16. Underground Ambush

Ever since Abraham caught Zion in the office, he actually started leaving various books on a lower shelf for him to reach and read. Due to this, Zion had finally confirmed some of things he had hypothesised.

The rankings of various things of the world was indeed from E - D - C - B - A - S - SS - SSS. Although, beasts of the SSS rank, also known as divine beasts, haven't been seen for 200 years. The highest seen has been SS.

He also found our there was a large scale adventures guild that had roots in all kingdoms and they had their own ranking system as well.

The ranks of the adventurers guild are Iron - Steel - Bronze - Silver - Gold - Platinum - Mythril.

Other then that, there was the monetary value of things and how this world calculated money. He also found out that beast bodies can be used for crafting so they often are sold for money.

Money of this world was pretty primitive, being comprised of copper, silver, gold and platinum pieces. As expected, 100 copper is 1 silver, 100 silver is 1 gold, then 1000 gold is 1 platinum.

Zion was laying outside enjoying the sunlight as Sarah played in a small sandpit when he heard a rumbling coming from underground.

His ears perked up and he raised his head before standing up and letting out a warning yip towards Sarah.

Sarah looked at her fox pet with a surprised face then ran over giggling, "You actually made a noise!" She said happily but it was short lived as the sand where she had been a moment ago suddenly exploded outwards causing her to scream and fall down in surprise.

Zion growled as he quickly analysed the beast that showed up. It looked like a naked mole-rat except it was completely brown and it was the size of a medium dog with huge half an arm length claws on its front legs and front incisors the size of an adult humans foot with beady black eyes.

[[Species: Earth Claw Mole-rat.

Rank: C

Magic Affinity: Earth.

HP: 150/150

STR: 28

AGI: 36

DEF: 5

Weakness: Above the surface its slower to move and due to its hairless body, it has basically no defence.]]

'A C rank... I haven't seen a C rank since I left the forest. And even then I didn't fight the thing.' He watched as the mole-rat turned its head towards them then let out a strange chittering sound before it ducked back underground.

Zion focused his hearing to listen for its movements and immediately noticed the sound of it heading towards Sarah again, 'Shit it's aiming for her!' He immediately moved between her and where the molerat was going to emerge from.

The mole-rat burst from the ground with its claws stretched out and large teeth opened towards them.

Sarah again screamed but Zion didn't hesitate and dashed forward then pounced at the mole-rat crashing it back to the ground where he then immediately bites it on the stomach.

The mole-rat screeched in pain and after struggling a bit it slashed at him with its claws. He managed to dodge a bad hit but still its huge claws managed to catch him on his left side and left a claw mark that immediately started bleeding.

He backed towards Sarah with pain radiating through the wound but he kept growling at the similarly injured mole-rat.

It rolled back onto its stomach, still feeling a lot of pain as it snapped its incisors angrily towards Zion.

Zion glanced at the health of both him and the mole-rat.

[[Earth Claw Mole-rat: 45/150

[[Zion: 295/300]]

[[You have been afflicted with Bleed. You lose 5% HP per second.]]

[[Zion: 280/300]]

Zion frowned seeing that. He would lose 15 health every second which would stay until he stopped the bleeding himself.

He decided to finish this quickly and dashed towards the mole-rat again since he still had the boost active.

The mole-rat tried to dive back underground however Zion lashed his tail out at its face causing it to snap its teeth in surprise and close its eyes, halting its movement long enough for him to catch up to it and release another slash at its face.

The mole-rat couldn't dodge the attack being blinded so it took the attack straight to its face and due to its low health and low defence, its HP immediately dropped to 0.

The mole-rat let out a loud pained screech as it fell to the ground dead.

[[Earth Claw Mole-rat (C) killed, 75 EXP gained.]]

[[Higher rank beast killed, 45 EXP gained.]]

Zion panted softly but frowned, 'This was too easy... for a C rank I feel like this should be harder.' He got a bad feeling in his stomach about how easy it was, to the point he forgot about his bleeding side as he waited for something else to happen.

Sarah, seeing the beast dead, crawled over to Zion, "I-Is it dead foxy?" She asked with a shaky voice and tears in her eyes.

Zion glanced at her but then heard the ground rumbling again, 'That... that sounds like a half a dozen more at least!' His eyes widened a bit and he leapt on Sarah to knock her away from that spot as another identical one burst from the ground screeching followed by another and soon, 6 identical Earth Claw Mole-rats emerged and stared at them with anger in their small beady eyes.

Zion glanced at his health since he was still affected by bleed and he had begun to feel weak and his vision was blurring a bit.

[[Zion: 130/300]]

'Damn it... in less then 10 seconds I'll die...' He growled softly as he glanced at Sarah who was again terrified seeing the 6 dog sized beasts.

Zion turned to face them and got in a fighting stance, 'I won't... Back down!'