Epic of Caterpillar

[Calculating Total EXP earned…]

[You earned 1220000 EXP]

[Your Level has increased from Level 7 to Level 8!]

[All your Stats have increased]

[You gained Stat Points and Skill Points]

[You exchanged 10 Stat Points for Divinity]

[You gained +50 Divinity]

"Phew, only one level after an entire night of grinding? Well, it wasn\'t that many monsters, less than a hundred I guess. I need way more quantities than this if I want to Level Up more, like hundreds or thousands… Well, if I continue this for an entire week I might gain several levels." I sighed.

This was the slow grind after all, but if I can find those Dungeons that I had heard about in the Ankh Desert, I could clean them up and gain more EXP in masse.

"But for now… I guess this is enough."

I looked into my Inventory, finding several dozens of corpses from monsters. These better be worth some money. Maybe I could give them to Silva to restore her MP as well.

When I reached the city and showed Elfina and Floresse the pile of monsters, both dropped their jaws.

"Y-You hunted so many at night?! Did you went to the Aknh Deser all the way from here?!" Elfina asked.

"Yeah I can fly…." I sighed.

"Impressive, these are all high ranked monsters and rather expensive! If you give them all to me for free, I think it should be enough to lift our economy." Said Floresse.

"Oh, no need to summon anymore?" I wondered.

"Indeed, this should be more than enough!" Floresse said.

"Alright, now you give me a favor then." I said.

"Eh?" Floresse asked, tilting her head.

"I want to summon more Skeleton Knights and Golems, and probably Orc Warriors and Fire Salamanders to make an army of a few Hundred, so can I borrow your people\'s Mana until the end of the week?" I wondered.

"W-What are you planning on doing, Kireina?" Asked Elfina with a trembling voice.

"I am just going to make our own army! This way we can conquer Dungeons we find using them." I said with a smile. "Pretty nice, right?"

"T-That\'s… You\'re really thinking about cleaning an entire Dungeon in the Ankh Desert?! There are dozens!" Elfina said.

.

"Yeah, it is nice EXP. You\'ll also leech EXP so you can level up too, the higher your level the better your buffs, right? You\'re required." I said.

"You\'re talking so casually about something like this…" Floresse sighed. "But fine, I shall lend you my people. I know that your ultimate goal is defeating the Demon King, our foe, so this is a necessary sacrifice. They\'ll have to endure a bit more." She sighed.

"Thanks a lot, Floresse!" I said in my little humanoid form. I resembled a devilish vampire girl.

Sol, who was watching from the sidelines, seemed a bit shocked.

"I-I feel like I am not helping at all…" He sighed.

"Well you aren\'t…" I said. "So you\'re coming with me every day to the nearby Wasteland to hunt monsters and earn your keep!"

"Y-Yes ma\'am!" He said nervously.

Sol had developed through the war and earned enough EXP to reach max level, after that he went through an apparent evolution of sorts, and gained even more strength, stats, and skills. Although he still is not as strong as I am, he got his own set of powerfully lethal skills and magic, so he\'ll do an amazing party member in my hunt shifts.

"If you can bring me the corpses of the monsters you hunt, that\'ll also count into what I\'ll need, and it will be a good pay for all the Mana you\'re asking my citizens." Said Floresse.

"Sure, I\'ll bring them." I said, although I was keeping a lot of them inside my Item Box for my own use.

Like that, I spent the rest of the week hunting monsters and doing a few other chores. I got to know more of the city and its people, and also discussed my plans with Luminous, Elfina, and Sol. At the end of the week, I had reached Level 10, just two more levels, but it was better than nothing. I had also applied the Stat Points into Divinity, but nothing happened yet. I need more stats I guess.

I have also practiced some of my new Divinities and Daos, but the one I had yet to use was… the Dao of Summoning. The Dao of Gates granted the ability to create up to four Gates that can connect to another place where there is a Gate, literally just teleportation with extra steps. Like this, I can set up a Gate in this city and teleport there at any time by creating a Gate.

However, the Gates themselves only last for around 48 Hours before disappearing, and each Gate costs a lot of MP to make, so I can\'t use them leisurely! However, I can already think of a few ways I could abuse this power. And well, about the Summon Dao.

I\'ve been quite nervous. I don\'t really know what might come out of it, quite honestly. It is just a Fragment, but one Fragment was enough to give me Bubu.

Can I get Bubu again, I wonder? But I do remember I gave Rimuru all I had, so maybe Bubu was transferred to her…

Err, well, I had to try using this Dao to see what it can do, so eventually I mustered the courage and went to the outskirts of the city at the morning.

"Dao of Summoning!"

FLASH!

Activating the Dao, suddenly, a big magic circle emerged before me, it began to tremble, as it continued to showcase several strange patterns and words, glowing bright white. It was definitely something in there! Something… something, I don\'t know what kind of something, but there was going to happen, something was going to come!

FLASH!

Another flash of bright light emerged, as a small figure started to come from within…

And it was an egg?

However, inside of the egg there was something…

"Buuuuu!"

A small caterpillar!