Chapter 5: Level Up

"ROAR!" The Crocodile Lizard struggled even more frantically, opening its sharp maw and flinging foul-smelling saliva everywhere.

Its thick, long tail thrashed wildly across the relatively narrow balcony, sweeping against the remains of the metal security grating with loud BANGs. However, the vines still bound it tightly, restricting its range of motion. The two sides were locked in a pure contest of strength.

Han Ning could feel his Spiritual Power rapidly draining.

[Spiritual Power: 8/10]

[Spiritual Power: 7/10]

[Vine Technique Skill Level +1, Current: 99/100]

Faced with a life-or-death crisis, the Crocodile Lizard erupted with unprecedented strength. One of its hind legs kicked violently against the wall as it tried to wrench its neck free from the entanglement. One of the vines wrapped around its neck creaked loudly under the pressure; the dark green light on its surface flickered violently, showing faint signs of snapping.

"I can't let it break free!" A fierce light flashed in Han Ning's eyes as he suddenly remembered the meat cleaver in the kitchen.

Splitting his focus to command the vines to strangle the creature even tighter, he shot toward the kitchen like an arrow leaving the bowstring. He yanked open a drawer and grabbed the cleaver.

RIIIIP...

A harsh tearing sound rang out. The vine wrapped around the Crocodile Lizard's neck was finally snapped by its brute strength and the sharp edges of its scales. Its head gained a brief moment of freedom. The creature's yellow, slit-like pupils locked onto the charging Han Ning, and it lunged to take a bite out of his knife-wielding arm.

"Get lost!" Instead of retreating, Han Ning surged forward. He snatched up a small, solid wooden stool—normally used as a step to hang clothes—and wedged it into the Crocodile Lizard's snapping jaws. Then, he raised the cleaver and forcefully plunged it deep into the creature's mouth.

The inside of the Crocodile Lizard's mouth was relatively soft and vulnerable. In an instant, a burst of powerfully pungent liquid sprayed outward, which Han Ning barely managed to dodge.

"ROAR!"

The agonizing pain drove the juvenile Crocodile Lizard completely mad. It stopped trying to break free from the vines and instead launched its body violently forward. The massive force slammed into Han Ning, sending both man and beast crashing hard against the balcony's glass sliding door.

CRASH!

Han Ning felt as if all his internal organs had been violently jolted out of place.

"You son of a bitch, you really refuse to die." Gritting his teeth, he gripped the handle with both hands and used every ounce of his strength to relentlessly twist the blade inside the frantically writhing Crocodile Lizard's throat. "Die, just die!"

The Crocodile Lizard's struggles grew even more violent, its slimy tail slapping the ground over and over. Since its limbs were bound, it could only thrash its body like an alligator, attempting a maneuver similar to a "death roll."

SNAP!

A faint, crisp sound came from the base of the blade. Immediately after, a CLATTER rang out. The relatively fragile blade of the cleaver could no longer hold up, and the section near the handle instantly broke apart. Only a small, sharp fragment of the blade remained lodged deep inside the Crocodile Lizard's throat.

In Han Ning's hands, only a bare metal handle was left.

Seizing this opportunity, he controlled the vines to tightly wrap around the part of the Crocodile Lizard's neck that had swallowed the blade, endlessly constricting it.

"Roar..."

The juvenile Crocodile Lizard's movements stalled, and a wheezing sound of escaping air echoed from deep within its throat. Large amounts of dark red blood gushed from its wound. Its body violently spasmed a few times. The tyrannical and savage light in its yellow, slit-like pupils rapidly dimmed and lost focus, like a flickering candle in the wind.

Finally, its slimy body went completely limp, no longer twitching.

[Vine Technique Skill Level +2, Current: 100/100. Skill Level upgraded!]

[Basic Level Vine Technique -> Intermediate Vine Technique]

"Phew... it's finally dead. It took so much effort just to kill a juvenile."

Seeing that the Crocodile Lizard had stopped moving, Han Ning kicked its head aside. Unable to hold himself up any longer, he leaned his back against the glass door and gasped heavily for air. Sweat had soaked through his pajamas. The freezing night wind and rain blew in through the torn hole in the security grating, pelting his body and causing him to shiver.

Right then, an unexpected change occurred. A wisp of pure blue, streaming light drifted out from the Crocodile Lizard's corpse without any warning. As if possessing a life of its own, it sank into Han Ning's chest.

"Huh?"

Before Han Ning could react, his entire body suddenly stiffened. Immediately after, an indescribable warm current exploded from his heart, surging through all his limbs and bones. Wherever this warm current passed, the muscle soreness from the battle and the exhaustion from his highly strained Spirit rapidly faded away. Every cell in his body furiously absorbed the warmth, like parched earth receiving sweet rain.

He could feel the Spiritual Power that constantly resided within his body beginning to slowly increase. A translucent panel automatically appeared:

[Druid Growth Progress +14]

[Druid Level Upgraded, Level 1 -> Level 2, Current Progress: 1/200]

[Spiritual Power Limit Increased! 10 -> 15]

[Current Spiritual Power: 7/15]

[Awakened New Skill: Animal Companion]

"Killing these monsters... actually yields this kind of benefit?" Savoring the changes in his body, Han Ning was exceedingly surprised. "Moreover, after leveling up, the Druid's growth progress doesn't overflow. It resets to zero and starts accumulating all over again..."

Previously, training hard to raise his Skills and Skill Level had also increased his Druid experience, but the progress had been rather slow. Yet, the experience brought by killing a juvenile Crocodile Lizard had directly allowed him to break through the bottleneck of Level 1. This meant that if he wanted to become stronger quickly, hunting these monsters from the Otherworld was a shortcut, serving as a powerful addition to burying his head in hard training.

"Killing just one juvenile almost took my life; I definitely shouldn't do anything reckless!" Thinking of those fiendish and vicious Crocodile Lizards, Han Ning's expression turned bitter as he realized that this Energy wasn't so easy to obtain either.

Next, his gaze fell on the Vine Technique. It had upgraded from Basic Level to Intermediate, and he wondered how effective it would be now. He couldn't wait to try it out.

Han Ning slowly stood up, carefully sidestepping the Crocodile Lizard's corpse and the murky puddles of bloody water on the floor, and walked to the center of the living room. With a mere thought, the even more vigorous Spiritual Power within his body acted like a soldier receiving orders, rapidly surging toward his arms and gathering in the palms of his hands.

"Vine Technique!"

With a shift of his will... SWISH! SWISH! A sharp sound of piercing the air echoed out.

In an instant, a full ten vines violently shot out from the empty space two meters in front of him. The surface of the dark green vines was covered in sharp Wooden Thorns like needles. If an ordinary person were scraped by these Wooden Thorns, wouldn't they lose a layer of skin? Wouldn't they be left covered in black and blue bruises?

The thickness of each vine clearly exceeded the limits of the Basic Level, reaching a size close to two fingers of an adult man. The maximum number of vines he could unleash was ten, which was two more than at the peak of his Basic Level. Furthermore, the speed at which these ten vines appeared was astonishingly fast.

Of course, this was at their peak thickness and hardness. If the quality of the vines was slightly lower—making them softer, thinner, and longer for use as utility tools—he could release even more.

Han Ning did the math. The time from initiating the thought to the full materialization of the vines had been reduced by nearly a third! What surprised him even more was that his control over the vines had further improved.