"And then I used the clouds to blind him, and the BAM! I smacked over the head really hard, and then I-" RIchard took a chunk out of the wing chewing, about to open his mouth.

  "Ah ah ah, finish chewing before you speak." Chided Alexandria and Richard shut up and chewed for a bit, before continuing to speak.

  "-then I used thunder spear volley and tore him to shreds!" Richard was quite proud of himself currently, and Panda could only roll his eyes.

  "Congratutions! You roasted a turkey. Next time I need my bird well done, I'll ask you." Panda sarcastically remarked. Richard was still busy riding that wave of pride, and thus chose to monotonously ignore Panda.

  "Congratutions, it was a good fight." congratuted Alexandria, amused by how happy the young hatchling was over defeating the hawk.

  "It was right! I don't know why but it felt different from fighting with the concrusher. It felt more alive. It reminded me of when I first fought the saber rat. Alone." Richard went over those thoughts as something clicked in those thoughts.

  "I was fighting alone." He repeated the thought, and realized it.

  Alexandria clicked her tongue, "Close but not quite. It's not about the fact that you fought alone, it's the fact that you were pushed, differently from when you fought with your familiars." She corrected.

  "Having familiars is not a bad thing, but it's important to bance out separate experiences with team exercises. While having team coordination is a good trait to have picked up from being a sensible person, being a dragon is a part of you that you have to learn to use properly. You need to learn how to be able to stand on your own. You're not a person who is weaker than most monsters, who must compensate with teamwork, but one of those monsters, capable of standing on your own feet."

  Richard nodded, as he realized that sister Alexandria once more offered helpful insight. She does that a lot.

  Speaking of familiars, Richard realized someone was missing. Actually, they'd been missing for a while, but Richards had been focused on flight a little too much.

  "Where's Krackle???"

  In the edges of the ck, a boxcw lobster finds itself inside a small kelp forest, and finds itself hungry, reaching out to grab a kelp strand to eat...

  only to be grabbed by the kelp in turn, causing the lobster to use its cube like cw to smash the kelp, before the kelp finally went limp, clearly defeated. The boxcw, clearly satisfied its foe has been bested, has failed to notice the ck of mana inflow that occurs when something dies.

  Poor move.

  As it moves to cim its price, it finds itself caught by one more kelp, and prepares to use its cw once more, only to find its cw has been grabbed by another kelp, and its lesser cw grabbed by yet another kelp.

  As it struggled, something arose from the shifting waterbed, a bulbous infted head emerges from the depth as two giant eyes stared down upon the boxcw lobster.

  With a fsh! the boxcw finds itself disoriented, and the kelp yank hard, tearing off the lobster's only form of defense, as the looming head lunges forward, biting the boxcw's head off!

  Krackle pats itself on the back for the camoufge it set up, clearly enough to fool this foolish beast.

  Krackle has hunted another beast,

  Krackle will grow stronger!

  Krackle sunk back into the ke, as a rhythmic rumbling vibrated throughout the ke.

  "Hunting, you dumb twat!" Responded Panda. "They're an octopulse, they're meant to be in the ocean, where else would she hunt.? Uuuuugh, for a nerd who holed himself in libraries for days, you sure ck common sense."

  Richard rolled his eyes, but had to silently admit the squirrel was right, despite Krackle's efforts on nd, there's no doubt that they'd function best in the sea than on the nd.

  Richard would still have Krackle fight on nd when working together. The system had told him that a monster's evolutionary options are affected by life choices, so if he had Krackle fight on nd more often, than perhaps one of Krackle's options would ter on be more nd based.

  Maybe not though. They were an octopus after all, and Richard couldn't think of many nd type octopus monsters, or many octopus monsters. Sea monsters were a rge gap in adventurer's knowledge, though he was sure the kingdom was keeping the good stuff for itself.

  Actually, since Krackle is a sea monster, once they grow older, Richard could have them help him explore the ocean so he could have more knowledge on those. How great would that be!

  He could find so many things that no other man could explore!

  The more RIchard thought about it, the more he excited himself, thinking about the prospect of exploring the ocean. Well, Krackle doing so. He wasn't sure he'd be capable of exploring the ocean.

  Alexandria chuckled at Richard's expression, as he thought of something that excited him, as his face contorted into a bigger and bigger grin. "Well, think of something you want to share?" She nudged.

  Richard turned to her, with a little twinkle in his eyes. "I just realized I could have Krackle explore the sea for me when they get older! So much stuff to learn!"

  Sister Alexandria ughed at that. "Indeed, having oceanic friends can be quite beneficial" she agreed, reminiscing a little even, "why, I remember when I asked a sea serpent to find me a tome deep in the sea." She chuckled, "It was an exciting experience to say the least."

  "Really? I'd like to hear more about that! Please sister Alexandria?"

  Alexandria decided to comply seeing that Richard seemed to be on an ocean high.

  She also decided to take note of the fact that Richard was excited about stories. Likely a side effect of his life in a church.

  "So, one day, I was talking to a shockking serpent, when he mentioned..."

  After finishing her story, Alexandria found that Richard had fallen asleep, and even Panda had, leaning against the side of the bigger monster, resting in the crook of the wings, and the two just looked so cute, flopped over in such an akward position.

  'Richard likes stories' she mused to herself, nudging her head against the side of Richard's head, much like her own mother had done so, before resting against the opening of the cave, blocking it off with her own body.

  An enormous white wolf walked over a cliffside, looking down at Alexandria's territory, her lips curling back in a wolfish grin. Her body was a beautiful white, only disrupted by her tail, which was still white, but disrupted by the numerous swords embedded into her tail, some polished and beautiful, others rusted and leaking miasma.

  She'd heard something interesting about her old friend, and she looked forward to meeting with her old friend.

  Yes, her and Alexandria had plenty to talk about.

  So what do you know about living food?

  chomp, chew chew chew,

  Yes, sometimes food comes to life and becomes a unique form of monster. It's a rather rare incident in modern times with the onsught of mass produced foods, but it does still happen once in a while.

  munch munch munch

  Y'see, some chefs are born with a unique mana affinity and unique talent for food. That doesn't mean they are great chefs, but they do need passion in order to create living food. And the results are both beautiful and disastrous.

  nom nom nom nom nom nom

  Y'see, when a chef under the correct conditions makes food, they'll unintentionally imbue mana into food and accidentally create a monster core, allowing a food to come to life.

  This does cause trouble once in a while, where a random chef creates an omurice slime or gingerbread men.

  om nom nom nom nom

  In fact, there even exists a food kingdom, ruled by King Crumbles the 15th, a gingerbead man descended from the original ginerbread man.

  crunch crunch crunch

  Of course, dessert monsters can be born another way, and that's when one makes food out of monster ingredients, and while it's certainly delicious, there's always a chance that the mana once present in the deceased monster creates mana conduits, giving birth to a living food.

  The dark part of living food is that they're considered a delicacy amongst cultivators, who don't really care if what they're eating living beings or not.

  crunch crunch crunch

  Stop it! You monster! How Could you do this!

  Y'see, they prefer they're eaten fresh, because it's when they're fresh that they're the most valuable. They're like living cultivation pills. So imagine how dark that is, a feast where the food is running and screaming while the people joyously enjoy their feat.

  shudders

  Stop eating them! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!

  Yes, it's a horrifying sight. Thankfully the kingdom of delights is a well sponsored and protected kingdom, protected by a group of higher beings who like making living food.

  Hmm? What have I been doing?

  I've been eating a bag of candy of course. Half of them were alive, so I separated them from the other half of the bag. The other half however, doesn't realize that the rest of them aren't alive, so they've been screaming at me to stop for a while. It's quite annoying, honestly.

  -Grant, trying to enjoy his treats while being judged by the other half of the bag.