Auron raised his hand, and the shard of rock he held floated up in response to his will.
Steadying his breath, he locked his gaze onto the approaching beast. Its movement was now a blur of motion, and he could only make out a faint trajectory of where it was heading.
But Auron remained calm—not because he was assured of victory, but because he had discovered something new: vibration.
When the beast tread upon the earth, it created vibrations. Through these, the ground—now an extension of him—revealed the beast’s exact path in his mind.
To concentrate on this, he gave in to instinct and closed his eyes—and was surprised... amazed even. Because he could "see" everything around him—clearly—even behind his back. Faint details he would normally miss, like a rock buried two feet beneath where he stood. But this “vision” only covered a five-meter radius—more like a sphere of detection. A mini-domain.
He attributed this to his low affinity progress. Maybe in the future, when it increased, he could see everything in the realm of Ignea...but that wasn’t now... yet.
Because he perceived it, the Armoured Quadruped had entered his sphere of detection, where every minor detail was visible.
Auron snapped out of his thoughts as the beast crossed into the five-meter range, just about to bash into him.
Yet he didn’t panic. He had already seen its trajectory through his sphere of detection.
Eyes still closed, Auron stepped left, guided by the earth. The beast charged through empty air.
Subject to inertia, it had overcommitted on a move and couldn’t change its trajectory in time—leaving an opening. One Auron didn’t hesitate to exploit.
Raising his hand again, not that it was mandatory but just for the flair of it, he pointed at the wounded armoured tissue on the back of it's leg.
The shard accelerated in response to his command and pierced through, lodging itself firmly, but unable to penetrate further, still it elicited a pained howl from the Armoured Quadruped.
Causing it to fall with a thud.
Auron didn’t waste time. Running toward it with his hand outstretched, the shard dislodged from the beast’s hind limb, bloodstained, and returned to his palm, while buzzing faintly
The red aura that buzzed faintly around the beast was fading.
Giving it one final look, Auron drove the shard deep into its brain, ending its misery.
It had been a worthy foe and he respected that, but to forge his way to power, he would have to kill more, killing for him wasn't just about defence anymore it was a necessity for him. He would kill to fuel his growth.
It was that simple.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Blood splattered, leaking from its damaged head—then something wondrous happened, something he hadn’t expected.
The blood of the dead armoured quadruped was absorbed by the earth, every drop.The blood didn't stain the earth but once it dripped on it, it..... disappeared.
"Wait.... what?"
Before he could contemplate further, a system notification popped up in his line of vision displaying unfamiliar rows of text.
[You have killed an Initial Bronze-Rank Armoured Quadruped]
[ You have fed the Earth with the blood of the slain]
[Your Earth Affinity grows stronger]
This was followed by a faint hum by the earth around him as he felt more in sync with it and even more, the range of his sphere of detection increased slightly.
Auron took a step back, trying to register everything that was happening.
He could feel it, slight changes taking place within him, to accommodate the growing sphere of detection.
Previously, it was five meters. Now, it had increased to 5.1.
Taking his time to gather up his thoughts, Auron rushed back to the slain beast, shard of rock in hand as he ignored all system notifications ringing in his head, only one thought echoed in his mind," My fucking beast core!"
Prying open it's brain further Auron looked through it, hands rummaging everything until he saw it, a red shimmering orb pulsating with faint runes signalling its bronze rank tier.
Although smaller than expected, due to the beast's final attempt at going berserk, it was still there and it was damn better than nothing.
Then, another system notification pinged, asking if he wanted to absorb the skill it contained.
But first he called up his system mentally to display all his current stats.
It was time he cleared up some of the confusion he had.
Thus, he gazed at the system panel again, but this time, he analyzed every detail.
SYSTEM INTERFACE
Name: Auron Raventor
Title: Peak Iron Rank Hunter
Race: ???
Class: None (Yet)
Beast Contracts: 0
Attributes:
Strength: 54.2
Agility: 44.6
Intelligence: 22.9
Charisma: 17.5
Endurance: 33.7
Luck:20
Toughness:10.3
Willpower: 10
Remark: ( Recalibrating)
Unallocated Attribute Points: (0)
Skills: None (yet)
Affinities: Earth
[ Affinity progression 0.1]
[Do you wish to absorb the skill from the bronze rank armoured quadruped beast crystal?]
"The hell..."
Auron looked at his refreshed system panel in amazement, his violet eyes glinting with a growing hint of curiosity.
He had gained two new attributes?
Focusing on them, he tried to reveal how they influenced him.
And as expected the moment he focused on them, rows of information filled his mind displaying their information.
Toughness: Grants the host a constitution that is highly resilient against damage done without any activation of skills.
[If it reaches a certain point, may trigger the awakening of a physique.]
Willpower: Enables the host to manipulate elements accurately while enhancing the clarity of the host in battles.
Looking at it another time, a realization struck him. As his strength grew he continued unfolding the mysteries that shrouded his system and this was just one of them— additional attributes.
Did this mean that when he advanced in the future to an insane realm, his system panel would have more stats and attributes than he would care to count?
“If this was only the start, he couldn’t wait to see what kind of monster he’d become.”
His theory about how his stats was now confirmed.
Every Iron-rank beast he killed granted him two attribute points across his stats, but subsequent kills from the same species granted him way lesser, he couldn't be sure for now the specific points, but what he was sure was that he had gained five attribute points across all his stats the moment he killed the bronze ranked armoured quadruped, he had felt it, the surge in strength.
But that wasn't what bugged him, a frown was etched in his face, his panel still displayed that he was a peak iron-rank hunter.
Was it a glitch? Didn't it fucking register that he had killed a bronze rank beast, or did the system not classify his rank using the metric of the beasts he killed.
Had he been going through all this the wrong way this whole time?
Because if so, then he was pissed or did he have to fulfill some sort if criteria so he could advance and stats didn't just qualify him as a bronze-rank hunter?
"Arrrrrghhhhh!"
Auron was coming to like the the system even less, why couldn't it just be simple, but that didn't matter much, at least he had the strength to fight bronze-ranked beasts, if only still initial ones.
A win was a win.
Such as his new affinity that he was growing to like every passing minute.
It was shaping out to be something of a powerful ability.
If it grew strong enough to let him defeat enemies by manipulating gravity or pressure...or even better what if he could mold the earth into his weapon, Infinite possibilities to exploit his new affinity flashed through his mind, but he tempered his expectations with reality.
Every ability came with limitations and he would have to fully understand them to fully grasp his new power.
All those thoughts faded to the back of his mind as he looked at the beast before him, a grin tugging the edge of his lips.
It was time to see what the beast core from the bronze ranked armoured quadruped would grant him and also search to see if the other iron ranked quadrupeds had any cores he could take, he couldn't be too picky, what were the odds he wouldn't find one.
But first, it was time.
Time to devour his first bronze ranked beast, would this time be different?
