That time I was reincarnated as a snake (Tensura)

-MC POV-

After finishing all my food reserves and resting for a while, it was time to continue.

Forgetting the spilled milk, I prepared to go out hunting again.

Due to my bad mood caused by Shadow Panther, I used some of my prey as punching bags to release some of the frustration.

Some of them wished to die faster to escape the suffering.

So the hours passed. When dawn was approaching, I decided to stop.

After refilling my small storage room, I was satisfied.

'Let's get that damn magic resistance once and for all,' I said with impatient eyes.

Without wasting any time, I fired the Water Gun at my tail. Similar to previous attempts, my body didn't put up much resistance, a little more than last time, probably because of the beating Shadow Panther gave me.

I continued shooting the Water Gun at myself, waiting to recover and doing it again, over and over again. I spent the whole day repeating that. When I felt my magics were exhausted, I would rest for a while and eat some snacks. Afterwards, I would return to the routine.

Within a few hours, I had no food left. The practice consumed magicules as if they were water (although in reality it was water that was wasted, you know that is just an expression).

So I had to go hunting again. To my annoyance, a good portion of the nearby monsters had fled far away from my cave.

So I had to travel further to hunt, which made me lose more time.

Wanting to avoid having to refill my warehouse over and over again, I gave it a much-needed expansion. This time I didn't stop until its interior could accommodate dozens of giant bears. I hope that will be enough.

Luckily for me, during all this time Shadow Panther didn't attack me again. She must be recovering from the wound I caused him. Monsters may have powerful vitality, but returning to their peak state will take a while without regeneration skills. Skills I don't think her has or shewould have stayed to kill me.

After filling my storage room to the brim, I returned to my practice.

Hours passed, and with each attempt, my body resisted the damage of the Water Gun a little more. In parallel, I began to master the use of the Water Gun. With each new shot, I became more familiar with the process, and little by little I reduced the time it took.

To continue challenging myself, I tried to increase the pressure I could withstand, even if it was just a little. In the long run, it would allow me to increase the damage I could deal, while increasing the pressure of my body to adapt to more and more magic damage, hoping that would help me gain resistance faster.

The day was over. Although I could feel that my progress was far superior to what another monster could achieve with my training plan, I still hadn't managed to gain the stamina.

I would have to continue for longer.

I spent my night hunting and my day practicing.

It was only on the third day of practice, after receiving hundreds if not thousands of Water Guns, that I finally acquired it.

You have acquired Magic Resistance

'I can only say: thank you for being reborn with pain resistance. I don't want to imagine how I would have felt doing this hellish training without it to minimize the pain I feel. Even with it, the process hurt a lot,' I said with a sigh.

'That's one task on my to-do list, without wasting time, let's move on to the next one.'

'Find a way to see beyond the obvious.'

If you recognized that reference, you are old.

'And that way is mana perception, which not only allows one to detect light and sounds, but also the fluctuations of monsters' magicules, in all three hundred and sixty degrees.'

'With it, although I'm not sure I'll be able to detect Shadow Panther while he's in the shadow space, I'll be able to react to him when he comes out, as well as lose my blind spots in battle.'

Why is everything you do about Shadow Panther?

"Because he could kill me at any moment of carelessness!"

Since he last attacked me, I've been avoiding letting my guard down at all times.

You don't know the stress of having a sword of Damocles hanging over your head. I feel like I'm losing scales from the stress.

Stop being a whiner, let's get back to mana perception.

Actually, the way to get it is easy. Any monster can acquire it without much difficulty.

It all depends on the user's processing capabilities.

If your data processing abilities are very high, congratulations: this may be a passive skill for you.

If your abilities are human-like, I'm sorry, you fried your brain and died turning it on.

¡Yeah!

It's not a joke.

The biggest difficulty in acquiring it is for your brain to cope with the immense amount of information you receive in a given area around you. Naturally, if you increase the perception distance, the processing demand increases.

To overcome these difficulties I can only put my hopes in my Adaptable skill, hoping that it will allow me to withstand the data overload and allow me to acquire a skill that will help me with mana perception.

Wanting to avoid the risk of running out of magicules during the process, I decided to stock up on prey.

Already tired of hunting weak prey, I set out to attack a monster of my strength or slightly greater. Wanting to test my newfound resilience, I sought out a monster with magical attack abilities.

It didn't take long to find it. In front of me, a dozen meters away, I could see four Sword Tigers. Their appearance is similar to the Ice Age sabre-toothed tigers, but with long and incredibly sharp claws, as well as a sharp tail.

They were in the middle of a fight with a Grizzly Sword, similar to a grizzly bear, but three times its size. In addition to its characteristic features, it had imposing sharp spikes coming out of its back and shoulders, which provided it with defense and attack.

The entire fight went in favor of the Sword Tigers. Although physically weaker than their opponent, they had greater agility and their voice cannon. When the Grizzly tried to get close to one of them, the rest would attack it with their voice cannons, allowing the target of the attack to retreat.

Outnumbered and outmaneuvered, it was no surprise that the Grizzly Sword lost within minutes. Though he eventually made a final charge, wounding one of them, the remaining ones finished him off with their razor-sharp tails.

'That is the fate of monsters who rely only on their physical strength. When faced with magic, it is only a matter of time before they fall.'

Has anyone noticed that there are too many bears in this forest? It's like the author couldn't think of any other monsters that could live in this forest, so he always resorts to bears.

…

¡Noooo !​

This area of the forest is surely rich in something that bears like. That's why there are so many of them here. I'm not complaining: they are good sources of magic with such big bodies.

Without giving them time to rest, I approached the injured individual with activated stealth, and with a quick movement I wrapped him up. Applying force, I broke his neck. By the time they realized the strangeness of their companion, he was already dead.

Furious, they fired their voice cannon in my direction, even though I was invisible to them.

Their cannons only disturbed my stealth magics, making me visible. The damage was limited to just that thanks to my magic resistance. After that, they rushed in my direction. Seeing that it was useless to hide again, I entered into direct combat with them.

Wanting to use the same tactics they used with the Grizzly Sword, they continued firing their voice cannons, at the same time some of them charged towards me to get my attention.

It's a shame he's not as stupid as the Grizzly.

Ignoring its claw and tail attacks that could only do minor wounds, I turned my attention to the other Sword Tigers and prepared to use Water Gun.

With my practice, although I did not reduce the charging time, this was only because I continued to increase the output power.

Having learned from my encounter with Shadow Panther, I did the charging process inside my mouth to surprise them.

When it was ready, I opened my mouth as I looked into the eyes of one of the Sword Tigers that was shooting at me. He, sensing my intentions, jumped to the side. To his bad luck, he had expected this, so I didn't fire Water Gun with the intention of piercing him, but instead quickly turned the exit direction sideways, turning into a cutting jet, splitting the Sword Tiger in two.

Tired of the constant scratches on my body, my sight turned to the one using its claws and tail. It was persistent, I would have given up seeing that it didn't hurt me. Using my body as a spring, I built up strength and shot in its direction. Without giving it time to dodge, I opened my mouth and bit it with my Poison Bite skill.

I could see that he continued to struggle. My poison didn't seem to do much damage to him, I should note that. If he can't even handle this guy, he's no use against Shadow Panther.

I wrapped him up and with a little force I broke his neck.

[Now only you are missing] I sent a communication to the remaining one, wanting to scare him.

Which didn't happen. Without any fear, he pounced on me.

[I'm going to kill you, damn it, I'll avenge my friends...] he answered me with bloodshot eyes.

With agile movements, he dodged my tail attacks and continued to attack my body. Even though I tried to get away from him, he always came back closer.

Tired of this meaningless fight, I loaded the Water Gun again. When I was about to fire, the Sword Tiger, as if it had waited for this moment, took advantage and fired its voice cannon towards my open mouth.

Thus causing my attack to become destabilized. Knowing the consequences of this, I quickly tried to get away from the water sphere and protect my head.

Sensing danger behind me, I gathered all my magic around my body to make a makeshift barrier.

*POP*

A quick explosion was heard followed by a splash, followed by the sound of water spilling.

In the centre of the explosion a crater several metres in diameter could be seen. Our MC was found in it with serious injuries.

The sphere of water, which when released could cut through steel like paper, turned into a bomb. At close range, the water was released like countless blades that cut through everything in their path.

"Son of a bitch !" I screamed with all my hatred.

Luckily I already had magic resistance and protected my body with magicules at the last moment.

I could see my miserable state: my body covered in cuts, pieces of scales torn off by the explosion. My head was the place in the best condition, thanks to the fact that I used the rest of my body to protect it, since losing the brain is equivalent to disabling self-regeneration.

Although my body was already starting to heal, that didn't take away the fear.

I turned my head looking for the bastard responsible for this.

Just to see bits of what I assume he is.

I stood there watching for a while, waiting for my body to heal completely.

"Even though you failed to kill me, you can think that you managed to avenge your friends."

Even though this bastard almost killed me, I can respect him.

I've always known that monsters also think, have feelings and bonds.

I'm not one of those MCs who don't want to kill humans because I used to be one and they only see monsters as existences alien to them. Although they are no longer humans, beings who can be murderers without guilt, as mere experience numbers.

In a way, I prefer monsters to humans. While humans are hypocritical, cunning, and scheming, monsters are simple: if they're hungry, they'll eat you; if they like you, they'll be your friend; if they hate you, they'll kill you; if you're stronger, they'll respect you; if you show weakness, they'll kill you.

I have never liked hypocritical people, but I prefer a life as a monster. Life is simple: just become strong and you can do whatever you want, without worrying about supposed human morality.

This guy in front of me gave his life to avenge his loved ones. Even though he saw that he was weaker than me, he tried, and if it weren't for magic resistance, I'm sure he would have succeeded.

I won't feel bad about this like those high school MCs who think harming other intelligent beings is wrong.

I knew long ago in my past life that for someone to do well, there must be others who did badly because of it. Getting a simple job means that you prevented many others from getting that job.

Trying to make everyone happy, like the supposed fantasy heroes, is nothing more than an illusion.

We humans are selfish beings who are never satisfied, and to achieve what we set out to do we are willing to do whatever it takes.

It is because I do not want others to control my life that I seek power. For power, I kill and consume monsters, regardless of whether they have family that depends on them. For power, I am willing to undergo horrific training. It is because of wanting power that I constantly risk my life, knowing that I could die at any given time.

Because I prefer to die by my decisions, than to have others dictate my destiny in response to their mood.

With my body fully recovered, along with the intact corpses of the Sword Tigers, I returned to my cave.

Although he would prefer to rest for a while, after that disastrous experience, there is a Shadow Panther who will not wait for anyone.

Leaving the corpses of the Sword Tigers, I returned to the forest for more prey. This time I didn't go looking for trouble with tough guys. When my storage was full, I stopped.

Eating some of the prey from my storage, I put myself in my best condition. I left the corpses of the Sword Tigers for later. Although they weren't much of a problem for me, they actually have the strength of a B rank. It's only because of my resistances and self-regeneration that I can take their attacks in stride and counterattack. Just look at the Sword Grizzly, this guy was overwhelmed by ranged attacks.

I plan to accumulate several powerful monsters to eat them together and evolve again, but first I must acquire more skills so that they can be improved during my evolution.

'First, let's go for the magical perception,' without further delay.

First I accumulated a good quantity of magicules in my body. Then, with the idea that they would retransmit what they perceived, I sent them out as a wave to my three hundred and sixty degrees.

Like tiny dots invisible to the eye, the magicules spread out around me. To avoid problems, I tried to limit the range to just ten meters.

I immediately received feedback.

" Aaaaaaaaaaaa , fuck "

It's like being in the middle of a storm of stimuli.

Your senses are bombarded by overly bright lights, deafening sounds, and intense textures, all at the same time. Your brain struggles to process everything at once, and you end up feeling confused and anxious. It's like every noise, every light, every sensation is amplified, invading your personal space and making every little detail impossible to ignore.

It's like watching the forbidden episode of Porygon, with giant speakers glued to your ears with dozens of songs playing at the same time, while thousands of ants crawl over your body.

…

After several minutes of that torture, I decided to end this attempt.

Panting heavily, I slowly recovered from that horrible feeling.

When I thought I had recovered, I tried once more.

" Aaaaaaaaaaaa , son of a bitch"

…

With indomitable resolve, the torture continued for hours.

Every time I was about to faint, I would stop. After resting for a moment, I would continue.

Oblivious to the passage of time, I continued and complained and continued and cried and continued and cried again. I wanted to stop this torture, but I knew it was necessary.

I prayed to Veldanava and the voice of the world for mercy. I only wanted to gain mana perception, it wasn't much. All of Rimuru's subordinates had that ability, my suffering wasn't fair.

But life isn't fair, so I gritted my teeth and swallowed the bitterness and carried on.

Little by little the horrible feeling was weakening. I knew I was adapting to this, it would only be a matter of time before I reached the goal.

Extra Skill: Successful acquisition of Thought Acceleration.

With the acquisition of thought acceleration, the information overload finally stopped. It was no longer just images, noises and sensations that were unrecognizable to me. Now I had a new view before me, not just as if I were the center of my visual universe, but as if I had a third-person view, being able to see the area around me from any angle.

Extra Skill: Successful acquisition of Mana Perception.

I had finally acquired the perception skill that had cost me so much.

Testing out this new sight, I tried switching from visible light to the infrared spectrum, so I could see heat. While it took a bit of effort, it was similar to my thermal vision and stealth heat concealment, so I had some practice.

Extra Skill: Successful acquisition of Heat Perception.

Without much effort, I acquired heat perception. I could now be sure that that Tempest Serpent near the goblins let me go that time. With invisibility alone, I couldn't hide from her with this perception. It may have been because I was insignificant to her or some kind of compassion. Maybe I'll ask her someday.

Continuing with the tests, an interesting idea occurred to me. Although I can perceive everything around me, there are abilities that can prevent this. My own stealth is proof of this.

But there is one flaw: no matter how well you hide yourself, your existence occupies a space in reality. So, if you could perceive space, it would be impossible to hide from me.

Even if I wanted to do that, I don't know how space works.

So I can only continue with the second option: sonars.

I just have to imitate the operation of a sonar, emitting an ultrasonic wave and picking it up. Even if my opponent had some ability to isolate sound, unless he could isolate my entire range of perception, a small area that I can't perceive would imply that there is something there.

Without wasting any time, I got to work.

In fact, most of the process didn't take much time. Emitting the wave is not a problem, but capturing it back and processing it is.

The latter took me longer, as I'm not just sending out a wave in one direction and turning it three hundred and sixty degrees like sonar does, but rather I'm sending it out in all directions while trying to capture it back and create an image that makes sense of the information I received.

I love magicules, they are that kind and considerate wife/husband who always supports you in what you do, that we all wish to have.

Magicules are all that and more for me. With them, the process of capturing waves was easy and with the acceleration of thought to convert a large amount of data that the magicules gave me, I could create an understandable image.

The view was like a black space, where the details of things where the ultrasonic waves hit, like the walls of my cave, were seen in white. I did this for contrast.

Extra Skill: Successful acquisition of Ultrasonic Perception.

Without much surprise, I heard the announcement.

This time, I had acquired a lot of skills in a short period of time. I felt weak, not just from draining my magicules, but something else. I knew I was at my current limit. If I tried to gain more skills, it might cause me trouble, so I stopped.

'It seems that this is my limit. Unless I evolve, I will avoid acquiring more skills.'

Now that I had achieved my short-term goals, I could afford a well-deserved break.

I returned to my storage for some snacks. After that, I decided to rest for a while, always on the lookout for Shadow Panther. Although maintaining mana perception all the time was impossible due to the consumption and mental burden, I activated it every so often to prevent Shadow Panther from ambushing me again.

Although he felt he had a better chance in a confrontation with her, he wouldn't be stupid enough to believe that she wouldn't learn from the failed attempt.

But at least in our next confrontation he wouldn't be so passive.

_________________________

Author's notes:

Our MC has a serious persecution craze. While there's a serious chance he's being chased, it's getting out of hand. He's made Shadow Panther his boogeyman, as if Shadow Panther hasn't got better things to do than harass a little guy.

The MC has finally acquired resistance to magic. He will no longer be like butter before it. He can be more reckless with beings who wield it, in addition to finding a way to avoid being attacked by surprise like last time.

Skills acquired in this chapter:

*You have acquired Magic Resistance

*Extra Skill: Successful acquisition of Thought Acceleration.

*Extra Skill: Successful acquisition of Mana Perception.

*Extra Skill: Successful acquisition of Heat Perception.

*Extra Skill: Successful acquisition of Ultrasonic Perception.

PS: "Seeing beyond the obvious" is a reference to when Leono from Thundercats uses the Sword of Omens. Although a series came out in 2011, the one I saw was the original from 1985, back in the 2000s.