Chapter 4 - Evolution

Dante had been sprinting through the rooms of the land which he had decided to dub as a Dungeon, due to its darkness and strange stone interior, he had been going for hours without the need for rest, food, or water.

While running, he had come across a few new types of monsters, as well as the ones he had seen before, The first of these new monsters was the Beast Eye.

The Beast Eye was a wolf shaped mass of black sludge covered in hundreds of eyes. It was incredibly agile and had powerful bite, as well as hardened claws. Dante wasn't proud to say it, but he had received his fair share of damage from them in his first few encounters with them. This was mostly due to his own strength not being high enough, and not knowing how the Beast Eye would attack.

However, once he learnt its attack pattern it wasn't that big of a deal to dodge it and deliver an instant kill blow with one of his skills or, if he was really lucky, a regular attack.

The second new type of monster he encountered was another Eyeball creature, only this time it was a variant of the Flying Eye, called the Giant Flying Eye. Although the name is not particularly different, the creature was absolutely different. It had a humungous eye, covered in a strange glaze that was very hard to penetrate. This giant eyeball was covered in a huge flying mass of black sludge that had eight wings on the back to hold it up.

The only way that Dante was able to defeat these monsters was by using Shockwave Impact directly in the centre of the eyeball's glaze. This would shatter it and the vibration would cause the eyeball to explode.

There was one more new enemy that he encountered during this time, and Dante decided to name it the Warrior Troll. This monster was more similar to the regular Troll which he had seen protected by the Crystal Troll previously, but it was much larger.

It was red in colour, and had bulging muscles and in one of its hands was a large club, and the other an axe. Dante was not able to fight on equal terms with these beasts for a while, but once his level had increased a bit, he no longer had to run away before attacking the monster and then running away again. Instead, he could blast through its stomach with one of his punches.

All of these new monsters provided Dante with quite a lot of experience, which was evident as he had been levelling up quite quickly. He didn't know why, but it seemed the higher level he became, the more enemies spawned in the Dungeon.

This wasn't necessarily a bad thing though, as it meant Dante was able to level up almost close enough to evolve. He was level twenty four, with seventy two points in his Body stat, and he was also close to level twenty five. He hadn't checked properly, but he could feel that he was almost at his first evolution.

He was looking for a few enemies to push him over the edge, and he finally came across two beasts that were engaged in combat. These were also two new species, well, not entirely new species.

The first one was a variant of the Crystal Troll, except it was much taller and had a whole lot more spikes on its back which was very intimidating and dangerous looking. It had spikes on its head which formed a sort of crown which was why Dante named it the Crystal Troll King.

The second new monster was another variant, but this was a variant of the Warrior Troll. It was an even deeper red than its weaker type, and was much more muscular, with a double handed war hammer in its hands. It had horns that formed a crown on its head, and Dante called it the Warrior Troll King.

The appearance of these two monsters, that clearly had features of royalty was quite strange to Dante, but he sat back and watched them fight. He guessed that they might be the final evolutions of the Troll lines that he had seen so far, but he wasn't entirely sure as there still could've been something stronger in their line.

The battle, although seemingly even matched due to the monsters seemingly being of the same rank, was immensely one sided. This was largely due to the aggressive and close quarters fighting style of the Warrior Troll King, which was very effective against the Crystal Troll King's attacks which were much more suited to long ranged or mid-ranged battles.

The Warrior Troll King rained blows down on the Crystal Troll King's chest, not letting up for even a second as it did not want any counter-attacks to come against it. This approach was very successful, as large cracks began to appear on the victim's body.

Dante watched in awe, as he saw the great strength of the Warrior Troll King and decided that if he was going to make a move then it needed to be soon.

He began to creep forward, making sure to not garner attention from the monsters. Once he was close enough, Dante did an incredibly disrespectful thing. He stole the kill of his enemy.

Using a Shockwave Impact, the back of the Crystal Troll King was absolutely obliterated, and combined with the damage from the front, the monster was killed on the spot.

Immediately after this, Dante could feel something change within himself. He knew he had reached level twenty five and was going to evolve. His Body stat was at seventy five, and he felt stronger than ever.

He could feel himself being wrapped in a cocoon of sorts, and he could do nothing but sit still as he felt himself growing. He also felt himself moving, as it would seem the Warrior Troll King had picked up his cocoon and was carrying it.

Dante started to feel faint, and his vision darkened.

When he awoke, he burst out of the cocoon looking completely different than before. He was incredibly short before, and now he had grown slightly, and he was more muscular.

He hadn't actually changed that much, in fact, he looked exactly the same apart from the two small changes. The Warrior Troll King was nowhere to be seen, but looking around, Dante could tell that he was in a pit of corpses. He was unsure what the purpose of the pile was, but he didn't really care.

Instead, he checked his status to see what had changed with his evolution.

Name: Dante

Age: 17

Species: Teenage Pink Bear

Level: 0 (lvl.0/lvl.50)

Evolution Rank: 1 (1/3)

Stats:

Body: 100

Mind: 0

Free Points: 0

Skills:

Heavy Punch (A Punch With The User's Entire Weight X 2 Behind It) (Unlocked At 10 Body (Rank 0))

Shockwave Impact (Channel All Power Into A Single Part Of The User's Body And Deliver A Powerful Attack That Creates A Shockwave) (Unlocked At 35 Body (Rank 0))

Quakestrike Burst (A Flurry Of Powerful Punches Towards The Ground That Cause A Localised Earthquake) (Unlocked At 75 Body (Rank 0))

Dante was happy with his evolved status, not only had his stats increased further than the seventy five in Body that it had been before his evolution at level twenty five, he had gained a new skill which seemed like it would be quite powerful.

What he didn't like to see was that he would need to reach level fifty for his next evolution, as although the enemies he was fighting were giving him more experience, he would need double what he had gained so far.

Pleased with his new status, Dante decided to see what was going on with the area he had been put in by the Warrior Troll King.