Many-Eyed Spider

After passing several forks and rounding a few bends, Taylor finally arrived at his destination.

The Spider Cave lived up to its reputation as a habitat for spider-type magical beasts and various spider-like monsters.

The surrounding mountains had been completely hollowed out, resembling a continuous honeycomb. It looked both eerie and terrifying, riddled with holes of all sizes, while the internal passages were so complex that one would easily get lost upon entering.

Taylor keenly sensed that some of these honeycomb-like caves were radiating intense heat, especially those that sloped downward toward the depths of the mountain; these were undoubtedly inhabited by fire-attribute spider magical beasts.

This was something he could discern thanks to his Lesser Fireball.

Taylor walked to a seemingly narrow cave entrance. He first observed his surroundings, then set up a few simple traps, placing homemade Flame Explosion Potion beneath them to ensure that no people, monsters, or other strange creatures would disturb him.

Taylor then took a small blue packet from his canvas bag and crushed it. Sparse blue powder drifted into the air as if weightless, and soon, a line dyed in blue appeared at the cave entrance.

This was Scout Powder, recorded in the book Basic Knowledge for Wizard Apprentices. The color of this powder could be adjusted at will, and its characteristics were that it was nearly weightless, could detect many tiny traps, was odorless, and was exceptionally effective for capturing spider-type magical beasts.

For spider-type magical beasts that had not yet reached a rank, Scout Powder was an unbeatable nemesis. No matter how sensitive the spiders were, they could not detect this nearly weightless powder clinging to their silk threads.

Only ranked spider magical beasts could detect the anomaly on their webs through their own keen senses.

After discovering the blue spider silk, Taylor immediately left the entrance, caught a common rabbit outside, broke its leg, and threw it directly onto the silk.

(Note: Spider-type magical beasts lack color vision before reaching a rank, and their eyes have partial defects.)

After about three to five minutes, a spider with 16 eyes slowly crawled out of the cave. It looked at the rabbit, then at its surroundings, but it didn't strike; instead, it retreated to continue waiting.

Hiding in the bushes, his body covered in leaves and only his eyes exposed, Taylor observed carefully from the shadows, thinking to himself that this magical beast was indeed cunning.

He recognized the species of this special spider, which had 16 eyes—more than the average spider.

In the "Magical Beasts" section of Basic Knowledge for Wizard Apprentices, this spider was called a Many-Eyed Spider.

Although this spider had twice as many eyes as other spider-type magical beasts, it still only possessed four main eyes, just like its kin.

Four smaller eyes were located around the main ones to assist with vision, while the remaining eight were distributed across its limbs and tail for multi-directional observation.

Although this type of spider had many eyes, the only special effect this provided was a wider field of vision, making them harder to ambush. Their true characteristic was actually the extreme durability of their silk, which was comparable to steel.

The target was quite cunning and still waiting for something, but Taylor believed it would take the bait eventually.

As Taylor expected, after a short while, several spider legs suddenly extended, occasionally twitching the rabbit or spraying some silk to probe the surroundings.

Although the Many-Eyed Spider was cunning, it was not human and lacked human intelligence. Tempted by the rabbit struggling with its broken legs at the entrance, it finally couldn't resist, rushed out, and swallowed the rabbit in one gulp.

After eating the rabbit, the Many-Eyed Spider looked around for a while longer. Finding nothing unusual, it retreated back inside. Taylor was in no hurry; he remained in his original position, waiting patiently.

Ten minutes later, Taylor felt the time was right. The rabbit had been digested, and the hallucinogens and sedatives placed inside the rabbit's body should have taken effect.

He lifted a stone and threw it hard at the blue spider silk. After waiting for a long while, the Many-Eyed Spider did not emerge. Taylor felt relieved and immediately stood up to walk into the cave.

Upon entering the cave, a pale red barrier enveloped Taylor—the effect of the Flame Medal, a wizarding tool he carried. One of his hands was wreathed in Black Fog, while a small fireball flickered in the other.

One must be prepared for everything; he had to ensure he could retaliate immediately if attacked, obstruct the enemy's vision, and escape calmly.

The pale red shield emitted a soft glow, illuminating the surrounding path and the uneven trail ahead. He noticed that the cave walls were covered in spider silk, with objects of all sizes entangled within—some were even white bones or corpses.

When he reached the latter half of the cave, Taylor discovered the carcass of a low-level magical beast, a Stone-Armored Boar. It was now just a pile of bones, still covered in mucus and broken spider silk.

He walked over to the skeleton and poked it with a bone, but Taylor did not find the magical beast's mana core; it had likely already ended up in the Many-Eyed Spider's stomach.

Sigh... what a waste.

He sighed inwardly. In the eyes of wizards, mana cores had many uses: they could serve as energy sources, be crafted into wizarding tools, or act as nodes for wizarding arrays. At the very least, engraving a few wizarding runes on one to use as a disposable grenade was better than letting a magical beast eat it.

Given the Many-Eyed Spider's absorption rate, it was impossible for it to utilize the mana core perfectly.

Walking another ten meters or so, Taylor finally saw the sleeping Many-Eyed Spider.

At this moment, all 16 of the Many-Eyed Spider's eyes were half-open and half-closed, and its body was twitching or struggling unconsciously. The dosage Taylor had used might have been a bit high, potentially trapping the poor spider in some terrifying hallucination.

Watching the twitching Many-Eyed Spider, Taylor remained expressionless. He pinpointed the spot two decimeters behind the spider's head and drove a small knife into its nerve center.

Although the Many-Eyed Spider was a relatively low-level magical beast, its carapace, mana core, fuzz, negligible venom, silk glands, and eyes were all valuable materials for a current wizard apprentice.

Therefore, Taylor did not want to destroy the corpse completely. He simply severed the Many-Eyed Spider's nerve center as described in the book, ensuring that while the spider remained alive, its internal organs, silk glands, carapace, and fuzz remained as fresh as possible.

New book setting sail. I hope all readers will promote it and add it to their collections. I humbly request your recommendation votes. Thank you all.