At this point, Jason is almost afraid to look at his other skills. While sub-skills can be powerful, that is for stuff like farming where there are just too many potential skills for it. No one has the time to train twenty different skills just to grow some beans so instead it gets lumped into one bag.

  Here though, the System was strictly limiting Jason by forcing the movement skill to match his cultivation. While he didn’t have proof, Jason was willing to bet that without the change his movement skill would have allowed him to walk on air already. It might be quite a bit tougher to do, but once you can walk on water, you’re well on your way there.

  Jason sighs and pushes those thoughts to the side. The System might be a bit negative towards early flight, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it for the moment. Though it was kind of a catch 22. Once he is strong enough to push through the System and fly, he will already be strong enough to not be affected by the System’s flight restriction.

  Jason shakes his head. Flight is fun, but he has bigger things to worry about. For instance, when will he see one of those damn salamanders. That was in theory the reason he had hung out in the area and sure, they are supposed to be rare. Still, it has been almost a week and not hide nor hair of them have showed up.

  Frustrated, there isn’t much to do but continue to move. So far he had been zigzagging back and forth between bodies of water. A smart enough plan as it would make sure he came across a wide variety of terrain and opponents. Except there hasn’t been much of anything.

  This information is tickling the hell out of Jason’s “something’s wrong” nerve. While figuring out his movement skill that had gotten pushed to the side, but now it was front and center. This stretch of forest and pounds was too quiet. Even when traveling the road or the loneliest piece of woods he would be confronted by something.

  One quick tree climb later and he has an idea of his surroundings. There is an actual lake not that far ahead and Jason recognizes it from the map. Target in mind it takes him a good few hours to reach the shore as the now oppressive feeling of silence blankets him and night falls almost without notice.

  From there it was a simple matter of getting the campfire lit, his alarm set, and Jason has turned a small peninsula into a semi-cozy campsite. Not a completely cozy one mind you. The wind off the lake has a tinge of a chill to it and a feeling of clamminess. Not the most pleasant feeling, but since he had just added the ability to run on water to his list of abilities, this felt like the safest place to settle down.

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  Jason was a bit distracted so missed the obvious red flags of the situation. He was here to hunt an amphibious monster that starts its life fully aquatic until it leaves the water and yet he wasn’t finding any prey outside of the water. This meant something important had happened recently to the ecosystem that changed things up.

  The first Jason was informed of this problem was when multiple bolts of electricity jumped out of the lake and assaulted him. A devastating attack that dropped his health below half before he was even able to respond. About the only good thing was that he had kept Lily in the harness because of how odd the situation felt.

  Now well and fully awake, Jason is barely able to dodge another series of bolts by rolling to the side. With the second volley complete the enemy monsters finally make their presence known. From the water all around him, a bunch of creatures that almost fit his target emerge.

  Jason isn’t sure what caused it, but at some point the local giant electric salamander population had all ended up taking an alternate evolutionary path. Because these weren’t normal salamanders, they were axolotls. They weren’t exactly all that capable of staying out of the water, but those gill fronds made up for it by allowing them to channel their electricity into a powerful ranged attack.

  If magical lightning was just as fast as natural lightning the fight would be over. That not being the case, the giant electric axolotls ended up sowing their loss by emerging from the water. It did allow them greater control of their attacks, but gave Jason enough time to retreat off of the peninsula.

  This turns the situation from one of being surrounded, to simply facing off against a ranged opponent. While Jason wouldn’t claim to be the best at dodging, he had just qualitatively improved his movement skill. It is unfortunate for him, this didn’t magically give him the ability to fight the axolotls on their home turf.

  So while the axolotls didn’t win the fight, they were still able to drive Jason away from their home. In fact, it could definitely be seen as Jason's loss as he had to leave behind his bell alarm. Though he does plan to retrieve it later, that will have to wait for him to heal up again as even the misses still jolted him.

  All that in mind, Jason ends up relatively near the lake, hiding within the crook of a tree. From below it would be quite hard to spot him. Though he does have some worries about if the axolotls might be able to sense his electric field. Despite that he settles in to recover.

  No matter what else might happen this night, Jason wasn’t ready to end up dead because he tripped over something in the dark and shaved off that last bit of health. While not critical, being below half for the first time in a long time was not a pleasant experience.

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