The oasis turned out to be quite a bit bigger than it appeared—I had been way further away than I'd first thought. Luckily, my Levitate ability absolutely dunked on the sound barrier, surpassing it by several orders of magnitude. It didn't take long to get there. A minute at most.
And as I approached, it just kept expanding. And expanding. And expanding. For a while I thought it was some kind of optical illusion, a mirage of sorts. But no. The luscious green really did cover an area comparable to a small city, once you got up close to it. Leafy trees and greenery abounded, surrounding seven massive bodies of crystal-clear water.
I was no expert on desert environs, but this seemed a little supernatural to me. Oases on Earth generally didn't get this big, surely? And seven of them so close together? It was a scene out of fantasy.
But then again, I supposed everything about my present circumstances was fantasy, so it didn't really matter.
As I slowed down a little on my approach, my sonic boom quickly caught up with me and echoed over the landscape like rolling thunder, making me wince. If the element of surprise had been needed, I figured I no longer had it.
A more sedate approach, 500MPH~ish, brought me up high and to what I estimated to be the centre of this sprawling green scar on the ochre landscape. There, I slowly rotated, inspecting the place more closely. My visual acuity was as absurd as my body's physical strength, allowing me to essentially zoom in on anything I was looking at with a thought. Made me feel like Superman.
It didn't take long to spot signs of animals, both watering themselves at one of the seven massive lakes and roaming through the greenery. Much of the oasis was dense enough it could probably be called a jungle. If there was a jungle in a desert back on Earth, I didn't know it. Point was, there was plenty of cover for animals to roam through, creating a lush habitat cradling a wide variety of life. Lots of colourful birds and big cats and such. For the most part, surprisingly mundane.
But not entirely. I caught sight of a bird with eight wings that were all different colours. A pack of giraffe-like things with beaked heads and six legs roamed around the edge of one of the lakes. A luminous blue frog the size of a minivan hopped hundreds of metres at a time. There was even a weird translucent silver blob thing that kind of defied description oozing its way between trees.
What caught my attention the most, however, was the snake person. It kind of reminded me of the mythical Medusa, with a long, green snake body that abruptly transitioned into a human torso. It didn't have snake hair, at least, instead bald as an egg, and its eyes didn't give any indication that they'd turn anyone they gazed upon into stone, though they were slit down the middle, reptilian. Looking closer, its face was more angular, more snake-like. A forked tongue flicked out of its mouth at random intervals.
Most importantly, it was carrying crafted tools. And I'm not talking a wooden stick with a pointy rock tied to the end. In one hand was an ivory sceptre that cradled a pulsating violet gem at its tip, and the other carried a spherical metal thing that, upon closer inspection, appeared to be made up of countless rings that were constantly revolving around each other, floating a centimetre or so above its green palm.
I was fairly sure there was a name for these things in fantasy stuff, but it escaped me at that moment. It was entirely possible this thing wasn't a fantasy monster anyway, but a member of another race that had gotten dragged into this Tower, much like humanity. So I didn't worry about it too much.
The snake woman—I say woman because she wore no clothing and I realised her humanoid part had boobs—paid little attention to her surroundings, the majority of her focus entranced with her orb of spinning discs. Hints of multicoloured light burst from it at seemingly random intervals, projecting little specks of glitter on her face like a rainbow disco ball.
Was it a coincidence that she was moving towards me, and seemed to be in quite the hurry? Just to test it, I Levitated myself a few miles to my left. It was remarkably easy to keep my eyes on the snake woman even as I moved at blinding speed.
Sure enough, she came to a stop, her slitted eyes narrowing at her magical disco ball. It flared with light, stuttering in place, giving the vibe that it was being forced to recalibrate. Then, with a little flash of green, it resumed its previous activity.
The snake woman proceeded to reorient herself and started slithering in my direction once more. She was notably moving with much greater haste than she had been previously, determination evident in the set of her shoulders.
It turned out these snake people could be pretty quick. The snake part of her was easily thrice as long as the humanoid bit, and it undulated fast as a whip, propelling her through the forest with the speed of an oncoming train. She evidently had some preternatural ability to weave through the dense trees, too. Either that or she was just so experienced that she could navigate the jungle-like oasis terrain without even having to look—her attention was still almost entirely on her orb.
Interesting, I thought, my heart only just beginning to accelerate. Given everything I'd learned about the System and what I'd done to it, I was confident enough that I at least wasn't going to get stomped by superior strength and abilities. If nothing else, it would greatly surprise me if my stats turned out to be average, and everyone around here boasted a Level in the billion-billions.
But there was something to be said for the fact this was the 1,792nd floor of the Eternal Tower. Whether this snake woman was a local monster or a climber that had risen this high, it was fair to assume she'd be pretty darn competent at… whatever it was she intended to do here. Apprehend me? It was entirely possible this was some kind of sacred land to her people, and I was intruding.
At the end of the day, that was all speculation. There was no way of knowing the specifics without asking—okay, that almost certainly wasn't true. If I had Level 1000 SSS-Rank Baaing in my repertoire, I had no doubt picked up an ability to divine information on pretty much anything from thin air.
But where's the fun in that? I thought, trying not to smirk. Pretty much everyone I'd ever met said they hated my smirk.
Since I didn't want to scare the snake woman half to death with a sonic boom upon my arrival, I delved into my menus with the search function once more, looking for something that could get me down there ASAP. [Blink] seemed suited for the job, though I made a mental note to seek out more interesting-sounding Spells later. Couldn't be walking around at level 99999+ and using mundane-sounding crap all the time.
This one wasn't quite as your wish is my command as [Levitate], but that wasn't to say it was complex by any means. Its function was simple: I could teleport myself to anywhere in my line of sight. My current 'line of sight' covered several miles, and so it was easily enough to transport myself to a spot just behind the snake lady. All it took was a literal Blink, and there I was among the trees.
Down here, the air was humid as a sauna, thick with the scent of jungle life. I could hear frogs, birds, animal calls, insects, you name it. The place was teeming with vitality, and suddenly I found I was glad that I'd emerged on this floor a few dozen miles over. It would've been a real shame to destroy this place completely by accident.
A frown pulled at my lips as I considered how many similar places I'd destroyed in my reckless charge up the tower. Then the frown vanished as I decided to push it out of my mind. Ain't got time for angsty shit when there's so much cool shit to do and see, tyvm.
Up close, I got a first-hand look at how fast the snake woman really was. The higher perspective I'd been viewing her from before had made it look much less impressive, since I could see so much of the oasis and therefore comprehend that she wasn't covering that much ground in absolute terms.
Down here, though, she sped away like a damn Formula One car, vanishing into the darkness beneath the dense canopy in the blink of an eye.
For a moment, I considered chasing after her with Levitate, but decided against it. Crossing my arms, I stared at the darkness she'd just disappeared into and waited. Seconds passed. I started tapping my foot.
Then, without a sound, she was back. Her massive bulk somehow seemed to glide over the jungle floor, disturbing nary a leaf or stick, weaving around the trees like they magnetically repelled her, leaving only millimetres of room. It was impressive, I have to admit.
Sadly, she immediately threw away the good will my awe for her movements had earned her by levelling her ivory staff, taking aim at me, and firing a bolt of violet energy from the pulsating gem at its tip.
I figured that was a good sign I'd done something wrong by trespassing on this oasis. Or maybe she was mad about the big hole I'd made a few miles away. Oh well. Regardless of her motives, I wasn't going to let her off easily.
I hadn't backed down when half a dozen Thai gangsters had wanted to nick my phone. I wasn't going to be cowed by a giant snake woman, either.