Chapter 10 The Lizard is using the Stepping Technique
The law of the jungle.
It was natural for the strong to take from the weak.
【Black Piranha LV8】
The piranha thought of me as food and was gnawing on my tail.
I immediately swung my tail like a whip.
The power coming from my long tail was stronger than I expected. The piranha soared high into the sky from the recoil.
I seized the opportunity and gathered strength in my legs.
I was standing on a single lotus leaf.
Any abrupt movement would make me fall into the water.
Of course, that would be the case for an ordinary lizard.
I kicked off the boundary between the water and the lotus leaf, leaping into the air.
Even a piranha, known for having a bite force as strong as a shark, was just another fish out of water.
Moreover, the current location was not land but the air. It was literally defenseless.
“Gaegek!”
I focused the force created by breaking the water’s surface into a single point.
The target was the piranha’s belly.
If I were to name this move, it would be something like Soaring Dragon’s Ascension Strike.
Thud!
The piranha remained suspended in the air for a prolonged time.
Its size was equal to mine. I knew this attack wouldn’t finish it off.
If I left it like this, it would escape back into the water.
I spun my body, striking the piranha down with my tail.
Thwack!
A duller sound than before was heard.
It was what one might call a bone-hitting situation.
Or in this case, a fish bone-hitting situation.
The purpose of this attack was not just to strike.
My goal was to change the landing point of the piranha.
Thump!
The piranha was pushed by my tail and fell to the ground.
Still alive, it struggled desperately to get back into the water.
Crunch!
However, once on land, it was only a matter of time before it succumbed to my Soaring Dragon’s Ascension Step.
Phew.
Such a trivial thing daring to act up.
I slapped the now lifeless piranha with my long tail.
It had bitten and gnawed on my tail, leaving wounds, but it didn’t hurt much.
The tail of a gecko lizard regenerates on its own. Even though I had become a basilisk, that ability was still retained.
Seeing that the Wall Climbing skill was still available, I could tell that I could still use my former abilities despite the change in my foot structure.
Even if I evolved one step further and became a Big Basilisk Saurus, it meant I could still perform feats like running on water and climbing walls.
Slap, slap.
After massaging the piranha for a while, I grabbed its fin to drag it back to my lair.
At that moment, a splash occurred.
Splash!
Piranhas presumed to be its companions appeared.
【Black Piranha LV4】
【Black Piranha LV5】
【Black Piranha LV7】
Their levels were lower than the one I had caught, but there were many of them.
A total of three.
I had already reaped enough.
There was no reason to fight them.
I intended to intimidate them appropriately and then leave.
Grrr.
I felt an ominous presence from the depths of the water.
It was similar to the hot feeling inside me.
I could instinctively sense it.
Something big was coming.
Roar!
As it emerged halfway above the water, a massive spray of water was created from the recoil.
【Black Piranha LV10(+)】
It was putting on airs, but it was still just a piranha.
“Gekgek.”
I was a bit disappointed.
I was about to leave without giving it another glance.
…Wait, why does it have a + after its name?
Wasn’t that what I had before I evolved?
And its appearance was somewhat odd.
While the other piranhas were typical, this one resembled a koi.
It wasn’t black at all but red.
What on earth was it?
I wanted to yank its whiskers and ask, but dealing with four piranhas at once was too much.
I wrapped the piranha I had caught with my tail.
They were swimming towards me.
They seemed to have noticed I was trying to escape.
Foolish creatures.
Like a small dragon flying in the sky, I leapt over them.
It was the Soaring Dragon’s Ascension Step.
“Gekgek!”
I let out a satisfied chuckle as I ran on the water back to my lair.
*
I arrived at my lair, thoroughly keeping a lookout.
I could hear the sound of the piranhas thrashing about in frustration.
If I had stayed on the water, they might have caught me.
But I actively utilized the terrain.
Running on water, climbing reeds.
Leaping through the air and landing on water again.
It was a path that fish could never follow, a path only a basilisk lizard could take.
“Gekgek!”
The moment I had long awaited had arrived.
I glanced at the plump piranha.
Drool dripped from my mouth.
I wanted to devour it right away, but I was a cultured lizard.
Crunch.
I carefully removed the scales of the piranha.
If it were the old me, I would have handled it with my small mouth.
But I was no longer a gecko lizard; I was a basilisk lizard.
There were many changes since my days as a gecko, but the most noticeable was my elongated body.
The most tangible change was my arms.
No, it would be more accurate to call them forelegs.
In the past, I would have used them merely as forelegs.
Short and stubby, the best I could do was waddle around.
But now it was different. I could mimic human actions, albeit clumsily.
I elegantly removed the scales attached to the piranha’s body.
In fact, descaling was an extravagant task.
The process was very laborious.
Other lizards might have chosen to make a small hole and eat from there. If they were larger, they would have swallowed it whole.
But I was a refined and graceful lizard.
The ingredient before me was a fish.
It was a completely different ingredient from the crispy insect jerky and the unpleasantly crunchy insect sashimi.
It would be delicious boiled in a spicy stew with plenty of red pepper paste or stewed with radish. It would be fantastic fried crispy in clean oil and made into fish and chips.
If only I had some French fries to go with it…
…Such choices were not available to me at the moment.
The only option left was to eat it raw.
Still, fish was palatable enough to eat raw.
I lifted the descaled piranha with both hands.
Chomp.
I opened my mouth wide and took a big bite of the flesh.
Chew, chew.
“Gek!”
I screamed without realizing it.
Was this really the taste of fish?
The faint sweetness of the flesh.
The taste, similar to red meat, typical of red-fleshed fish.
It didn’t have the muddy taste typical of freshwater fish, probably because it was a carnivorous fish.
It was chewy and sweet.
Taking a big bite also contributed to the taste.
Chomp.
The satisfaction was incomparable to thinly sliced sashimi.
Crunch.
In an instant, I devoured the entire piranha.
[Level has increased!]
Leveling up was a bonus.
It was a shame I didn’t have soy sauce or wasabi, but it was far superior to insects.
[Acquired 「Gourmet LV1」!]
「Gourmet LV1」
The more delicious food you eat, the easier it is to gain inspiration.
Now they’re giving me all sorts of things.
Inspiration, huh? Is it similar to enlightenment?
I scratched my head with my long tail.
With my belly full, it was time to make use of whatever this inspiration or whatever it was.
Let’s summarize the situation.
First of all, this world was full of dinosaurs.
At first, I thought I had fallen into the Paleozoic era, but that wasn’t it.
There were creatures that didn’t exist in the Paleozoic era.
A fantasy world with dinosaurs.
Considering I had a status window and skills, that seemed highly likely.
But that didn’t seem to be the case either.
The spider fed me a core and taught me a stepping technique called Soaring Dragon’s Ascension Step.
Considering all this, it was clear that this world was a martial arts world.
Scratch, scratch.
I scratched my smart head with my tail.
So what could I do?
Even after thinking hard, I couldn’t come up with an immediate answer.
What did it matter if this world’s genre was fantasy or martial arts?
I was just a lizard right now.
A very small and weak lizard.
Contemplating the nature of this world was something to be done after becoming stronger.
And I knew how to get stronger here.
Leveling up.
Of course, that wasn’t the end.
More important than leveling up was evolving.
Evolving just one step from a gecko lizard made things this much easier.
Of course, my evolution wasn’t ordinary.
It was a special evolution unlocked by achieving certain conditions.
Special evolution.
I needed to delve deeper into this.
Just as the Sprint skill was a condition for evolving into a basilisk, other skills could be evolution conditions for other creatures. Now was the time to learn as many skills as possible.
The more options, the better.
If I ate a lot of poisonous insects and acquired related skills, I might evolve into something like a Komodo dragon.
To achieve special evolution, I needed to learn skills.
In other words, I had to experience as much
as possible within my means.
I roughly set my course of action.
Now, only one problem remained.
That was the core.
Even if I reached the maximum level, I wouldn’t evolve immediately.
‘The mystical energy dwells within your body.’
After seeing this phrase, I could evolve.
In other words, I needed to consume something like a core to move on to the next stage.
This was the problem.
I didn’t know where that spider got such things, but cores were basically rare items. It was highly unlikely I would find one even if I searched until the end of this lizard’s lifespan.
Hoo.
Where could I find a core?
Splash!
The piranhas I saw earlier were still thrashing around in the distance, seemingly angry.
I envied them.
They just needed to swim mindlessly.
They couldn’t understand the hardships of a high-level lizard like me.
Grrr.
Now they were even creating whirlpools in their intense protest.
Do they think they’re dragons?
“Kwaeeek!”
A loud noise was heard.
I looked up and saw a toad jumping around.
“Gekgek!”
Leave while I’m being nice.
Unless you want to incur the wrath of Green Basilisk LV2.
If I weren’t full from eating the fish, I would have hunted that toad right away.
“Kwaeeek!”
It had a strangely golden hue, which made it look unappetizing.
Ugh.
“Grrr!”
What now?
On the other side of the toad, a large golden turtle was crawling around.
It was rolling its body around, poking here and there.
Did I choose the wrong lair?
“Gekgekek!”
Please be quiet!
What kind of neighbors do I have?
I sighed deeply.
If only a core would drop from somewhere.