Catfish!
I've been waiting for you, catfish!
I finally found you, catfish!
Now hand over your meat!
Hand it over right now!
There's only one option here—kill it and take it by force!
I've finally found the catfish I've been dreaming of!
It's leisurely swimming through the magma.
First, I need to lure it out from inside the magma.
By the way, my Appraisal on the catfish succeeded too.
Its Status is pretty much the same as the previous one.
The Skills the catfish has are "Fire Dragon LV2," "Dragon Scale LV1," "Accuracy LV7," "Swimming LV6," "Overeating LV2," and "Heat Immunity."
At Fire Dragon LV2, you can use a technique called Heat Wrap, which—as the name suggests—wraps your body in heat.
I thought it was some kind of defensive technique, but based on Appraisal's explanation, the most important part seems to be that it boosts your physical abilities while active.
Still, since it heats up your own body, if you don't have heat resistance, it'll end up damaging yourself instead.
The catfish has Heat Immunity though, so that's not a problem.
Dragon Scale is a Skill that causes special scales to grow all over the body.
How special, you ask? Well, not only do they have high defense, but they also apparently interfere with magical energy to some degree.
It's not that they block magic directly—they interfere with the magic's composition to weaken its power.
But whatever, I can't use magic anyway, so I'll just think of them as really tough scales and leave it at that.
The rest are Skills we already know about.
Hmm, but I just had a thought—could this catfish be an evolved form of the seahorse?
They're both Fire Dragon types, and the Skills it has are basically upgraded versions of the seahorse's.
Compared to the seahorse, the Skill levels are higher, and it's gained Dragon Scale and Overeating.
Looking at the species and Skill composition, it does seem plausible.
But if that's the case, does it really change that much in appearance after Evolution?
Going from a seahorse to a catfish—biologically speaking, isn't that more like a regression?
I'm not knowledgeable enough to say for sure.
The shape is pretty different, but let's see—if you took that round little mouth and stretched it waaaay out, then made the whole body thicker and bulkier, I guess you'd get something catfish-like?
Hmm.
Not quite sure.
Well, whatever. It doesn't really matter.
The only thing I care about is the catfish's meat.
So, let's go with a preemptive strike—poison stones, here I go!
The poison stone I threw hits the catfish's back.
Yep.
Its HP barely drops at all.
Same as before—I'll go with the strategy of hitting it with Poison Synthesis when it charges at me.
But just as I'm thinking that, the catfish starts spitting Fireball breaths at me from inside the magma.
You've gotta be kidding me.
Those Fireballs are bigger and faster than the seahorse's.
Well, they still don't hit me though.
I dodge the incoming Fireball with ease.
Thought Acceleration so far only extends my perception of time by a little bit, but even so, compared to my normal state, the entire world feels like it's moving slower.
Thanks to my absurdly high speed, I can still move relatively normally within that slow-moving time.
Once my Thought Acceleration Skill level goes up, that sluggishness will probably get even more extreme, so I'm not sure how it'll feel then.
Right now, one second feels like it's stretched to about 1.1 seconds?
Since it's all perception-based, I can't say for sure, but that's roughly what it feels like.
The catfish fires off a second shot.
This thing's doing the exact same thing as the seahorse.
The catfish really does seem like an evolved seahorse.
That previous catfish probably just happened to come onto land right at the start—normally it'd use the same strategy as the seahorse, right?
Oh, but it does have that new Heat Wrap technique, so maybe it adapts its approach depending on the situation.
Last time, maybe it just happened to pop its face out, saw something there, and went "Well, might as well attack."
I dodge the catfish's Fireball.
It should be running low on MP soon—how will the catfish handle this?
The seahorse mindlessly climbed onto dry land once its MP ran out. What about the catfish?
If it doesn't come onto land, I'll be in trouble. But based on how it fled last time, it seems like it might try to run if it feels its life is in danger.
I won't allow that.
I'll chase it to the ends of the earth if I have to.
But ignoring my concerns entirely, the catfish stops spitting Fireballs.
Huh?
It still has some MP left, doesn't it?
Oh, it just dropped.
Did it use Heat Wrap?
Being able to tell things like this is so amazing.
I know everything about my opponent.
Appraisal is truly overpowered.
The catfish climbs out of the magma.
It charges straight at me with its mouth wide open.
Heh heh heh.
That's exactly what I've been waiting for!
I lure it in sufficiently, then hit it with Poison Synthesis.
At the same time, I quickly dodge out of the way.
The catfish barrels forward, swallowing lethal poison as it goes.
I watch it charge past, and—oh, the catfish collapsed.
It's twitching all over.
Spider venom really is insanely potent.
Regular strong poison alone wouldn't have this kind of effect, but combined with the venom I was born with, the power of Poison Synthesis skyrockets.
Seriously, this Skill and I are a perfect match.
Now then, let's douse the suffering catfish with some more poison.
The catfish convulses violently one last time and stops breathing.
Now all I have to do is wait for the heat from Heat Wrap and the magma to cool down.
Food, food!
Up until now, I've been eating the Monsters I defeat out of obligation, but this time is different!
I can savor and enjoy this one.
Oh, how wonderful!
I hope it cools down soon.
I can't wait to eat it.