New skills and Pain

Man, what a rush! My heart is still pounding after that. Below me were the corpses of the white knoll which was not white anymore because of all the blood and the goblin king. The other injured knolls that I took down were scattered close by as well laying there still and unmoving.

I cannot believe I was able to do that and come out of it unscathed. I was sure I was going to get hit or something seeing as how powerful those two were. But I guess neither of them had enough in them to protect themselves from my sneak attack. Wonder how many times I leveled up from that?

In that moment I heard a snap of some sort maybe a branch or just some other foliage that was crunched under foot. It came from the brush on the opposite side of where I emerged when I first came out and attacked. Looking in that direction all I could see was a bit of rustling in the undergrowth and then nothing, everything went still.

Maybe it's one of the normal knolls sticking around for some nonsensical reason, I cannot really smell anything other than blood now so I would not even be able to tell unless I get close to it. Na I will let it go I killed both the big shots and some of the cannon fodder as well for a bonus. I deserve a rest if anything.

Now that I get a closer look at both guys, I noticed something about them. They have a slight glow around their chest where the heart would be located. I really hope this is what I think it is. I bent down and placed my claw over the glowing area on the chest of the white knoll and stared to carve a hole out.

It was not pleasant in the slightest. Cutting through something with my claws with little to no resistance is one thing but when I am actively carving up and cutting open a creature's chest that could be the right shape and size of a human well. . .. I got a little queasy. But at the end of it I got to what I was searching for.

In the opened chest cavity of this creature there was a glowing dark purple crystal lodged in the heart, faintly pulsing every few seconds or so. As I reached out to grab it the status screen showed up, but it had some other words on it which read as so . . .

"Would you like to assimilate the subjects (King Knoll [white variant]) skills and traits?"

Well well well, I think I know what my assimilate skill can do now. Yes, I would like to assimilate.

Once I said that the crystal that I was touching burst into a purple dust and swirled towards my chest. When it touched me, I felt cold all over like someone just dumped ice water all over me. But it was gone in a less than a second, like it never happened.

"Assimilation was successful, prepare for augmentation"

Uh, ok? Something is going to happen but first I should get the crystal from the goblin king as well. After cutting open and absorbing the crystal from the goblin king I looked around to see if any other corpses were glowing and none of them were sadly. Well maybe I was asking for to much, I already got two from the bosses why would I think I would get more from the little ones.

I think this is a good time to check my status.

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--Race: Unknown

--Age: 0 years old

--Titles: "Thing", Ambusher

--Level: 26

--Passive skills:

Dark vision

Serrated bite: level 2-->3 (Increase)

Increased perception: level 1-->3 (Increase)

Swordsmanship: level 2 (inactive)

Blunt weapon mastery: level 2 (inactive)

Minor resistance (all status effects)

--Active skills:

Slash (Claws): level 1-->3 (Increase)

Intimidating roar: level 1-->2 (Increase)

Physical enhancement: level 2 (New)

Dash: level 1 (New)

--Unique skills:

Assimilation

Skill points: 52

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Well my skills are coming along nicely, and I have an abundance of skill points. I should really distribute them to some of my . . .. when I was thinking that blinding pain assaulted me. It was like touching a stove top on high but all over my body. I screamed or at least I think I did because the next second, I blacked out from the pain.