Putting this mission aside, Kyle went straight towards the mountain range described in the video. Since he only had a few hours time and had to be present at his school the next day, Kyle decided to only scout that region and see if he could find anything different about it.
After searching for some time, Kyle finally found a mountain range similar to what was shown in the video. As soon as he entered the mountain range, Kyle immediately took out his sword and focussed all his attention on his surroundings.
Although his stats were very high when compared to others on the same floor, the range of stats of creatures on the second floor was between 10 and 50. When looking at his stats that way, they were only enough to fight against some of the weakest creatures from the second floor.
Just as Kyle walked past a hundred metres inside the range of the mountains, a system notification appeared before him.
[Checking for special mission trigger]
[Trigger condition: Monarch's path met.]
[....]
[....]
[Detected entry in a special zone.]
[Special zone: The dictator's sanctuary]
When Kyle read the system notifications, he was surprised. He had thought that he would come across the Dictator mentioned in the conditional rewards only when he had raised all his stats to 10, but on other thought, wasn't he just 620 exp away from maximising all his stats to the limit of the first floor?
Kyle who was still reading the system notifications suddenly turned around while dismissing the system notifications. He took out his sword and immediately took cover behind the nearest tree he could find.
He felt like he had heard the faint sound of rustling of leaves towards his left when he was looking at the system notifications.
Although it could be him being overly cautious, Kyle was standing in a potential habitat of beasts from a higher floor of the Ascension Temple. He could not afford to let his guard down.
And he was proven correct the next moment. Just as he took cover behind the tree, Kyle saw a vague silhouette jump out of the nearby bushes and a sharp conical spike impaled the ground about half a metre away from his previous location. Had Kyle been standing there, it would have been his abdominal region which was impaled instead of the ground.
Kyle sized up the spike which should have been about two feet long and his eyes lit up in excitement.
If he had identified it correctly, the post should be true. As if to clear the last bits of doubts from his heart, something leapt out of the bushes from the same direction as the spike.
What appeared before Kyle was a beast that looked like any common street dog, but double the size and much more bulkier frame. It had a long tail with a long conical tip that looked similar to the spike that had impaled the ground.
[Spike tailed hound]
[HP: 40/40]
[MP: 30/30]
[Stats: ]
[Strength: 32] [Agility: 19]
[Stamina: 21] [Endurance: 30]
[Intelligence: 25] [Energy affinity: 16 ]
This was definitely a beast from the second floor of the Ascension Temple! But what brought a smile to Kyle's face were the beast's stats.
If he executed it well, Kyle could totally face this beast without much risk of injury.
Thinking as much, Kyle tightened his grip on his sword. Buy, Kyle wasn't the one to attack first. There was a reason why the beast before him was named a hound.
Just after appearing near the spike, the spike tailed hound smelled something and raised its tail in the air while pointing it towards the tree behind which Kyle was hiding.
'Swoosh'
'Blink leap!'
Kyle blinked away from his location as another spike impaled the tree he was hiding behind.
Since he was already out in the open, Kyle decided not to hide behind the tree anymore and charged towards the spike tailed hound.
'Energy cut'
'Wink leap'
Kyle immediately sent his attack aiming at the hound's head. As soon as the hound jumped to avoid the attack, Kyle was already standing before it.
The hound slashed it's claw towards Kyle while still in mid air, an attack which Kyle easily evaded while swinging his sword towards the other forelimb of the hound.
Just when Kyle's sword was about to hit the hound's leg, he felt an intense sense of danger. Kyle twisted his wrist and his sword hit the tip of the hound's tail which was pointing at him.
'Clangg!' Although a major part of the strength behind the attack was lost, Kyle was still able to change the direction of the tail and...
'Swoosh!'
Just a second after Kyle's sword hit the tail, another spike ripped through the air as it passed Kyle with only a few centimetres distance from his shoulder. At the same time, Kyle's sword left a small cut on the hound's chest behind its ribs.
"Grrrr-grrr!" The hound bared its fangs at Kyle with a fierce expression as it felt a slight burning feeling near its ribs.
Kyle distanced himself from the hound and used his other hand to twist the wrist of his sword wielding hand. At the same time, he took out a synthetic semi-solid mould and placed it on his wrist, all while constantly changing his position.
The mould spread over a small part of Kyle's hand and solidified. The wrist which had been dislocated made a sound of bones cracking as it regained the former shape.
Once his wrist was back to shape and the pain reduced, Kyle charged at the hound once again. The hound also spread out all four of its legs and raised its tail in the air while pointing its tip at Kyle.
'Swoosh'
'Blink leap!'
As soon as Kyle saw the tip of the hound's tail opening to release the spike, he immediately blinked away to appear right before the hound while his sword, which had already covered half its arc, was aimed directly towards the neck of the beast.
A thick stream of blood was drawn out as the hound which had leapt back a few metres let out a pained howl while baring its teeth at Kyle while limping to balance itself on its remaining three legs.
Kyle looked at the nearly detached foreleg of the hound which was bleeding heavily. If only.....even if one of his stats was a bit higher, Kyle was confident that this strike of his would have been the decisive move of this battle. Even if the hound would not have been killed, the injury would have been fatal. If only.....wait! He had nearly forgotten about something.
Remembering it, Kyle took a deep breath. It was highly likely that this would work out and if it did, he would definitely get that increased stat that he wanted. But if it didn't, he would have given himself a handicap worse than that of the limping beast before him. The only relief in that case was that this change was retractable.
'Equip title: Monarch of the nameless throne.'
[Title equipped: Monarch of the nameless throne.]
[Effects:]
[1. Intelligence stat × 2.]
[2. Aura of Supreme]
[3. Higher chances to trigger hidden missions.]
[4. MeP recovery rate ×5]
[Intelligence: 18--->36]
All of Kyle's senses heightened and his thoughts became clearer and thought process faster. Although there were no physical enhancements, increase in reaction speed was also something that provided Kyle the much required edge in the battle.
At the same time, the spike tailed hound gave out any angry growl and began to frantically throw the spikes towards Kyle. Kyle could feel that the time between two consecutive attacks had shortened, but it came at the expense of speed of the spike.
Kyle took an offensive stance and swung his sword while he stood rooted on his spot. The hound felt something was wrong as it looked at Kyle with a cautious gaze and raised ears. The previous time Kyle swung his sword from a distance, mana was projected in the form of an attack. But this time, there was no mana fluctuation.
Seeing this, the hound adjusted its tail to aim at Kyle's chest, and at this exact moment, it happened....
Kyle, whose sword had nearly completed an arc suddenly vanished from his spot and appeared before the hound. The hound leapt away at the fastest speed it could, but it was too late.
Kyle's sword turned mid air and cut through the neck of the hound, beheading it in one slash.
This was the result of an increase of a stat.
Kyle had pulled a similar move just seconds ago. But at that time, he didn't dare to make the initial swing longer because he would have been in deep trouble if that attack missed.
This time though, he executed the wink leap only when his swing had gathered all the momentum and only a small part of the trajectory was left.
With an increase in reaction speed and heightened senses, Kyle was able to react in time just to adjust the trajectory of his sword when the hound tried to evade his attack.
[Spike tailed hound killed]
[450 (200) exp gained]
[Extract usable parts?]
[Yes/No]
Kyle chose to extract body parts. Immediately, the body of the beast turned into light particles and new system notifications appeared before Kyle.
[Extracted Spike tailed hound tail spike×1]
[Extracted Spike tailed hound skeleton ×1]
[Extracted Spike tailed hound canines×4]
Parts of the beasts of the first floors weren't very useful and had virtually no demand. They were mostly used by ascenders as 'drops' during their revival.
On the other hand, body parts of beasts from the second floor and above had research value and were also used as raw materials to synthesise potions and other products. As such, they could easily be sold on the market in exchange for credits.
After his fight against the beast, Kyle covered all signs of the battle and covered all his tracks as he withdrew from the mountain range.
This Spiked tail hound wasn't a creature that was meant for close combat. Instead, it was made for tracking and ambushing its prey.
But even this beast which was not a master of close combat could create difficulties for Kyle at the present level.