After having defeated all those enemies Ark went straight back to his tree again. He didn't want to stay around anymore since all of the ghouls would be coming at the same time now, and he wasn't stupid enough to think he would be able to take them all on at the same time. Even though he knew that he would be able to put up a pretty good fight, he didn't want to risk anything if he didn't need to. He had also heard a lot of notifications ringing inside his head when he had killed all of the monsters. This made Ark very excited, since it meant that he had probably gained a lot of levels from doing something simple like that.
He decided to wait with checking his status until he had reached the safety of the tree, this was only a precaution since he didn't really know if the ghouls would try to follow him or not. He had not seen any of them, but there was still a possibility. When he had finally arrived at the tree, he noticed how another animal was drinking close by, he felt like this was fate, as he was very hungry right now. This animal didn't seem to be a magical beast or anything of the sort, it was just a normal boar, but just to be completely safe Ark checked it's level, and it was only a level 3 wild boar. Seeing this, Ark's silver eyes shone as he lunged forward and decapitated the beast.
After having his sumptuous meal he decided to store some of it away for the next day, this was simply because this boar was extremely tasty, and he didn't know if he would be able to find something else that would even come close the next day. The boar was very big, and therefore the meat would last for another meal today, and then another two the next day. Ark almost drooled at the thought of eating this boar once more. He decided to store the boar in his tree, where he put up a barrier of Mana, it was basically a very condensed but small shield made out of Mana, this would keep other creatures from smelling and finding his food.
Having done that Ark decided to take a little nap, he was a bit exhausted after all. Because even if he could battle a lot more, it was still very exhausting, and he would rather rest a little before going back to take on the ghouls. He had completely forgotten about his status because of the tasty meal he had gotten out of the boar he had killed, therefore he slowly drifted off into sleep.
....
Waking up a couple of hours later Ark felt really good, he also remembered how he was supposed to check out his new status before doing anything else, which failed as he was distracted. But now that he was awake again he really wanted to see if he had leveled up, or more importantly, how much?
Name: Ark
Species: Ice wolf
Level: 7 (22)
Mp: 93/93
Strength: 15
Agility: 30
Dexterity: 20
Endurance: 16
Vitality: 20
Intelligence: 31
Wisdom: 18
Night Vision [Lv.2]
Water magic [Beginner Lv.4]
Growth [Lv.Max]
Inspect [Lv.5]
Mana manipulation [Lv.6]
Mana perception
Swift [Lv.2]
Nimble [Lv.2]
Stealth [Lv.3]
Regenerate
Small Fire Affinity
Small Water Affinity
Big Ice Affinity
Mental Fortitude
Yin Yang body constitution
Status points [35]
Seeing this made Ark very excited, he had gained a total of 35 status points! There was a lot he would be able to do with those, and he would be able to get a lot stronger, and all he really did was use a single move. But this was mostly possible because of the low magic defense of skeletons and zombies, they were also very slow and had very bad reaction speed, which led to Ark being able to kill them all with a single attack. Albeit it being one of his strongest ones. Ark wasn't too sure of how he wanted to spend the points though, he felt like one of the more logical choices would be to invest in his magic, but he didn't really know if that was what he only wanted to go with. He kind of wanted to balance out his stats a little, since the difference between his stats would get wider and wider every time he decided to spend points on his magic and agility.
But he would still have them be a bit ahead of the other ones, since he wanted them to be his strong points, and he wanted to be at least a little specialized. Have you ever heard the saying: Jack of all trades, master of none? This was the main reason why Ark wanted to have his own area at which he excelled. He didn't think it would be smart to be moderately good at everything, he thought that it would be a lot smarter to have something to be good at. Think about it this way, if he one day ran into an opponent with a very good defense, then he wouldn't be able to do anything unless he had sufficient attack. And that's also why he wanted to have good magic as well as speed, since they could both provide a strong attack, but also a lot of utility as well as ways to escape from an overwhelming opponent.
Therefore Ark decided to put 10 points into his strength, bringing it to a respectable 25, then he put 4 point into endurance, to get it to an even 20, since he would get a skill for it at 20. He then put 7 points into his wisdom, he also put 5 points into agility and 9 points into intelligence. After confirming his choice Ark heard the same monotone voice sound out inside of his head.
[Due to host having 20 points of endurance, host has gained the skill "Enhanced Stamina"]
[Due to host having 20 points of strength, host has gained the skill "Herculean Strength"]
[Due to host having 20 points of wisdom, host has gained the skill "Mana recovery"]
Seeing this Ark decided to use his inspect on his new skills since he wanted to see the numbers.
[Enhanced Stamina]
Grants host better stamina to stay in combat longer
Stamina is enhanced by 10%
After checking the other two skills, Ark noticed that the skill seemed to be the exact same, they just enhanced their respective areas by ten percent for the fist level, and then they got progressively stronger. So his herculean strength for example enhanced his strength by ten percent.
(New status)
Name: Ark
Species: Ice wolf
Level: 7 (22)
Mp: 120/120
Strength: 25
Agility: 35
Dexterity: 20
Endurance: 20
Vitality: 20
Intelligence: 40
Wisdom: 25
Night Vision [Lv.2]
Water magic [Beginner Lv.4]
Growth [Lv.Max]
Inspect [Lv.5]
Mana manipulation [Lv.6]
Mana perception
Mana recovery [Lv.1]
Herculean strength [Lv.1]
Swift [Lv.2]
Nimble [Lv.2]
Stealth [Lv.3]
Regenerate
Enhanced Stamina
Small Fire Affinity
Small Water Affinity
Big Ice Affinity
Mental Fortitude
Yin Yang body constitution
Status points [0]
After having distributed his stats Ark felt the same glowing light envelop him as he sat inside the tree. And when it disappeared, Ark felt elated as he was now a lot stronger than before. His mind felt clearer and his body was brimming with strength and vitality. Having his stats upgraded, Ark decided to go back to the ghouls now, since his strength and Mana was completely replenished. And he felt that they wouldn't be much of a challenge, he also really wanted to check out what was in the rest of the dungeon, but he would do that tomorrow since he was bound to be exhausted after the fight with the ghouls.
It didn't take long for him to arrive at the graveyard again, as it was pretty close by, and when he was there, he noticed how there were still some skeletons and zombies left, that had apparently survived the attack from earlier. Ark didn't care about this however since their strength wouldn't matter at all when he released one of his ace attacks, this time he would do an all-out attack with ice, and he had just upgraded his stats, which would mean greater power.
Looking at the ghouls, Ark changed his plans a little bit. There were too many ghouls to take them all out in just one attack, therefore he would pick some of them off before going all out. This didn't take too long though as the monsters were unable to react to the swiftly moving Ark. All he did was slightly boost his legs with Magic, but his speed was still insanely fast. He had invested a lot in his agility after all.
The number of the monster quickly dwindled from the original 50-60 to about 30, and this only took Ark ten minutes to achieve, he didn't want to spend all his efforts on thinning them out after all. When the number of ghouls was exactly 30, Ark had gotten all of their attention. This time he didn't fuse his water and fire magic together like last time, this time he started to converge all of the ice Mana he could muster into a tornado in front of him. As the ghouls got closer and closer, the tornado grew bigger and bigger. Ark had slightly underestimated the ghouls earlier, so he needed to truly go all out with this attack he was using right now, therefore he poured in all the Mana he had until his reserves were completely drained, at that time the tornado had grown a lot. It was now very fierce and brought with it an enormous amount of power.
This tornado wasn't comparable with one solely made of wind either, as it was filled with ice shards that would completely rip anyone who entered it to small pieces, this was a display of why people saw the ice element as something fierce.
As he had completely drained all of his Mana, Ark let go of his control of the tornado, letting it proceed right into the middle of all the ghouls. The ghouls didn't get a chance to resist as they were all sent flying into the air and shredded to pieces, filling the surroundings with their miserable screams as well as some of their remains.
Upon seeing this horrible scene, even Ark almost felt slightly bad, but he knew this was something he had to do in order to be able to stay safe in this world, and therefore he quickly managed to put it all behind him. The pieces of flesh strewn about were truly a horrific sight though as Ark sat down to catch his breath, looking towards the entrance of the dungeon Ark couldn't wait until tomorrow, he had always loved to explore after all...