Strange.
It seemed the system only recognized a slain beast as a whole. But before he could linger on the thought, a new screen blinked into view, right after his palm touched the corpse.
(Ding! Congratulations to the host for defeating an Initial Bronze-Rank Armoured Quadruped. Do you wish to devour its essence and merge with one of its attributes?)
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He chose yes mentally before another notification panel popped up.
Race: Beast (Evolved Armoured Quadruped.)
Rank: Initial Bronze.
Strength: 70
Agility: 59
Intelligence: 15
Charisma: 10
Endurance: 60
Luck: 10
Blank Attributes: 70
"Damn! The bronze-ranked Armoured Quadruped really packed some attributes."
Before he could select one, he saw a row of unfamiliar text.
"Huh? Blank attributes?"
His eyes narrowed.
Were these attributes he could allocate himself without system interference.
But why now?
He remembered allocating his first attribute point that time he killed his first beast... cough... the rat. Since then, it had been the system allocating his attribute points for him.
So, was this a subtle hint? A test? Or just a new function unlocked due to defeating stronger opponents?
Either way, it finally gave meaning to the previously useless 'Unallocated Attributes' panel. Maybe stronger beasts were the key. The more powerful he defeated, the more options unlocked.
He glanced again at the status panel, a question forming.
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Could he see other beasts' stats mid-battle, just like this one? That'd help him choose smarter fights. But no such function yet appeared to have been unlocked as he could only see stats of the beast he intended to devour.
But at least now he knew the dividing line of peak-iron rank and initial bronze-ranked stats which if he estimated right was around fifty to seventy stat points.
Iron-ranked beasts topped out just beneath. The beast’s strength was absurd, but its intelligence lagged behind which was to be expected. After all, what gave humans and beast tamers the edge wasn’t raw power. It was intelligence, however this advantage faded gradually as beasts evolved into higher ranks, gaining sentience. Something dangerous.
Replaying the fight again in his mind, he shivered at the terrifying thought.
This beast, even with just 15 points in intelligence, had realized its odds were slim after his [Stone Skin] evolved into full earth affinity. And it made the call of mutual destruction. That single spark of insight had almost ended him...argh no... destroyed his beast core.
What would happen when he faced beasts with intelligence stats far beyond that?
Could they even be called beasts anymore?
Putting those thoughts away a spark of inspiration lit up in his mind.
What if the system didn't calculate his rank using the metric of the beasts he killed but through his stats?
Considering the battle again, he hardly won as his win had been hugely influenced by his newly acquired affinity.
He doubted he could easily kill initial bronze-ranked beasts as he did peak iron-ranked ones. All this because, although he had the help of his affinity his stats did not quite match Bronze-ranked beasts.
Given that he walked in a slightly unconventional path where he didn't have beast companions to fight for him, he regarded his body as his beast.
If that logic still held then which attribute to choose... Hmmmmm.
Strength seemed pretty cool, if he devoured it and added it to his, he could have beaten the crap out of the Bronze rank armoured quadruped fairly easily, hell he could even rival intermediate bronze-ranked beasts, but he doubted that.
Agility for now was a hard pass, he wasn't in current need of speed with his new ability- sphere of detection and the earth that somehow felt like an extension of him, it simply negated any dire need of agility.
It's intelligence wasn't that appealing, he had read previous records of people who defeated beasts single-handedly all through intelligence but all that was through scheming, traps and more straining processes that weren't just for him .
As for charisma, nobody would reject being handsome but if it came to a life and death battle, he didn't see how that would help, though he had heard of rumours of people whose appearance bordered divine that would smack beast and people alike dumbstruck.
Again he highly doubted the charisma he would gain from the beast would elevate him to such a high level.
Endurance also was pretty good as the beast's outclassed him and even the thought of high stamina pleased him to no end, but he was good for now.
Luck? He didn't even consider it. If one thing he had learned was how fickle it was, he couldn't upgrade it and bunk on it to save the day, it was a bit too unrealistic.
Then came the blank attributes.
Which he honestly found way more enticing.They gave him freedom and balance. A foundation he could mold into anything.
Also... where the hell were toughness and willpower? This thing had skin tough as armour, and yet no stat for it? Total waste.
He’d have to build those himself—with blank points.
The decision made, Auron focus on the blank attributes.
Which was followed by silence.
Huh?
No pain, no searing agony, no system-induced mental torture?
It seemed a bit anticlimactic even for him.
After all, from previous scenes where he had devoured attributes, it had always been accompanied by pain, not that he missed it or something.
Maybe he needed to allocate them first. Still, this was a win. Time to milk this system dry. He was going to devour every single beast he had killed.
Before that, though—something long overdue.
It was time to explore his new affinity in full. So far, he’d only used earthen projections and that [Sphere of Detection] ability. But that couldn’t be all.
He recalled the affinity description, it couldn't be this simple right?
Time to test it and dispel all confusion.
Test 1; Earthen astral projection. Lifting his hand the shard of rock he used to slay the beast floated up in response to his will.
Time trickled to half an hour before sweat started forming on his forehead as he began to strain to keep the shard afloat.
Huh? seems it wasn't overpowered as he thought, so he could only manipulate it for half an hour before he hit his limit.
Test two; His sphere of detection: Still covered a radius of five point one meters. A fun discovery was that if he still closed his eyes everything within the five-meter point-one radius was crystal clear to him.
It was actually kind of cool.
Test three: Gravity manipulation; Failed, he could feel it around him but manipulating it was another thing altogether. So much for being Gravity's heir.
Test four: Weight manipulation: 50 kilograms max through his will only which was frustrating, there goes another way to kill beasts just by dropping gigantic stones on them.
Test five; Flying... cough so turns out he couldn't stand on a piece of rock and will it to fly, bummer.
His tests continued as the range and capacity of his abilities became clearer to him as his expectations were tempered with reality, but each failure carved a shaper understanding of His limits .
Which brought him to another conclusion.
Reality was underwhelming... for now.
Staring at the carcasses of the iron-ranked Armoured Quadrupeds he had slain, a faint grin tugged at his lips.
Time to devour even more attributes. Let’s see just how much of an overpowered bastard I'm about to become.
***
A few moments later...
Huh... wait...what?
What do you mean by this?
You can't do this to me!
Noooooooooooooo!
Bonus Chapter shall descend .