Viviana continued to journey across the terrarium, hoping to find lunch. Well, lunch might turn into dinner at this rate.

  She got better and better at grappling as she zipped from island to island. Taking advantage of the anti gravity bubbles turned out to be key to movement. It was much easier to move in a straight line, and you could use that time to prepare yourself for a landing.

  Landing was still difficult, but Viviana found ways to not land on her face. It involved using [flash step] as soon as she landed, which was a waste of mana, but it was nothing compared to the waste of dignity.

  Eventually she managed to spot something that seemed edible. A strange, star shaped creature that floated through the air but moved like a squid, undulating its five appendages back and forth.

  The strange flying starfish was about five meters in diameter, and had sharp, bone-like protrusions on its arms, presumably used as weapons. VIviana wasn’t concerned with its weapons, but with the fact that it floated in the air. With no ranged attack, Viviana could not deal damage to the creature.

  Or maybe I could… Viviana ran to the edge of the platform, fired her grapple pack towards an adjacent island, and used her momentum to kick off the platform, slingshotting her around in a massive arc. She whipped out her blade, but the starfish moved at the last second, just barely dodging her attack. Viviana promptly slammed into another floating island.

  She groaned, extracted herself from the dent in the rock, and looked back at the starfish. It was spinning in circles now, taunting her. Then its arms extended. And extended. They kept growing and growing, until each arm was about as long as a telephone pole.

  Then it lashed out the arms to attack. Viviana’s eyes widened as she parried blow after blow, before activating [flash step] to push inwards. With no other plan, she fired her grappling hook directly at the floating jellyfish. She didn’t expect the attacks to pierce its flesh; the grappling hook was not an enchanted item, so it wouldn’t damage any creatures bound by the system.

  But the grappling hook wrapped around the creature, providing a solid anchor point. Then the grappling hook reeled in, dragging Viviana towards the unsuspecting beast. Tentacle-like arms flew at her, but she parried every attack.

  She collided hard with the monster, activating [flash step] at the last second to hopefully boost her movement forward. Alas, it was futile. She didn’t have anything to step off of.

  Her blade pierced the strange starfish regardless. Her eyes widened as no kill notification came. Then the star fish’s arms wrapped around her, binding her tight to its body. Viviana realized she was falling.

  Wind rushed around the two as the starfish attempted a double suicide. Viviana placed a [lightning trap] and activated it, shocking herself and the monster. Instantly its arms loosened. She ripped out her sword and stabbed it again and again until finally the kill notification came.

  [You have slain a level 4 tanglestar.]

  [+4 exp]

  Viviana’s vision blurred as the world rushed around her, but quickly she found herself falling towards another floating island. It wouldn’t kill her but it’d certainly break a couple bones. So she grabbed the dead Tanglestar corpse and desperately tried to fire her grapple hook onto another island, but she was falling too fast and too hard for her grapples to attach onto anything.

  Then I’ll just have to fire at something below me!

  She scanned her surroundings and found an island just a little to the left and below her. She fired her hooks and tensed herself. Then her body slung around. She tried to right herself but her own grapple lines got tangled up with the tanglestar. Yet somehow, after a torturous amount of G forces, Viviana slingshotted upwards like a massive rope swing.

  An anti grav bubble? Viviana held her breath as she slammed into it. To her horror her upwards momentum didn’t slow at all. She was going higher– so high that it surpassed where she initially fell off of.

  Then she slammed into another island. She couldn’t feel anything from the pain. She certainly had a concussion. She vaguely felt that she was falling again.

  A couple seconds later her body fell onto solid ground. She groaned. Everything hurt like it was broken, but somehow she was alive. She almost regretted that– she would’ve preferred a nice sleep and to wake up with everything healed.

  After a second of groaning on the ground, Viviana pulled herself off her prone position, just enough so she could look around. Just where am I?

  The ecology had drastically changed. Sharp, jagged stone islands, looking more like shards of glass than natural looking phenomena, scattered the skies. Speaking of the sky– it was now purple. A lavender mist dotted the landscape, and anti gravity bubbles slowly floated through the air. It was like she fell into an asteroid belt.

  She looked around and decided to deal with it later. Her hand was still gripped on the strange looking tanglestar. She wondered if it was edible, and then decided she didn’t care. First, lunch.

  Viviana had cooked the tanglestar on a little portable stove she brought to all her terrarium expeditions. It folded up quite nicely and fit inside a pouch she carried all her stuff with, hooked onto her belt along with her sword.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  She whipped out her phone after the somewhat tasty meal. She didn’t bring any spices or seasonings of the sort, so it was only alright. Tasted like a white fish if it had the texture of beef jerky.

  She checked the price of the tanglestar, pleasantly surprised that tanglestar arms sold for quite a lot. They were the main material used in the creation of higher end grapple systems. With this in mind Viviana cut off the arms and moved them back and forth until they shrank back like an automatic tape measure. The five arms stowed nicely in her pack.

  She also checked what layer she was in, on her phone. There’s no way she went that high, right? Purple clouds… weird floating rocks…

  Viviana was in layer three. A layer patrolled regularly by Ferric Meridian. Their base was just one layer above, through the sky break. A part of her wanted to leave, because a regularly patrolled area meant that the guild was wary of invaders. Judging by how Selenne (probably) warned about an upcoming guild war, it probably meant they wouldn’t be kind to anyone in these parts.

  At the same time, Viviana had made it all the way over here through sheer luck. She couldn’t let the opportunity to explore go to waste.

  Upper levels meant more monsters at a higher level, and that meant potentially more profits. If she could find out what the optimal routes and strategies were, she could get a ton of levels and money.

  So Viviana resolved herself to explore, zipping around with her grapple hook. It was actually far easier, because as soon as she stepped off the platform she instantly felt her gravity decrease to little more than zero. It meant that the floating platform had its own gravity.

  Viviana had half a mind to think about her cheap grapple gear. Newer models could adjust their trajectories and aim differently based on the gravity around it. She had to do it manually.

  In anycase, it didn’t take a lot of exploring before she encountered her first obstacle. A fat, large, ugly obstacle.

  The stupid bird.

  It had already healed from the small injury Viviana had given it, meaning it dropped off the detection from [Blood Seeker], the passive on the mask she wore. Yet it was just her luck that the bird was in front of her now.

  All thoughts of exploration, survival, and dodging the guilds immediately exited Viviana’s head as all her neurons fired in harmony to the beat of revenge. The bird was going to be killed.

  The grotesque abomination of an avian creature was currently sitting on top of a circular floating island, snoring. Its putrid sacks of gravity bubbles it used to suspend its overweight body were pulsating in and out in a way that seemed like breathing. From Viviana’s position, she was above it– just a platform away.

  Viviana identified the sacks of anti gravity fluid as a weak point. If she could pop those, somehow, the bird wouldn’t be able to fly away. Then she wouldn’t have to deal with its aerial superiority.

  I have the element of surprise. Is it worth going for the gravity sacs instead of a fatal blow?

  It was a gamble, but it was one that Viviana was willing to make. So she leapt off the platform, activating her grapple pack to zip towards the bird in a lethal arc, slashing out at the bird’s body.

  Her sword plunged into a gravity sac, causing the liquid inside to float upwards in the air, leaking outwards. The bird woke up, screaming in pain, instantly attacking the pesky human that rudely interrupted its slumber. It screamed and pecked at Viviana. She dodged the attacks by using a combination of [flash step] and her grapple pack.

  I’m getting good at this.

  The bird tried to flap its wings and take off, but the loss of an anti gravity bubble had significantly weakened its capabilities. Viviana was right on top of it as the bird flapped about in confusion, attacking all the while. Shallow cuts, ineffective. She had to loop around and attack the other gravity sacs.

  The bird sensed her plan and didn’t let her attack it. It accomplished this noble goal by vomiting.

  Gross, steaming liquid shot out of its mouth in a volume that could only be described as a flood. Viviana’s eyes widened as the liquid started dissolving everything it touched, eating away at the stone around it.

  Vivivana instantly activated her skills again, flying around to another floating island as she opted to steer clear of the vile assault. Just how do I approach it now?!

  It was extremely risky to approach now, given that the platform was covered in the acid. Then I’ll just have to not touch the platform.

  Viviana zipped around back and forth with her grapple pack, usubg her [flash step] to kick off floating platforms whenever she could, redirecting the bird's vomit stream back and forth. Then she zipped inwards, firing her grapple at the bird's legs. Thankfully it latched on.

  Wind rushed around her ears as the grapple contracted, pulling her flying towards the bird. Near the apex of the pull she detached the grapple, instead flying over the bird's back, slashing out with her sword all the while. She was getting dizzy. Mana fatigue and aerial maneuvers.

  The move was nearly suicidal, but it worked because of the low gravity of the terrarium, making the attack actually possible. The bird screamed in pain as Viviana redoubled the attack, firing her grapples at another island to approach from a different angle.

  Yet the bird wasn’t staying put, instead moving to the edge of the island. It hobbled over slowly as Viviana soared back into range, realizing the bird was going to jump off the edge, regardless of whether its antigravity sacs were working; regardless of whether it could fly or not.

  It was doing the thing again. The thing where it flies off again.

  Viviana didn’t make the same mistake and immediately activated the lightning sigils she applied on the bird's body as she passed over it. Two, applied over the couple seconds she used to hack and slash at the bird.

  She felt her mana drain out of her as the bird shrieked again, vile spit flinging everywhere. It hurt her ear drums, but Viviana hadn’t heard anything as beautiful. Getting revenge on the stupid bird, within the same day she met it? An unreal feeling.

  The bird stopped its movements as lightning coursed through it. Viviana redoubled her attack, slashing out and activating [flash step] over and over. Soon it was dead.

  [You have won a difficult battle.]

  [Feat recognized.]

  [You have slain a level 10 sludge claw.]

  [+11 exp]

  [You can distribute (2) stat points.]