First Mission Complete

The blue sky of Aegaryn stretched endlessly overhead, streaked with shades of yellow and orange. The land was lush and teaming with life as trees and grass grew everywhere, coating the brown dirt on the floor with a lively green.

"Roar!" a flaming tiger with red and white stripes with a line of flames trailing its back. 

Its eyes staring at its opponent, a hyena with a dark grey coat with burnt umber fur that trailed across his neck and along his back. 

Blood could be seen dripping from one of its front legs and the tiger could be seen not putting as much weight on it. Meanwhile, the hyena was unharmed and there were faint glowing purple claw-like marks that trailed his ribs and a large purple circle with a dot that looked like a bullseye on his shoulder joints.

These marks were glowing as the hyena also stared right at the tiger with pure aggression and resolution.

"Grrr-grrr!" the hyena loudly snarled, translated to, 'You annoying cat!'

'System, progress report,' he thought.

[Mission Update: 

"The Beginnings: First Mission", Mission: 

Defeat 10 beasts

Progress: 7/10

Reward: Shadows of the Pack (E)(Skill), 500 exp, 100 AP]

It had been a week since he had unlocked the system and this had been what he had been working on the whole time.

The whole of the realm of Aegaryn was scattered with summoning circles that would occasionally appear and each time, it would attract a large number of beasts. 

And these were where Boy had been capitalising as he found a number of summoning circles and began to challenge the weaker ones.

'Okay, it's time to finish this,' Boy thought as he began to circulate the energy inside of him. 

Spirit Dash!

The marks on his body began to glow even brighter as he immediately charged forward, at an incredible pace.

The tiger, seeing its opponent charge forward, jumped forward to meet it. 

However, due to its weaker front leg, it was unable to jump with complete balance or power.

'Perfect!' Boy thought and just as he felt that it was the perfect distance to leap at the tiger, he waited a split second longer before jumping.

This was extremely weird to the tiger who was expecting to be approached head on but instead, the hyena was now moving, right for its back leg.

The tiger immediately scrambled to move away as it hurriedly tried to shift its body to apprehend the attack.

However, the hairs on its back immediately spiked as it saw Boy's mouth begin to take a deep neon purplish glow and in that moment, Boy's mouth opened, revealing two rows of extremely sharp glowing teeth.

'Got you now…'

Shadow Bite!

A loud cracking and a clean chomping sound could be heard as the tiger's leg was bitten clean off. 

Roar!

It let out a loud roar of pain as it felt the loss of sensation on one of its legs.

Thud!

The tiger landed on the ground with a loud thud as it was unable to keep its balance as one side of its body had been completely injured. It had badly broken its front right leg and had now just lost its back right leg.

A defeated look appeared in its eyes as it stared at its body before quickly turning towards Boy with extreme hatred as he still had its leg in his mouth. Blood had squirted all across the hyena's face from when it was bit, giving the hyena an absolutely demonic image.

He saw its leg being dropped and the hyena began to make its way towards him… 

Unwilling to die or give up yet, the tiger scrambled to get it but no matter what it tried, it was not able to get up.

"Hya-hya!" Boy laughed, with admiration in his eyes as he felt extreme respect for the tiger due to its still-existing fighting spirit.

He placed one paw on the tiger's face and another on the tiger's shoulder, firmly planting it on the forest floor and immobilising it.

Now having the neck exposed, Boy opened his mouth once again and chomped down hard on the tiger's neck. Killing it.

[Ding! F- Rank Flame Tiger killed. 20 exp gained. +5 AP]

[Ding! Progress made!

"The Beginnings: First Mission", Mission: 

Defeat 10 beasts

Progress: 8/10

Reward: Shadows of the Pack (E)(Skill), 500 exp, 100 AP]

Hearing the soft dinging sound, Boy's body relaxed as he knew that the immediate threat had now been dealt with.

'I'm getting better at this…' he thought as he watched the tiger's body dissipate, 'He must have been close to F rank right, system?'

[Correct, host. The Flame Tiger that you had just defeated was very close to reaching F rank strength.]

'Phew…' Boy fell to the floor in exhaustion, 'System, status.'

[Name: Boy

Species: Shadow Hyena

Level: 2 

Experience: 60/200

Rank: F- 

Aether: 65/180

Base Stats:

- Strength: 8->11

- Agility: 13->15

- Endurance: 16

- Intelligence: 14

-Unused Points: 0

Traits:

@#$%&*!@$^ (?)[Locked]

Aetheric Sensitivity (F)

Shadow Affinity (D)

Skills:

Spirit Dash (F): Short burst of speed for evasion or closing distance, granting temporary invulnerability. Range- 10m. (20AP) (19%)

Shadow Bite (F): Basic melee attack infused with shadow energy. Small chance to weaken enemy defense temporarily. (30AP) (14%)

Evolution Path Progression:

- Current Form: Shadow Hyena

- Next Evolution: Not Decided]

'Okay, now only two left.' Boy thought happily as he started at his status screen with satisfaction.

Just as he was doing this, he felt a wave of magic pulsing.

Hmm? 

He immediately turned his head towards the source of the magic and got up, 'let's go have a look at what's happening…'

Upon arriving at the clearing where the summoning circle was placed, his attention was caught on two beasts that were currently caught in a fight. The fights seemed as if it had been going on for a while as both animals were very tired as they breathed heavily and were also both equally heavily injured.

One of the beasts, a large bull with extremely prominent muscles, had its whole body riddled with spikes and had just charged forward, ramming its horns into the other beast, a porcupine with dark purple spikes.

In the instant that it was hit, it was clear that the animal had taken a lot of damage as it let out a loud squeal but just as it did so, it fought back as one of its claws dug itself straight into the bull's eyes, causing the bull to immediately retreat back as it moo-ed out in pain.

'Interesting, both of them are badly injured,' Boy observed as he crept to the edge of the tree line so that he could observe both animals clearly. The bull with its one eye now unusable was technically susceptible to attacks on its blind side which had now increased massively and the porcupine had now used up quite a lot of its quills on the bull and was left very defenseless too. 

It was extremely neck and neck.

'Can I go take them out?' Boy thought as he considered his chances. But his last time was immediately reminded and he was filled with fear, 'I don't want something like that to happen again.'

Just as he thought this, something else in his head clicked as it told him, 'Then don't let that happen again. You are going to retreat again? What if another situation like the ritual happens again? This is your chance to get stronger.'

'Yeah…' Boy thought as he found himself being able to convince himself.

'I am no longer going to hide in weakness,' he told himself, 'I am going to fight for every opportunity to grow in strength! I will become stronger, by any means necessary!'

Having its eye blinded by the porcupine, the bull's eyes could be seen turning red as it was blinded by revenge as bloodlust oozed out of it and it charged forth again, resolute and sure that it would deliver the final killing blow.

The porcupine on the other hand, seeing this, immediately brought itself to stand tall despite the massive amount of blood that it was losing from having been impaled by the bull's horn in the last attack. It weakly stood up and aimed the rest of its remaining quills at the bull, preparing to shoot them.

However, just as it was about to shoot them, it saw a dark furred blur with glowing purple trails suddenly rush to the bull's side and stop right next to the bull's head.

Crash! 

In that moment, the bull's body crashed into the floor but as its whole momentum was aimed straight at the porcupine, it ended up sliding across the ground, bringing up both dust and rocks everywhere.

Not a sound could be heard from the bull again and it seemed to have stopped moving other than through its momentum as the rest of its body was still.

Suddenly having its vision blocked around the bull by the dust, the porcupine vigilantly stared at the bull and then looked around, cautiously searching for the blur that struck the bull before it fell. 

As it was looking around, it felt a strong sense of impending doom from all around itself but as it kept looking around, its vision began to blur and it felt its body lose strength as it fell to the ground.

Its injuries, especially the impale wounds that it had received had got the better of him and were now causing him to be knocking on death's door. 

A faint rustling could be heard in its ears in the form of footsteps. Footsteps got closer and closer before eventually stopping in front of it.

It weakly opened its eyes to see a blurry visage of a hyena, the last thing it would ever see before it was swiftly killed by an attack to the neck.

[Ding! Killed a F+ rank Blue Poison Porcupine. 20 exp gained. +10AP]

[Mission Complete!

"The Beginnings: First Mission", Mission: 

Defeat 10 beasts

Progress: 10/10

Reward: Shadows of the Pack (E)(Skill), 500 exp, 100 AP]

[Rewards gained}

[Levelled up! Congratulations, you are now Level 3. Gained 5 stat points.]

[Unlocked Chain Mission: "My First Summoning Circle"]

["The Beginnings: My First Summoning Circle", Chain Mission:

Get Summoned (Not Completed)

Reward: Pack Instinct (E)(Trait), 500 exp, 100 AP]