Chapter 4 - Ronald's First Battle And Jack's Last
In the outskirt of the Everlast forest, a young boy is currently hiding behind a bush, watching a small creature at the distance.
The creature has a thick white fur and a lone short horn on its forehead and also a cute appearance, this creature is a horned rabbit.
It has a height of about 0.5 meters. The rabbit looks cute and somewhat timid, you won't even relate this cute creature to a beast, but don't be fooled by its appearance. This rabbit is notorious for once causing a massive famine in a small town. Although this creature is small and looks like it couldn't eat a lot, this creature has a very peculiar ability, and that is
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Growing hunger (passive) - Lv 1: Eating anything that can be eaten would gradually increase the user's strength and vitality stats. But the more the user eats, the hungrier the user will be.
*Note: The higher the level of the skill, the higher the increase in stats.
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Due to this skill, this cute creature had eaten all the crops and even the town's domestic animals causing a huge famine in the whole town. Though they can be easily killed, as they become slower the more they eat.
But the thing is, a single horned-rabbit can eat a hectare of farmland within 5 seconds as they also had a skill that could attract anything it desires within a range of 100 meters to their mouths. And like having a black hole inside its mouth, all food that came into it would never see the beautiful sun ever again.
Luckily this beast is kinda dumb, as it only relies on its instincts in everything it does. If not, this cute creature will be the one that wouldn't see the sun ever again. As of now, they are still not listed on the kill on sight list for beasts, due to their delicious meat and them being controllable. You only need to remove every food in their surroundings if you don't want them to grow too much.
Observing the horned rabbit, Ronald remembered all the things that his uncle taught.
First, he used his skill
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Horned Rabbit (Lv. 1)
Hp: 660/660
Mp: 90/90
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Seeing the data shown by the skill, Ronald started analyzing the rabbit's stats and then prepared to make his attack.
Holding a sword that has a +25 physical attack damage, which was given by his uncle, Ronald moved stealthily and quietly positioned himself facing the back of the horned-rabbit.
Without any hesitation, Ronald jumped out of the bushes and lunged forward, piercing the neck of the horned rabbit.
Upon piercing the rabbit's neck, a red-colored number appeared above the rabbit's head in Ronald's vision.
- 15 Hp
The rabbit started struggling strongly to escape while the sword was still pierced on its neck after it felt the pain caused by Ronald's attack.
Seeing the situation, Ronald remembered what his uncle taught him before and raised the rabbit up on the air, not only maximizing the damage he dealt but also ensuring that the rabbit can't escape. Although this tactic is only applicable to small targets that are not only weaker than yourself but also are not heavy enough that you would struggle on lifting it.
As the rabbit was being lifted, red-colored numbers are constantly appearing every second, indicating the damage received by the rabbit and that life is slowly fading away from its small body.
About a minute later, the rabbit stopped struggling and died.
Seeing the dead horned rabbit, Ronald became happy and excitedly checked his status.
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Name: Ronald Silvermoon
Title: Beginner
Class: Tamer
Race: human
Bloodline: Unawakened
Level: 1
Hp: 120/120
Mp: 184/184
STR: 17
DEX: 26
CON: 15
INT: 23
WIS: 20
Status effectiveness: 80%
Potential: B
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Seeing his strength stat increase by 1, Ronald became happy. Although it was just a very small increase, this small increase is an indication that he can now grow stronger as long as he can kill a beast.
In this world, there are two ways to gain strength; Indoor/self-cultivation and Outdoor/Battle cultivation.
Each way of cultivation has its own advantages and disadvantages.
Indoor/self-cultivation is mostly done by self-comprehension and training by yourself. This way of cultivation offers a very stable foundation, although the growth in strength is slow, the process of breaking through a level is much easier than battle cultivation, while, outdoor/battle cultivation is gaining strength by killing beasts. Every time a person kills a beast, he will absorb a maximum of 1% of the total stat of the beast. But as the level of a person goes higher and higher, the percentage gained through battle cultivation will be reduced by half of the previous percentage.
Although the stats gained from killing beasts was reduced as a person advance in level, it was still much faster than self-cultivation, but advancing a level would be much more difficult than self-cultivation.
Like indoor cultivation, where the speed of gaining stat is proportional to a person's talent, in battle cultivation, the amount of stats gained is also proportional to a person's talent.
While Ronald was opening his status, Jack suddenly appeared beside him and patted his shoulder.
"Congratulations! You did really well."
Hearing his uncle's praise, Ronald smiled and answered, "Thank you, uncle."
"But don't be arrogant because of this victory, always remember..."
Jack wanted to lecture Ronald, but before he can continue, Ronald finished what Jack was supposed to say.
"There's a mountain beyond a mountain. Yeah... Yeah... Yeah... Uncle, you have said that many times already," Ronald said in annoyance.
"I am just worried about you stopping because you thought that you have conquered all the mountains."
"Don't worry uncle, I will always strive to move forward and someday reach the peak," Ronald said with a fire of confidence burning from his eyes.
Seeing Ronald's confidence, although he didn't know where his confidence came from and even Ronald himself didn't know why he is so confident, he still knew that someday Ronald will reach the top as he was the son the queen and the son of "that" man.
"Okay... Now, let's see how much stats have you gained from that battle."
Ronald was about to answer, but then Jack cut his words.
"Ah, I remember that I need to do something. Let's talk about this later. You go home first and tell Hannah to cook something delicious," Jack said with a slight frown on his face, but he had quickly covered it with a smile.
"Okay," Ronald replied while not noticing the small change in Jack's expression as he was too happy holding his first kill.
"Don't you forget to tell Hannah to cook something delicious," shouted Jack as Ronald ran towards the village while skipping.
Jack watched Ronald's back for a while before heading deeper into the forest.
Moments later, Jack came to an area where there is only a small ray light that can pass through.
"This where I lost contact with my shadow," Jack said while observing his surroundings.
As he was observing, a voice was suddenly heard behind him.
"Haha... The information is true. I thought it was another scam... I don't need to kill anyone for false information anymore... Haha."
Jack turned his head to where the voice came from. And there he saw, a man wearing a black hood walking slowly towards him.
Jack couldn't clearly see the man's face due to the hood, but he felt that the man was very familiar to him.
When the man stood 10 meters away from Jack, he stopped.
"Who are you?" Jack asked.
Hearing Jack's question, the man laughed hysterically before lifting his hood.
"Oh! Jack, Jack, Jack. Have you already forgotten me?"
Seeing the man's face, Jack was shocked and then became serious.
"Cyre"
Cyre is a Silvermoon elf and is one of Jack's groupmate back in the days when they were still being trained to become an elite guard of the royal family. Cyre has pointed long ears, which is common among the elven race. He has long green hair and a handsome face with silver eyes.
They were best friends before their relationship went haywire.
"HAHA... Yeah, It's me Cyre, your friend, whom you betrayed," Cyre said as he continued to laugh while holding two short swords in each hand.
Jack looked at Cyre with a mix of emotions.
"I didn't betray you, it is you who betrayed us," Jack said as he put a broad sword that is 1.5 meters in length on his shoulder which suddenly appeared on his hand.
"There is no use in talking nonsense... It wouldn't matter anyway... Because today... Today you're gonna die," Cyre said while laughing, then after, he dashed forward, with one sword on the front and one sword in the back, with very astonishing speed where not even a trace of him moving can be found.
But thanks to his huge amount of battle experience, Jack reacted quickly and used his broad sword to defend Cyre's quick slashes, before counter-attacking.
They continued to fight in such high intensities, causing many trees to fall and causing dust forming into clouds, but they didn't mind this and continued fighting.
It was only about 10 minutes later that a person was thrown out of the cloud of dust that is covering the area.
It was Cyre. Different from his earlier appearance, he now has many huge slashes across his entire body, while his cool looking robe with a hood on it, is nowhere to be seen. Blood covered his entire body, but he still continued laughing.
"Is this all the strength that you have? This isn't enough if you wanted to kill me," Jack said as he stared at Cyre with a serious expression.
Jack knew Cyre's personality very well, he wouldn't take on a mission if he isn't confident enough to accomplish it. And the council would also never sent him if they aren't confident of his abilities.
"HAHA, you really know me quite well. But have you forgotten what am I best at?"
Hearing what Cyre said, Jack immediately jumped back, but it was already too late, a violet-colored smoke, emerging from where he was standing, has entirely covered him.
"HAHA... I am best at setting traps. I hope you will enjoy my gift... And please entertain me for some time as my life these days are so boring," Cyre said as he was also covered by a green smoke coming out of his body.
"By the way, this is a new skill of mine. The violet smoke attracts beasts that are up to two levels higher than me at a distance of 10 kilometers around me while the green smoke makes me invisible to them. I have already attracted many beasts from the outer forest before coming here. So, don't worry as there would be many beasts joining the party. There will be many level 5's among them, while also having some level 6's. So, good luck... And goodbye, but I will not see you next time... hahaha."