[NR] Hitting 99 - Chapter 439 (Patreon)

Lily, of course ignored the scorpion sting these kangaroo mice were packing in their tail. After all, she wasn’t trying to take a bite of them, instead using her spiky fur and high Agility to simply slam into the main body.

Sure, if she tried to chase after them, they could probably give her a nasty sting. Lily wasn’t trying that, though. If they fought, she would fight. If instead they ran away? Neither Lily nor Jason bothered to chase.

In fact, as far as Jason was concerned, they won. Monsters, for the most part, are too aggressive. They wouldn’t turn down a fight unless massively overpowered or the opponent had a skill for it. The fact that some of the kangaroo mice had enough smarts to run was impressive.

Not that they were the only monsters Lily fought. Since the two weren’t in a monster nest, there was a decent variety to fight over the next couple weeks. Not all the monsters were notable of course, many just being normal animals with an evolution under their belt.

Besides them, though, Lily got put through the gamut. Early on there were some house cat size panthers with flowers growing down their spine. Well, growing isn’t quite the right term as it makes it sound like there were actually flowers there. The growths are fleshy bits that happened to do a damned good job at mimicking flowers.

There was also a small gang of monkeys that harassed the two for a couple days. Though unlike the monkeyiods from the grass forest, these are not so vindictive. Oh, and they had three tails which ended in claws with three fingers.

Lily didn’t particularly care what she was fighting, though one particular match up ended up being quite fun for her. In a bit of irony, these monsters weren’t some interesting mix or strange unknown. It seems she just really enjoys fighting goblins.

It wasn’t hard to see why. Most monsters with a more feral form tended to have built-in weapons and defenses. A goblin? This far from civilization and they’re lucky to have a loin cloth and a club. Their two standout features are that they’re clever and reproduce quicker than almost anything else of a similar size.

Sure, normal rats are going to out produce goblins by a landslide. Once you’re dealing with giant rats, though? If they’re big enough to be anywhere near in size to a goblin, the goblins win.

Though even if it was even there, the innate cleverness that goblins possess would win out. As people have found across all dimensions, not being sapient doesn’t mean stupid. This is especially troubling with goblins as while they’re clever, they’re also willing to throw their lives away if it brings an advantage to their group.

Lily had no clue about any of this. Instead, she just had fun fighting monsters that would willingly try to grapple her. They’d watch the previous goblin get eviscerated on her fur and then throw themselves on her as well. Each trying to hold her in place so the next can get a good shot in.

None of them got that shot. Maybe if the group had managed to scrounge some leather gear, they might have been a threat. Well, if Jason wasn’t there playing over watch.

It was actually right at the end of their time in the goblin’s territory that Lily managed to star her first stat. The stat itself showed the clear difference between Jason and Lily as while it was the last one for Jason, Lily starred Strength first.

On top of that, it was almost half of Jason’s Strength and ten points below his lowest stat at only 50 points. Still, Jason had some hope for her Toughness as after paying off all the stat points, it also hits 50 and kept growing. Then there was Agility which seemed to be happy to grow at a glacial pace.

Though honestly, it was the stat Jason was the most focused on. As a rabbit, Lily should in theory have some of the best potential with Agility. So if she gets starred at 99 as well, that likely indicates an actual bottleneck for stats.

Though even if she broke through 99 agility, as long as the point where the stat got its star was below the current amount, 112, it would prove something else. The fact that stat points can in fact break through that bottleneck. Though it could also mean that there isn’t an actual bottleneck.

Rather, the System might be forcefully limiting how much a being can grow outside of its own system. Though despite how close Agility was, Toughness managed to star next. Another week passed and during that time there was an interesting monster to fight.

It was like a cross between an octopus, a stretch Armstrong, and a snail. Some more cultured sorts might compare it to a flailsnail. Though it lacked the size and flails.

Rather, this was another monster that wanted to try and hug Lily to death. Though the wolf-sized snail proved more capable of this than any previous attempts. The eight tentacles were reinforced with Qi and even Lily’s supernaturally sharp fur couldn’t easily pierce them.

Of course, if simple poking didn’t work, there was always slashing. At least that was likely what Lily thought and she wasn’t wrong. Her claws do a much better job at slashing the giant snails apart.

This, however, didn’t prevent Lily from being squeezed. And yes, they were proper snails so after each fight Jason would take some time to clean her up. Though thankfully when Lily charges up her fur, it pushes out any foreign gunk or they would have spent more time washing than traveling.

In the middle of that situation, Lily’s Toughness started to really skyrocket. It swept past 50, slowed down at 60, and finally stalled out at 71 points. Quite impressive when Jason starred at 60.

On the other hand, Agility only grew by two points. To be fair, Lily didn’t exactly do that much dodging in those fights. It basically wasn’t worth it because the shell protects most weak points she might attack so the only way was through the front door.