“Scouts,” Asha said, surprisingly clear-voiced. “Low-rank swarmers. But if there are scouts…”
“Then there’s a nest nearby,” Auron finished.
Dante cursed. “Of course there is. Nothing’s ever easy.”
The group fell silent for a beat, letting the weight of the situation settle.
Two weeks. That’s how long they had to survive.
One hour in, and they were already in a mess.
Auron looked at his team. No longer just classmates. Not even just allies.
Now they were survivors.
And they hadn’t even seen the worst of it yet.
They had to make do with what they had and move fast—before more of those beasts came rolling in from wherever they’d spawned.
Most low-level Iron-ranked beasts lived in groups. And now that they’d killed a few, more were bound to come.
A few? Manageable.
But if they came in waves?
That’d be a whole different beast. Strength came in numbers. And they all knew it.
“Okay, let’s wrap this up fast,” Lyra called out. “We just killed a bunch of quadrupeds, and that caused a commotion. Their buddies’ll be coming for payback soon. We need to be long gone by then. But before we leave—harvest everything we can. We’re gonna need it.”
Auron stepped forward, volunteering to harvest the meat. He had something to confirm.
He’d only killed one quadruped and injured another, playing it low-key. But that wasn’t the point.
The point was… he’d spotted a potential bug he could exploit.
He approached the beast he’d slain and placed his hand on it.
A familiar system notification appeared:
> Ding!
Congratulations to the host for defeating an Intermediate Iron-Rank Armoured Quadruped.
Do you wish to devour its essence and merge with one of its attributes?
<
Huh? Mid-rank Iron? No wonder it was that weak after all it had only taken one punch to kill it.
Compared to the Procan Python, this beast was trash. And it didn’t even contribute to his [Stone Skin] progression.
Still, he replied mentally: Yes.
The list of available attributes appeared.
> Ding!
The Armoured Quadruped possesses the following attributes:
Strength: 10
Agility: 4
Endurance: 12
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Select which attribute to devour:
<
A subtle smile tugged at the edge of Auron’s lips.
He exhaled, relieved. He’d been half-worried the attributes would show up as decimals—but turns out he was overthinking.
Still, the thought lingered: Did that mean only subsequent kills from the same species offered reduced points?
A question for later.
He reviewed the attributes again. Strength was tempting. He could probably take on a peak Iron-rank beast and come out on top—at least, that’s what he liked to tell himself.
After all, the only peak iron rank beast he had battled was the Procan python which brought up another question.
What if the Procan Python had just been the weakest of the bunch?
It did live near the outer edges of the Wastelands, not in the deeper zones like they were now.
Either way, he had strength covered. His agility was decent too.
But his endurance?
Yeah. That sucked.
Sweat was already rolling down his face. His limbs were heavy. Exhaustion was catching up fast.
A major weakness.
Without much hesitation, Auron selected Endurance.
His teammates were still scrummaging through beast corpses, so no one noticed what happened next.
A familiar energy surged from the Armoured Quadruped’s body, coalescing into a faint, glowing orb. It hovered for a heartbeat… then shot into Auron.
And the memories came.
Vivid. Lifelike. Images of the beast’s life, its unrelenting stamina, its instincts, its resilience. All of it unraveling and weaving into Auron’s soul.
But this time, it wasn’t painful.
It felt like his body was being reshaped. Each organ subtly optimized—remolded to burn less, last longer, move harder.
Less exhaustion. More stamina.
It was over in seconds. A rush of energy flooded his system.
The tiredness?
Gone.
He stood, having extracted some edible meat from the carcass. Looking up, his teammates had done the same—they were ready to move out.
But before they did, Auron wanted to test something else. A long shot. But if it worked, it could seriously boost his growth.
He approached another Armoured Quadruped—this one killed by Lyra’s Frost Wolf—and placed his hand on it.
A question played at the back of his mind.
Could he devour attributes from beasts he didn’t kill?
He waited…
Nothing.
No system notification.
Damn!
So he did have to be the one to land the killing blow.
Expected—but still disappointing.
However his modified System panel comforted him a bit.
SYSTEM INTERFACE
Name: Auron Raventor
Title: Peak Iron Rank Hunter
Race: Human
Class: None (Yet)
Beast Contracts: 0
Attributes:
Strength: 36
(Your fists are now wrecking balls. Try not to punch walls… or people. Or both.)
Agility: 30
You're too fast for your own good. Literally.)
Intelligence: 12 (Big brain, but still dumb decisions incoming.)
Charisma: 8 (You're slightly less terrifying. Slightly.)
Endurance: 20(You can actually take a hit now. Progress?)
Luck:14 (At this rate, the universe is actively favoring you.)
Unallocated Attribute Points: (0)
Skills.
Stone Skin: Skill progression <85.6>
“Okay, time to head out,” Lyra called, snapping him out of his thoughts.
The group began moving again time to look for a place to lay low for the night . Lyra and Dante took the lead, eyes scanning the terrain ahead.
Auron lingered near the rear, his steps steady, refreshed from the endurance boost.
But all this went unnoticed as he tried to come up with plans to level up to bronze rank as soon as possible.
Although he possessed peak iron rank strength he was still pretty much the weakest link in the group. That had to change, fast and soon.
But before he could continue he felt someone behind him followed by a somewhat sweet voice.
"Auron…" Asha's voice came soft, laced with something… airy.
He glanced sideways, eyebrows arched.
Looking at her up close, he noticed she was a young lady who could pass off as pretty, but not pretty smart enough to keep her mouth shut, he had heard her snarky comment about him being dead weight and all before the battle had even began, something he was not particularly happy about.
"You're not even breathing hard," she said with a tiny pout. "Everyone else looks all sweaty ."
Auron raised his brow higher trying to shake her off, he didn't exactly feel obligated to answer so he just gave a vague comment. "Training."
"Training?" she echoed, stepping a bit closer, just enough for their shoulders to nearly brush. "The same kind that lets you take down an Iron-ranked beast with your bare hands? Because that didn’t look like training. That looked like something else entirely."
He didn’t answer, "Argh! So that's what she wanted, it seemed pretty off for her to suddenly gain interest in him from being skeptical."
She leaned in conspiratorially. “That armour thing, right? You didn’t use a beast, and yet you could go toe-to-toe with them. That’s… not normal martial arts is it?”
Still he said nothing.
She giggled softly, when she noticed his sour expression, brushing a finger to her lips in mock thought. "You know... it kind of reminds me of the martial artists in those old war scrolls. You ever read those? 'The path of power through mastery of the self' and all that?"
Auron gave a small shrug. “Not exactly.”
"But that’s what it is, right? A technique?” Her voice dropped just a little. “A secret style?”
Now her tone shimmered with a mix of admiration and hunger bordering greed. Curiosity laced with obsession. “You could show me, you know. Maybe just a little bit?”
She tilted her head, giving him a sweet, hopeful look that would’ve melted most hearts.
Auron stared ahead, forcing a smirk off his lips, time to dash away her hopes, but first he made it look as if he was considering sharing it with her.
“Why?” he asked flatly.
"Because…" Her voice fluttered, soft and breathy, “I want to be able to fight without relying on anyone else. My beast is strong, but it’s not me. You? You fight like it’s all you. Like… your body is your weapon.”
That almost made him pause, if it was anyone else maybe this could have worked on them, but Auron looked at her, indifferently .
Asha reached out, brushing his forearm. Trying a different approach . “Is it always like this when you activate it? You get harder… tougher… everywhere?”
He shot her a look.
Her eyes widened innocently, though the pink blush at her cheeks said otherwise. “I mean your arms, duh.”
Auron exhaled through his nose. “It’s not a martial art. It’s a skill.”
Her smile twitched. “Then teach me the skill.”
“I can’t.”
She pouted. “Why not?”
“Because it’s not that simple, even if he wanted to teach her—which he didn’t—it was impossible.
The skill wasn’t learned. It was absorbed. Through the system.
And she didn’t have one.
Tough luck.
Her lips pursed, a bit of real frustration threading through. Then she took a breath, stepping back with a mock sigh. “Okay, okay. Just thought I’d ask.”
But as she walked forward to rejoin the others, Auron saw it. The smallest flicker of calculation behind her smile, it was all to similar to the look he had when he started scheming and calculating which gave him a feeling
Asha wasn’t done prying. Not yet.