How lucky, it was the attack skill she had been longing for.
When it came to adventure worlds of swords and magic, how could one do without the passionate plots of shouting skill names and defeating enemies while rambling about bonds and friendship?
Even if it was chuunibyou and embarrassing, an another world should be like this; otherwise, it just wouldn’t have the right flavor.
She was certain of it.
However, her pursuit of an attack skill wasn’t just for chuunibyou style points; it was simply the best judgment based on her current needs.
‘Anyway, let’s look at the skill description first.’
[Claw Strike]: Use sharp claws to attack.
Such a short textual explanation made Ning Lan’s heart skip a beat.
She had seen this kind of perfunctory writing before—the kind that seemed to have nothing to say but was required to have a description nonetheless.
It was usually for things like walls, stones, and mushrooms.
A mushroom was a mushroom, and a Claw Strike was a Claw Strike.
The former was the most humble, bottom-tier creature in the Great Labyrinth, while the latter… surely wouldn’t be much better.
At any rate, whether it was useful or not would only be known after trying it.
However, she never imagined that after pondering for a long time on how to release the skill, the final conclusion would be that a mushroom couldn’t use Claw Strike.
The reason was very realistic: mushrooms didn’t have claws.
It was perfectly logical.
It was so logical that Ning Lan’s mind was full of complaints, yet she found herself speechless.
‘Even skills exist now, so why can’t there be some adaptation? Getting something I can’t even use… this has to be a bug! Zero stars!’
Naturally, no one paid attention to her complaints.
Perhaps a mushroom that could obtain skills from other races was a bug in itself, but no one was coming to patch it, were they?
After calming down for a few seconds, Ning Lan felt she had been prejudiced again.
Ultimately, these game-like things came from the System Panel, but when the filter of the panel was removed, it was still a real and normal world.
She couldn’t truly treat reality as a game.
So, if a mushroom couldn’t use it, then so be it.
She would just look for skills a mushroom could use later.
The greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment.
If she hadn’t been looking forward to it for so long, she wouldn’t have been this upset.
‘The road is long and difficult, and the life of a mushroom is full of bumps.’
However, it seemed this skill still had some hope.
A mushroom had no hands, but an elf did.
Although there were differences between hands and claws, it shouldn’t be completely unusable.
Looking around, Ning Lan found a target nearby.
A Screaming Wood—its trunk, wrapped in flexible bark, should be an excellent practice dummy.
She activated Claw Strike.
It succeeded, but only halfway.
Her hands could indeed be used as claws, but there was a difference after all.
The elf’s violet eyes filled with tears.
The “refreshing” feeling of having several fingernails flipped back was not one bit lighter than the pain of having her neck bitten through.
‘Seal it. Seal it permanently. I will never use this treacherous, trash skill again in my life.’
Ning Lan wiped away the tears that flowed from the physiological pain.
Even though she had never felt tired or sleepy since reincarnating as a mushroom, she specifically stopped to sit against a tree trunk to rest for a while.
The elf likely had a tear-prone constitution.
Once she started crying, her tear ducts were like a broken dam, letting the tears surge out uncontrollably.
She felt embarrassed in her heart, but she was also incredibly grateful that no one else was around.
If she were to cry like this in front of others, given her “men bleed but don’t cry” masculine mindset, she would probably be so ashamed that she’d want to prove her resolve through death.
‘Speaking of which, since this is the Second Floor of the Labyrinth, aren’t there too few adventurers?’
Even if one floor of the Labyrinth was unimaginably vast, it shouldn’t be to the point where she hadn’t seen a single other team besides the elf’s group.
Ning Lan realized something was wrong, but she couldn’t think of the reason.
Ultimately, she had been in this another world for too short a time and simply couldn’t gather enough information.
She thought for a bit, then like a student facing the final big question on a math exam, she threw up her hands and gave up thinking.
But the rare peace was always disturbed by creatures that didn’t know better.
A piece was missing from the vision she perceived—clearly, another slime had invaded her territory and damaged the Fungal Network.
A moment later, the elven girl held her staff, lightly sobbing while sniffing her nose.
Occasionally, she let out a few hiccups, looking pitiful and delicate, yet her hands were swift and decisive.
She swung the staff, completely annihilating the group of slimes that had appeared out of nowhere.
[Individual Level increased: LV 8 > LV 9. Basic attributes increased.]
[Proficiency has reached a certain level. Skill gained: Staff Strike LV 1]
[Staff Strike]: Use a staff to attack.
‘Wait, what?’
‘Are you playing with me, God? Why did this skill only show up now?’
If it had come a bit earlier, she wouldn’t have spent so much effort researching that Claw Strike, and she wouldn’t be sitting here constantly shedding tears because of the pain.
But thinking about her intelligence stat—the one related to skill experience—she didn’t feel like saying much.
Getting something for free was a win.
Even though it was late, Ning Lan still wanted to say it arrived just in time.
Although it was also a minimalist description, Staff Strike was far more suitable for her than Claw Strike.
Because it was a skill earned through her own proficiency accumulation, her understanding of Staff Strike was much clearer.
Recently, her insights into using the staff had become more distinct; some problems were resolved, and she understood more moves by analogy.
Perhaps limited by the skill level, the improvement wasn’t obvious, but compared to the disorganized attacks of a child swinging a stick before, it could now be considered a proper move.
If she faced a Gray Wolf again, she was confident she could take it down head-on.
‘Before I knew it, I reached Level 9. Have I already escaped the cannon fodder class?’ she thought happily.
“Brother, didn’t the Association say the Second Floor shows signs of collapse and they don’t recommend adventurers explore it recently? Why are we taking this risk?”
The sturdy man wore iron armor with a one-handed sword hanging at his waist.
There was a round shield on his left vambrace, and he carried a backpack sewn from monster fur on his back, which looked bulging and well-equipped.
He was a shield-swordsman, and traveling with him was a ranger with a bow—Tis, the “Brother” he spoke of.
At this moment, Tis was using Hawkeye to observe the environment and identify their direction.
Seeming to have confirmed their position, Tis rolled his eyes at the sturdy man and said irritably, “Do you even know what a collapse is? You’re just following the crowd. The Labyrinth is much more stable than we imagine. Even if every floor changes its position, it won’t affect the people inside the layers.”
“The collapse just causes the mana concentration of the Second Floor to gradually increase, approaching the levels of the floors below. The real danger comes from the monsters that grow rapidly after the mana changes, but it’s a gradual process. Strong guys won’t just pop out suddenly, you get it? While those cowards are scared off, we’ll prepare ourselves to go to that Hidden Room and open the treasure chest.”
“Oh, oh. You know so much, Brother.”
“I told you to watch and learn more, but you won’t listen. You’d rather just train those dead muscles of yours, Duo Lun.”
Hearing this, Duo Lun only chuckled honestly and said, “Thinking is for you, Brother. My brain isn’t good enough, so I’ll just train my strength to protect you.”
Tis grumbled a few times but didn’t speak, silently continuing their trek.
“Brother.”
“What now?”
“I feel like this place is creepy.”
“Screaming Wood. This whole Woodland area is full of them. They just look scary, but they’re actually inanimate objects.”
“Isn’t there a rumor that these are changed from the agonizing souls of those who died in the Labyrinth?”
Tis dismissed it with a scoff. “You believe that? You might as well believe your brother is the chosen one of the God of Nature.”
“We’re almost there. I saw the entrance near here before.”
The two quickly entered a focused state and began searching for details in the surroundings.
A Hidden Room was a special space in the Labyrinth.
The entrances were hidden and their locations were random, but they contained excellent things—treasures, potions, equipment, and so on.
They were all precious items worth a thousand gold.
Tis had once been stranded and pursued by thieves; while fleeing, he had brushed past the entrance.
Now that the opportunity was rare, it was time to take this hard-to-come-by treasure.
However, he felt the surrounding environment had changed quite a bit compared to back then.
‘Were there this many dirt mounds when I passed through before?’
“Brother, watch out!”
The shield-swordsman activated Shield Charge.
He quickly rushed to his brother’s side and stabbed a monster that was sneak-attacking from behind.
It was very weak.
Monsters on the Second Floor were only at this level.
The monster’s corpse was tossed off the blade.
Tis instinctively looked over and saw a large, bee-like monster with transparent wings on its back, a giant mouthpart, and a sharp sting on its tail.
He froze for a second, then immediately shouted at Duo Lun, “Run! It’s a Large Hornet!”
The terrain had changed because those ugly mounds of varying heights were actually the nests of the Large Hornets.
These bees were nearly half the size of a human and were relatively weak individually; Bronze-tier Adventurers like them could handle them easily.
But Large Hornets never fought alone.
They were experts in the art of swarming, and they were exceptionally vengeful.
If you killed one Large Hornet, the whole hive would swarm out and chase you until you left the area.
A numbing buzzing sound grew louder and more massive.
The ranger gritted his teeth and took out a scroll.
After a wall of fire rose to the sky to block the bees, they took off running.