Single Spell Sorcerer Chapter 23: Ants and Worms

The grassland swayed gently in the wind, its blades coming up to Jax's waist. He held the knife in his right hand and the short dagger in his left, while his eyes road the scenic landscape for any sign of unusual movents.

There were many people spread around the grassland searching for the monsters just as he was. Many were in parties, but a few were solo as well. But each and every one of them had an unspoken deal to never encroach on the area of another person who was already there.

Not only did it help the people catch sight of the monsters, but it also didn't scare them away.

Jax gently stepped his way through the tall grass for a couple of minutes before he saw movent. He quickly ran for it and arrived before a knee-tall beast.

A Great Ant.

"Worms would've been easier, but ants are fine as well."

The ant was about the size of a big dog, its head equipped with a pincer-like mandible at the front. Jax had prepared well for today, so he had read all about these monsters.

Great Ants had strong exoskeletons that were hard to penetrate with usual weapons. Their mandibles were also quite strong, capable of ripping away a chunk of soone's flesh.

This was a reason to wear armor before coming to fight monsters, but Jax didn't have any money for it, so he needed to be careful.

It appeared that he had angered the ant since it ca directly toward him. Its speed was decent, but not fast enough for Jax to worry.

He simply used his spell.

Divine Threads.

The target of the spell was the ant's hind legs. The last four legs of the ant were instantly tied together, and since it could not reach them with anything of its own, those legs were going to remain tied for a while.

The ant still tried to co for him with its two forelegs, but it had nearly not enough speed at that point. Jax quietly circled around the ant and got onto its back.

He had read about the monster's one weakness. If one got onto its back, it could do nothing about it at all.

Atop the ant, Jax swung down the knife on the ant's neck where its large head t its torso. It was the weak point of the ant, easily torn apart.

Jax's blade cut through the ant's neck, killing it right away. The crunch of the kill was rather satisfying, and Jax waited for loot after the kill.

Sadly, nothing appeared.

"Tsk!"

Jax clicked his tongue in disappointnt. The monsters in the grassland were known to lack Navi stones half the ti, so it wasn't surprising that Jax didn't find any in the ant. Still, he was disappointed.

He could only hope the next monster had one.

Jax cleared away the threads on the ant's legs, regaining a tiny portion of his Navi back. Then, he began dismantling the monster's corpse to get the parts that could be used.

From what he had read, the outer shell on the back of the ant sold for a bit back in the city, along with its mandibles. Jax did his best to dismantle the thing, but when he was done with it, he sohow ended up hating what he did.

His job was shoddy, a half-baked attempt at what Loma had done in the forest the other day. With this level of dismantling, his items would sell for a really low price.

Jax was a little annoyed, but there wasn't much he could do about it at all. All he could do was put the thing into his inventory and move on.

With so many people killing anything they could find, the monsters beca hard to co by as the hours passed.

In the next three hours, Jax found eight more monsters, four of which had a single stone in them. After three hours of searching and killing, Jax had finally managed to gather what he had spent today.

He went on to rest after that, eating a little of what he had brought before going to kill so more again.

It took a while before he found the next beast—a worm.

The worms were large like snakes, but awfully slow-moving. The only thing dangerous about them was the pheromones they gave off as they walked.

If one took too long to kill it, the pheromones would start to numb a person's taste and sll. It took a long ti before those effects wore off, and in a place where one's sense of sll was just as important as any other sense, they couldn't afford to let that happen.

Jax didn't even need a spell to kill the worm. He simply got atop it and slid his knife into its back, tearing it all the way down to the end.

As the worm died, the stone ca out of it, which he imdiately grabbed. Then, he dug his hands inside the worm's body in search of a small flesh pouch where it kept those pheromones.

That pouch was a major ingredient for the numbing potion he had bought today. It sold for more than the ant did, which, albeit, wasn't a lot to begin with.

Jax imdiately left after retrieving the pouch and moved on to kill so more.

"Everyone has killed so many," Gemma said as Jax walked. "Most of the monsters that were created by the Grassland last night must be gone."

"Do they only form overnight?" Jax asked. "Never during the day?"

"The fields always adapt to the actions of the people. Since no one in the 10th Carriage ever fights after dark, the fields usually replenish the lost monsters in the dead of night."

"In other places where people fight even after dark, it may adapt to recycling the monsters quickly after they're dead," Gemma explained. "And in so places, the fields adapt in such a way that it only allows a single person or group to enter it at one ti. Those places are what we usually call Dungeons."