Almost Halfway There

As the two Spirit Animals battled one another, Aloph mostly focused on resting but made sure to watch for an opportunity. As he did so, he called upon his health status.

[Ding!

►Health: Bruised. Fully recovery in two days.]

With that sorted out, Aloph knew he could continue. If he had been bleeding or had anything serious, he would've just left the forest and try to recover, but he only had some bruising.

Gripping his sword tightly, Aloph watched the two Spirits battle. The Wolf would continue to bite into the Python's body as it was being slowly crushed by the Python. Earlier, the wolf had been able to attack the Python with its sharp claws, but now that the Python had fully wrapped itself around the Wolf, it had no room to move. The Wolf's only option was to keep its jaws firmly on the Python and try to tear away at it.

Minutes flew by and it slowly became apparent the Python was winning, but just as Aloph thought he knew who the winner would be, the Spirit Wolf would suddenly disappear and reappear 2 meters away, staring angrily at the Python. After the Wolf which it had coiled around disappeared, the Python recoiled itself on the ground.

They only stared at each other for two seconds before the Wolf made its move. Pointing its head towards the sky the Spirit Wolf would let out a howl and suddenly, climbing out of its body was four tinier versions of itself.

Seeing this, Aloph was extremely surprised. When his mother had been teaching him about spirit beasts she had told him that when spirit beasts were born they would have an innate power they could use with ease, but she said one! This Spirit Wolf had two! That would make it a "Tier 2 Spirit Beast!"

Aloph immediately called for the system to display the Spirit Wolf's information.

[Phasing Pack Leader/Spirit Wolf

Rank: Tier 2.

Description: A leader that watched its pack die and died soon after trying to get revenge. The leader ended up becoming a Spirit Beast from its lingering resentment and rage. With the memories of its pack members resting inside it, it is able to summon them in battle as tinier versions of itself. After becoming a Spirit Beast, it encountered an enrichment cave that allowed it to become a tier 2 Spirit Beast and unlock a portion of its ancestry. ]

After reading the description of the Spirit Wolf, Aloph instantly became extremely alert, slowly backing away.

The moment the Spirit Wolf activated its second power the Spirit Python jumped away into the dense fog, realizing the disparity between it and the Wolf. The four summoned pack members would rush after it in formation.

Suddenly, the Spirit Wolf would turn its head towards Aloph and then its whole body.

'Shit...I guess there's no getting out of this..' Aloph, after realizing he had no way out of this knew he could only fight, so he got into a battle stance. Holding onto his sword tightly, Aloph stared at the Wolf and for a moment, he felt as if he and Wolf had an understanding that one of them was definitely going to die tonight.

That only lasted for a second as a moment later, Aloph reached down for his knife which prompted the Wolf to pounce straight towards him. Quickly grabbing his knife out of the pouch, Aloph threw it at the Wolf. Obviously, having no runes made it impossible for the knife to hit the Wolf, but that's exactly what Aloph wanted. He wanted the Wolf to associate his weapons as being useless.

The knife flew through the Wolf with no resistance and hit the ground, but Aloph paid no attention to it as he dodged to the right with a roll before being mauled to death. However, the dodge was made ineffective by the Spirit Wolf's phase jump. Phasing to the right, the Wolf was still jumping towards him. A second later, the Wolf was on top of him, giving his left shoulder a bite.

Pain ravaged Aloph's body, causing him to almost let go of his sword. Looking to his left, directly into the eyes of the Wolf, Aloph unleashed his killing intent. Facing the killing intent, the Spirit Wolf paused momentarily, slightly letting go of his shoulder. Aloph, despite being ridden with pain, took this opportunity to slash at the Spirit Wolf's neck with his sword.

Earlier, he had thrown his knife at the wolf to instill confidence in the Wolf to make it assume both of his weapons were useless against it and now that plan was coming into fruition.

With all the strength he could muster in his current position, Aloph slashed his sword at the Spirit Wolf's neck, hitting it and causing the Wolf to visibly become dimmer. Awakened by Aloph's attack, the Wolf was about to phase away, but it was too late. Aloph's sword went through the Spirit Wolf's neck like butter, decapitating it. As the Wolf died, its eyes showed disbelief. Obviously, it never thought there something other than another Spirit Beast that could actually harm it. Sadly, it wouldn't be able to think about their mistakes any longer.

As the body of the Spirit Wolf disappeared, a menu would pop in front of Aloph.

[Ding! You have killed a Tier 2 Spirit Wolf!

Would you like to claim the Exp or assimilate one of its skills?]

Aloph was happy that he finally got his revenge on the Wolf, no matter how petty it was, but he was shocked to see the option he was presented with. Assimilate one of the Spirit Wolf's skills?

Unaware of what it meant by assimilating, Aloph asked the System for clarification, "System, what do you mean by assimilating?"

[Ding!

By assimilate, it means to randomly take a single skill from the Spirit Wolf and make it your own. The skill will start at level 1. Also, there is no limit to what skill you can receive. They can be useless, or super powerful.]

With his question answered, Aloph decided to choose to get the Exp. Even if he did choose the skill, it would most likely be useless to him until he started his cultivation.

So, after Aloph chose the option to earn the Exp, he was given another menu displaying how much Exp he got from the Spirit Wolf.

[You killed a Tier 2 Spirit Wolf! You have gained 2000 Exp!

Exp: 4,803]

Seeing his total Exp go up, Aloph smiled before sending away the menu and looking down at where the Spirit Wolf died. Usually, tier 2 spirit animals left behind a crystal that one could refine. It was small, but Aloph managed to find a thumb-sized crystal laying on the dirt.

After picking up the crystal, he placed it within the subspace and stood up, looking in the direction the Spirit Python went. Smirking, Aloph began walking in that direction as he let out a chuckle.

"Hehe...time to deal with the jumping snake. "