You're a lizard wizard Harry

"It's the mana perception, definitely the mana perception, you need to focus on sensing your surroundings with your energy. You should focus on being able to perceive everything around you all the time, but such will probably only be attainable by the seventh rank or so." Aki sagely explained to the crossleged lady wearing dark furs as a short skirt and top.

"I don't think I can evolve that much in my lifetime." She pointed out with a bit of resignation.

"Nonsense. Just believe in the me that believes in, cat, the me that believes in you." her teacher pointed out, interrupted by another monster falling for his trap.

As he finished his sentence, Aki went to the wounded beast so as to release it and finish it off.

Luckily it was quite easy to get to max level with such simple class and he had plenty of XP bags knocking on his door.

[You are now a level 1 Rogue.]

[Disarm trap is now level 1]

[Trap making is now level 4]

[Barter is now level 2]

[Enhanced Agility is now level 1]

[Enhanced Dexterity and is now level 1]

The notifications rapidly hit him, and Aki could feel he was just that much faster. It wasn't much, but this was definitely the tipe of skills worth leveling.

*Thunk*

As Aki dodged an arrow, and looking at the direction it came from, raised a wall of dirt before bellowing a war cry.

"I'm going to enjoy crushing your bones and souls you green pieces of shit!" He taunted in a angry voice laced with the intent of fear before turning the wall he'd made into a ramp and charging onto the closest goblin, daggers high up, before kicking it on the knee and then slashing at it's face.

Rapidly looking around, Aki saw some shaking leaves up a tree. Using life magic, he caught the bowman by the ankle with the branch it stood on, leaving it upside down while making it drop all it's arrows before blocking an attack from his side.

"What's that!?" Aki asked with some fear and surprise while looking behind the goblin holding him down with it's great sword and heavy armor.

It looked back and he stabbed it in the neck. Raising the little shit as a shield, Aki shot a fire ball in the direction of the arrow that he'd just blocked with his goblin.

Throwing the heavy burden away, Aki looked for other assailants, seeing only the back of a blackened goblin as it burned on the ground and screamed it's lungs out. Seeing that he already had a scared and screaming captive, Aki just threw a rock at it's head and dirt on the burning vegetation.

Tying his captive with some vines and throwing it on the trap before covering it again, Aki went looking for his lady friend, only to find the screaming and bloody lizard surrounded by five goblin corpses, two dead by spike traps, and facing two more.

Instead of trying to jump to one of them, Aki just waited, tripping the two by making small holes where they were going to step on when they went on the offensive again, which quickly got them a a spear tip to the throat.

"Nice job, you injured?" He asked, the woman just turning her shoulder over and showing him an arrow. "Stay there and steady your heart, that will help if there's poison." He instructed, quickly reaching her side and giving her something to bite again before pushing the arrow out.

He put a finger in the wound and started to try and attract the poison, because something made for scaled enemies and hard to take out is obviously going to be poisoned, with water magic.

Black blood easily flew out of the wound, but Aki didn't think it'd be easy enough to just up and extract everything before doing first aid.

"Put your arms over my neck." He told her, deciding to give her a pigy back to the dead treant and making a small dirt cover before slowly treating the wound and securing their loot.

There were a couple of pot shots, but none hit Aki. Some goblins tried to shot at him from the canopy of trees, but those were quickly thrown into his spiked pits.

Overall, Aki dug a small tunnel and quickly broke the encirclement while shielding his companion and silencing some goblins in a random direction before directing themselves to the cave.

How did they not see that? Easy enough. He made a meter and a half tall wall before making a small square fort out of the cover he'd previously made, killing a few goblins before retreating inside and making the tunnel.

Really, it's impressive how some can forget about their backs do easily. His magic fueled taunts might have had something to do with it though.

*****

The whole farce and slaughter having Aki reach level 100, made him plenty happy about the three hours he spent screaming his lungs out about goblin manhood.

"While I do not wish to complain about learning new goblin insults, I really think we should leave." Harry pointed out.

"We are, just not through the cave's mouth." Aki said, turning a bit deeper down the cave before turning right to a wall and starting to carve out an archway on the stone. Wide enough for both cave dwellers to stand side to side, and a meter taller than Aki.

As he hollowed out a big enough corridor and reinforced the walls with the displaced stone, Aki started to sweat. Instead of just closing the passage behind him straight away, he instead opened two holes for air, one that looked like a crooked cavern hole that went towards the original cave, and another that looked practically the same while opening an air hole to the outside. It was a pretty dark corridor up until he summoned a low powered light orb.

"Tell me if you think the air is getting stale, I'll use magic to recycle or make it, though that might make you feel a bit dizy because of all the oxygen becoming available." He pointed out, getting a silent nod.

And so the apprentice engineer started digging a gothic style passage without glassware.

*****

Xeraharith thought her savior very impressive, if a bit rough around the edges. If he'd been born one of her kind he'd easily have become both a chieftain and shaman in any tribe.

As it stood, he'd never be allowed inside her tribe even if rescuing her would allow for diplomatic relations.

Maybe if she came back expecting an egg?

No, that would be terrible for their survival. Even right now he seemed like he'd collapse if she made him break his focus.

Truly a great warrior she needed to bring back to her tribe. She was also pretty sure he'd also be a good husband and teacher, but those would only matter if the both of them survived the way back and through her revenge.

On a more immediate issue though...

"Aki, I have to go." She said with the maximum amount of seriousness she could.

"What do you... Oh. One second." He understood, turned back a couple of steps, made a small chamber with a weird chair on the middle, and then made something similar to a stone door, hinges and all. In a minute and a bit. If she'd been a human she'd have cried in joy and ran in.

"Wider." She hissed. He looked between her and the chair, once, and noticed his mistake. She'd have some difficulties using something that size. Human females must have smaller hips, yes. Not his fault. Urgent business first.

Later.

"You might want to refresh the air." She informed him, actually quite embarrassed by this. It was probably for the best if she learned earth magic during their stay here. The notion had never seemed as important as of this moment.

"Yes ma'am." She hissed at his cowardly display, but didn't say more.

As a sudden breeze hit her back, Xera found the situation quite strange, noticing how her hearth rate became unstable and her head light.

"Too much oxygen." He pointed out, seemingly even more dizy than her. In fact, she ended up having to hold him so as to avoid him falling over.

"Do you need to sleep?" She asked with some concern.

"I'll meditate for a bit, make another air hole, then I'll sleep." He grogily said, and with clear effort, did, before pretty much collapsing the second his head touched the backpack pillow.

'I guess this leaves me time to practice since i've spent so much time resting already. Maybe i can increase the humidity of this place?' She thought, passing through the mental exercises Aki had passed her earlier.

*****

Two days and two more jobs to max level later.

"FUCKING FINALLY OUT OF THIS HOLE! I'm sorry for screaming Harry, but even if I love to sleep hugging you like that I just can't keep eating only smoked jerky anymore." Exclaimed Aki as he finally saw sun light again.

"It was certainly uncomfortable, but such is the way of survival." She scoffed, barely containing her tail from revealing her actual feelings on the matter. .

"Don't confuse my lack of complaints with a lack of pain, my mental resistance skill shot to level five after this little adventure." He frowned at the lizard, who now was actually feeling a bit bad about her commentary. Until he booped her on the nose with a small smile. "Believe me when I say that it is thanks to you that I even got there without going crazy."

"You flirt." She muttered, and though she sounded upset, Aki was knowledgeable enough to understand that her body was being honest, his smile softened.

Two days stuck on a hole in the wall was not much time to chat and getting to know each other considering how much he worked, but he found it progressively easier to meditate while talking to her.

Truly, Aki was too easy a catch sometimes.

A proper lap pillow needs two people though.

"Let's go, we need to at least hunt and cook something before I go crazy and eat you." He called, though when he looked back he saw the woman was kind of confused and afraid, like she'd reach for her spear at any time. "You know I ment a cunnilingus, right?" He said, seeing only more confusion. "Oh my gods, are your men retarded? It's a sex joke, I won't actually eat you!" He laughed, realization downing on the woman.

*****

"Congratulations on evolving Harry, and nice under boob." Smiled Aki the next day, noticing the woman in his arms was sleeker, softer to the touch, had some red tattoo like pattern over her emerald green scales, and charming small peaks that fit perfectly in his hands.

Hearing the softer, if still raspy moans of the stoic woman in his arms, Aki felt very enticed to go further, but that was not exactly the best of ideas. Excuses asside, he was actually extremely, uterly afraid of such moment ever coming true though, so he just stoped doing that and turned her around to smile at her.

"What?" She exclaimed with sleep still present on her voice.

"Xera, you evolved, and you look magnificent." He clearly said to her face, pronpting her to check her status.

"Dragon-blood soldier." She murmured. "I have freaking dragon blood on my race title." She gleefuly repeated, making an eary imitation of a smile, which actualy made Aki roll his eyes before hugging her.

"Congratulations." He repeated, more afection than mirth this time.

"Thanks." She returned his hug.

*****

"So now you can breath fire, have a better conection to mana and the four basic elements, your scales work like shields AND dampeners besides gaining better flexibility, your stats gained an overall bonus, the tattos cause awe and respect from lower ranked beings and you got boobs." He grinned as he sewed a better top for his companion out of a wolf that had wind powers. "I better start putting my big boy pants or i'm going to fall to full suport role here." He chuckled.

"Doesn't that mean you're wearing kid pants now?" She asked, her back on his as their height diference was shortened after her evolution. He'd comented something about 1,75 meters to his 1,82.

"Maybe. You know how humans have a job system that they can use to have greater versatility and specialization than the non-civilized races and monsters?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, here's a secret, mine's got an upgrade. I've gone through five or so jobs since we met, most for building my versatile foundation. I'm thinking on focusing on specializing a bit since my second wall is coming." He admited.

"Wait, if you can get to level 100 and change jobs withouth a job crystal then why the fuck are you so weak?" She realized.

"Because i'm building my foundation. You need a miriad of skills and classes to get the best jobs, though i did deviate a bit with the engineering, it was because of the very large mountain i did not wish to see fall on our heads. Look, for example, let's say there's a job called bulwark of the people, which gives great bonuses when you're protecting a local population from hordes of monsters or something of the like. To get it you'd need the skills to be a tanker, to move quickly and to keep going through the whole fight. I want something like that, but i also want something like 'shadow of the empire' or 'saint', 'arch-magus', 'lord of pleasure'." He laughed at the last one. "Thing is, i don't want to be just one thing, and there's great sinergies in this kind of drawn out build, i've got plenty of skills at four, some even at five, so if you want to say that mana manipulation, sneak attack, anatomy and any weapon skill are not great combos, then you gotta have lost some of your sanity woman." He rested his head over the back of her's at the end of that one and chuckled a bit more.

"I see. Out of curiosity though, what job do you have right now?" She asked.

"Laborer." This made her scoff.