she was, no creature had fallen into her trap and it looked like she would go hungry again that day. Fortunately, things had changed when her prey dropped like a gift from heaven.
The spider approached the silken cocoon, ready to inject its corrosive venom to liquefy and slurp up its victim. But just as it was about to sink its fangs...
*Shik!*
The silk cocoon broke and a sword stabbed her in the abdomen. The spider shrieked in pain as the weapon pierced and sliced through its entrails.
In a desperate attempt to survive, the spider lashed out at its attacker.
*Shik! Shik! Shik! Shik!*
But before it could even land a blow, multiple dark spears shot out of the silken cocoon impaling the spider.
A few seconds later, the spears disappeared leaving huge holes in the spider's body from which a green goo began to ooze out.
*Thud!*
Unable to stand due to the loss of blood, the spider fell to the ground with a thud.
In an attempt to free himself, Marcus began to cut the silken cocoon, only to then fall face-first to the ground.
'...Ouch... For a minute there I thought I wasn't going to make it. I guess the parachute worked better than I expected.'
Although the plan to escape the island didn't have much chance of success, Marcus had gambled that with his physique as a superior monster, along with his ability to use strengthening magic he could survive the fall.
But as he was about to leave the low gravity zone of the island, the sun came out, his stats suffered a penalty from the solar energy and the spell's ability declined noticeably.
Fortunately for Marcus, the jungle trees along with the spider webs managed to cushion his fall and although he was nearly devoured by a giant spider, he managed to survive with relatively minor injuries.
Marcus got up and walked over to the spider that was still agonizing on the ground.
'You know, I don't like spiders or their webs and even though you tried to eat me, I can't deny the fact that you saved my life. So as thanks, I'll put you out of your misery.'
*Shik*
Marcus' sword embedded itself in the head of the huge spider and it finally stopped moving.
...
{The user has defeated a [Hargarn Spider] for the first time, 1733 additional experience points will be awarded.}
....
{You gained 17336 xp}
...
'Okay, now where can I hide from the sun?'
Although it was still quite dark, it wouldn't be long before the sun would cover the jungle and when that happened, Marcus' stats wouldn't be much different from a common skeleton and he would suffer damage from the sunlight. So he needed to find a place to hide until it was dark.
At that moment, Marcus focused his attention on the base of a huge tree, which had a hole just below its base and was covered in spider silk.
'Hey, do you mind if I use your lair for the rest of the day? I mean, it's not like you're going to use it anyway.'
Marcus pulled his sword out of the corpse and without much thought, stepped into the spider's lair.
Even though the spider's lair was covered in silk, one couldn't deny that it was quite spacious and while there were a couple of giant snake and insect corpses, the place was dark enough to meet Marcus' needs.
But something about the corpses in the lair caught Marcus' attention. When he approached to see what it was, it turned out to be some white silk balls the size of a basketball, which had something moving inside them.
================================
Race: Beast
Species: Hargarn Spider (Larva)
Rank: 0
Level: 1
================================
HP: 10/10
MP: 11/11
Strength: 5 Stamina: 3
Defense: 3 Intelligence: 1
Vitality: 2. Wisdom: 1
Agility: 19
================================
Skills:
{[Poison resistance lv:1][Poison secretion lv:1]
[Silk secretion lv:1][Superior touch lv:1]}
Weaknesses:
{[Fire damage lv:6][Piercing damage lv:5]}
================================
'Spider eggs?..... Great, I just left hundreds of babies without their mother. But this seriously is awesome, this thing wasn't even born yet and it could already be a threat to a normal human.'
Although they were still larvae, once the eggs hatch, the spiders would be strong enough to kill an average-sized animal without the need to weave a trap. Moreover, since the growth rate of spiders was much faster than that of humans, it would not take long for them to reach maturity.
Even if most larvae did not survive to adulthood, there would still be enough spiders to create a small army. This terrifying ability to reproduce and develop was the main reason why the monsters were so dangerous to races like humans.
'Mmmm...Although I should feel guilty, I can't pass up the opportunity to get free XP, so...'
Marcus set the egg on the ground, unsheathed his sword, and proceeded to stab the huge silk egg killing the larva in the process.
...
{You have gained 1 xp}
...
Although the spider larvae didn't give much, Marcus continued destroying all the eggs in the nest. When he was done, he got a total of 584 XP.
'Tch... I'm still another 58000 points short of leveling up. Looks like this won't be as "easy" as before.'
After Marcus went through his second evolution, the amount of XP needed to level up had tripled compared to when he was at level 20. So now the amount of monsters he had to kill had increased drastically.
Ding!
...
{User has killed a large amount of arachnid beasts in a short amount of time.}
...
{Conditions have been met}
...
{You have acquired the title [Arachnid Genocider}
...
{Arachnid Genocider: When you face arachnid monsters, your attacks generate 10% more damage}
...
'Oh... At least I got something good after all. Well, I guess I'll just wait until the sun goes down... Ah... Forget Willson on the island!'
Marcus had been so focused on his suicidal plan to escape the island, that he had forgotten to put away his precious 'talking partner' before he jumped. But as Marcus was about to find out, forgetting his partner would be the least of his problems.
...
{The user has been exposed to solar energy.}
...
{Strength, Defense, Agility and Intelligence stats have been reduced by 90%.}
...
{The efficiency of all necrotic energy-related skills decay by 60%}
...
'Huh?'
Marcus was shocked, he was clearly in a place where sunlight couldn't reach, so why was the system saying otherwise?
A few minutes later, Marcus saw a small beam of light coming from the entrance of the den and, after pondering for a moment, decided to expose his arm to the sunlight.
...
{The user has been exposed to direct sunlight.}
...
{The user will receive sun damage while exposed to sunlight.}
...
The instant Marcus touched the sunbeam, his HP began to decay and his arm began to smoke. Seeing this, he immediately moved away from the sunbeam and his HP soon stopped dropping.
'Hum...So, as long as I don't expose myself to direct sunlight, I won't suffer any damage, but, anyway I will still be affected by the ambient solar energy until it gets dark or something neutralizes it... Is it just me or are the undead in this world very nerfed?'
Normally in Earth novels or video games, many undead were affected by sunlight, but it was always enough for them to hide in a dark place or be under a shadow to avoid the effects.
But in Marcus' case it was much worse, because, should he find himself in a dangerous situation, he would not be able to do anything while there was still sunlight even if he was in a dark place. Therefore his only option was to wait and pray that nothing would go wrong until it was dark.
Fortunately for him, the spider's lair turned out to be an excellent shelter so he made it through the rest of the day without much trouble and before he knew it, it was night again.
'Okay let's see... one battle mace, three swords, two spears, and six sets of armor... Tch, damn it Bairus if you were the final Boss at least you could have left me some magic item as a reward.'
In his time on the floating island, Marcus had managed to get his hands on a lot of weapons and armor, but almost all of them were destroyed in the confrontation with the semi-lich, and although he still had Bairus' staff, it was so destroyed that it was practically useless.
And even though Marcus still had some weapons and armor, he didn't know how long he would be in the jungle or how long those weapons would last.
But since there was no point in complaining about that, Marcus could only make do with what he had and try to get out of the jungle as quickly as possible.
Once Marcus finished his preparations, he exited the burrow and the first thing he noticed was that, although it was a bit eaten away, the corpse of the huge spider was still in the same place where it died.
'Oh, it's still mostly intact... I wonder if it still has that thing inside.'
Without wasting any more time, Marcus approached the corpse and began to check the spider's entrails until after a few minutes he managed to pull out a crystal from inside it.
The crystal was the size of a tennis ball and, although it was covered in a disgusting green fluid, it still emitted a faint glow of light.
================================
Name: Rehi Crystal [Hargarn Spider].
Grade: 2.1
================================
Durability: 70 /70
Energy: 1200/1200
Description:
A Rehi crystal from a [Hargarn Spider].
Contains poisonous energy.
================================
'Phew... For a minute there I thought they'd taken it away. Looks like my luck isn't so bad after all.'
In many of the novels Marcus read in his past life, it was fairly common for monsters to be able to use magical or special skills.
But unlike humans or other intelligent races that use magic through spells and complex techniques, monsters did so through a condensed energy core or crystal in their bodies.
At first, Marcus doubted this idea because all the undead he had encountered didn't have any kind of crystal. But his doubts were cleared once he learned that Bairus' staff was made of a crystal from a monster.
But, as Marcus was more concerned with finding a place to hide than checking the spider's corpse, he hadn't noticed this.
Fortunately, Marcus was able to obtain the core and, although he had no idea how to use it, he decided to take it anyway. After all, maybe it could be useful later on.
'Well now, where should I go...Mmm...There are mountains to the west, so I guess I'll follow the moons and go east...Sigh, it's at these times when I'd really like to have a minimap or a GPS.'
Without much choice, Marcus started walking through the dense jungle.
Although Marcus' current strength was enough to defeat a monster of his own rank with relative ease, he opted to hide his presence as much as possible and move forward without attracting the attention of predators.
After all, his current strength was mostly due to his ability to use magic so he could not risk running out of MP and becoming vulnerable to monster attacks.
****
'Seriously what's up with this jungle?! This is a thousand times worse than the subterranean facilities!'
After a few hours of walking, Marcus had already made quite a bit of progress, but to tell the truth, it didn't seem like he was making much progress.
He had also had multiple encounters with many jungle monsters including car-sized lizards, giant frogs, and salamanders, dragonflies as big as elephants, and some snakes over 10 meters (33 ft) long.
Many of these monsters were between rank 3 and 4, so Marcus didn't dare fight them and although he was nearly eaten a couple of times, he had somehow managed to escape, suffering a couple of fractures in the process.
*tremble, tremble... Creack... Thud, Thud*
But at that moment, out of nowhere and without warning, the ground began to shake and dozens of trees began to be knocked down with a thud.
Marcus immediately unsheathed his sword, prepared some defensive spells, and hid behind some bushes to try to hide his presence.
*tremble, tremble, tremble*.
A few seconds later a huge centipede the size of a train appeared just inches from where Marcus was standing.
================================
Race: Beast
Species: Titanic centipede.
Titles: [Lord centipede],[Destroyer],
[Reptile hunter].
Rank: 6
Level: 62
================================
HP: 11830/11830 MP: 25470/25470
================================