(NOTICE: System will show [#] instead of [ # ] from now on.
The addition of *Ding* will also be added.)
Zareth's bat slammed on top of the wolf's skull with full power, slamming its jaw down to the floor which caused its brain to catapult off the sides of its skull, dazing it for a couple of seconds.
Right now, Zareth's strength was comparable to that of a powerful full grown man.
That, coupled with his fighting technique and his slightly tempered body was enough to make him a capable opponent for the giant wolf.
Standing on top of the wolf's head, Zareth did not waste any time and began pounding his bat down onto the wolf's dome with several abrasive and quick blows.
However, the blows seemed to barely do anything due to the thick bone density of the wolf's skull.
Once its confusion dissipated, the wolf abruptly stood up, shaking its body to get rid of Zareth.
Not being able to maintain balance on top of the wolf's head, Zareth quickly jumped off and landed a couple of feet in front of it.
Zareth's plan was to crush the skull of the creature immediately at the beginning of the fight, but it seemed that the wooden bat was too incompetent for the job.
Now, the ferocious creature had simply become even angrier and quickly lunged at Zareth with a ferocious bite powerful enough to completely eviscerate his body.
Each chomp of the wolf's jaw's sounded like a gunshot.
Zareth jumped and rolled to the sides without being able to catch a breath, just barely dodging the wolf's barrage of bites by the breadth of a hair.
The wolf leaped towards Zareth once again with a powerful bite, however, this time, Zareth stepped to the side before slamming his bat into the jaw of the creature, once again rattling its brain and dazing it.
Zareth's face was serious, and his focus was immense.
Seizing this opportunity, Zareth gripped his bat as hard as he could and fiercely slammed it into the front right ankle of the creature.
On doing this, a light crack could be heard.
He knew that in any fight between semi-equal opponents, agility and mobility were the deciding factors of one's victory.
The wolf howled in pain as it limped to one side before swiping its left paw, which had four long and sharp claws at the end of it, toward Zareth.
As the claw's nearly contacted Zareth's face, he quickly leaned back to try and dodge them, however, he was lightly scratched in the forehead, causing a non-serious but very bloody wound to be left on his forehead.
Without paying attention to his injury, Zareth saw that the wolf had created an opening where its left ankle was exposed and struck it with utmost force.
BANG!
The sound of the bone cracking from Zareth's blow this time was loud. The creature winced in pain before falling down on its side.
It breathed heavily with its jaw wide open and tongue out, still trying to attack Zareth even from its position.
Yet, it wasn't able to move anymore due to the pain and failure of its front legs.
'This would have been a lot easier if I had some sort of sharp weapon. Using a bat almost cost me my life.'
Zareth said to himself, thinking about how he could have ended the fight with just the first attack had he attacked with a sword instead of a bat.
Zareth stood exactly an inch away from where the wolf could reach him, looking down upon the creature without a shred of mercy on his face.
Raising his bat, he pounded down a fury of fierce blows on top of the face of the wolf.
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
Eventually crushing through its skull and obliterating its face to nothing but red mush with eyeballs and brain matter hanging out of it.
He finally stopped and threw the bat to the side as he stood there breathing heavily, looking at the ruined face of the wolf.
'What a useless weapon. I've wasted a good foot or so of wolf hide... guess I should have stolen one of Drufus' swords.'
*Ding*
'Ah, there it is.'
[You've leveled up]
*Ding* [You have leveled up multiple times]
*Ding* [Achievement Completed! First level up]
*Ding* [Achievement Reward: New skill (Scan) description found in status menu]
'System, open status menu.'
[Status]
Name: Zareth Vanaheim
Species: Human
Bloodline: Unknown
Age: 10 Years
Level: 4
Exp: 8/20
Combat Power: 14
Vitality: 100 Years
Health: 29.0/29.0
Stamina: 34.0/34.0
Strength: 27.0
Agility: 31.0
Defense: 23.0
Body: Basic Earth Bound
Rank: Foundation Creation (34.6%)
MP: 43/43
-
Skills:
Godly Constitution (Passive) Immune to most toxins, poisons, venoms, and diseases.
Worlds Polyglot (Passive) Ability to comprehend, read, and write most languages through magic translation.
Stamina Regeneration (Passive/Active) Ability to increase stamina regeneration rate.
Stamina Absorbtion (Active) Ability to absorb stamina from something else that holds stamina.
Scan (Active) Ability to gain knowledge of most people, places, or things by simply scanning.
-
'What a weird ability. Even I haven't seen anything like it before...'
Although the Wrath Sovereign System was something created by Zareth and a few of his allies long ago in the immortal realm, this didn't mean he could predict every one of the system's choices.
In fact, most things the system did was according to Zareth's situation and weren't controlled by Zareth whatsoever.
Zareth assumed the Scan skill must have been a unique skill created by the system itself.
He looked at the wolf corpse in front of him before thinking 'Scan' in his head.
On doing so, a transparent blue window panel appeared in front of his retina.
[Creature Scan]
Name: None
Species: Direwolf
Bloodline: Forest Direwolf
Age: 11 Years
Level: 9
Vitality: 100 Years
Health: 0/28.0
Stamina: 0/104.0
Strength: 58.0
Agility: 40.0
Defense: 26.0
Body: Basic Earth Bound
Rank: Pure beast (56.3%)
MP: None
-
'Hmm... Pure rank huh?'
What interested Zareth the most was the rank of the creature.
Since it was around the same power level as Zareth, he assumed that their ranks would also be the same, however, it seemed that this was not the case.
'System, do beast ranks contrast to human ranks?'
Zareth assumed from this that beast and human ranking systems might have worked differently.
[All living creatures have four sub-ranks before reaching the first beginner rank, this rule applies to beasts as well.]
[However, in this world, beast ranks are named separately from other human ranks in order to sanction them from more intelligent creatures.]
[Although, some beasts might be even more intelligent than said intelligent creatures...]
[Beast ranks and human ranks, although having different names, represent around the same power level. Beast sub-ranks consist of:
Pure ranked beast
Growth ranked beast
Evolution ranked beast
Rampage ranked beast
Human sub-ranks consist of:
Foundation Creation
Earth Formation
Heaven Formation
Hell Formation>
[Anything else I can help you with?]
'...Yes.'
Zareth had gotten his answers, however, he still needed one more thing; a way to store and move this hunk of wolf that easily weighed over 200 pounds.
'When will I learn the Inventory skill? I need it right now.'
The inventory skill, one which let the user store things inside of a pocket dimension created by the system that varied in size according to the user's level, was a skill that Zareth used very often in his past life and was something that he had grown quite familiar with.
[The inventory skill will be your reward for reaching level six.]
'Tsk.'
As Zareth stared at the mangled head of the dead wolf corpse in front of him, pondering a solution to his newfound dilemma, something from the wolf's bloody face stood out to him.
It was a vibrantly glowing blue orb that was the size of a marble.
The shining object immediately captured Zareth's attention as he knelt down and salvaged it from the sludge of brain matter.
'Scan.'
[Item Scan]
Direwolf core: The small blue core of a Pure-ranked beast.
Filled 56.3% with mana. Can ingest for cultivation purposes. (Warning: This item contains unrefined mana and may be dangerous if not cultivated safely and correctly.)
If ingested and refined, you will unlock the achievement: First Core. Achievement reward: 50 Exp
-
'Well isn't that convenient? Seems there's no other option.'
Zareth thought to himself for a brief second before popping the core into his mouth like a pill and gracefully sitting down on the ground in a lotus position.
Immediately, Zareth began using Hale in order to quickly refine the new mana that had already entered his meridian stream at an extreme rate.
Although mana was good for cultivation, it wasn't just some material one could cheat for power.
No, it was the creator, destroyer, and maintainer of all lifeforms.
With excessive enough amounts of unrefined mana, one's meridians could be completely destroyed.
Along with that, one's entire core could also cease functioning in extreme cases, which was a mostly fatal outcome.
Knowing this, Zareth had one job. He would take the mana in his meridians and quickly transfer it all into his mana core while calming it down and refining it.
By the end of this, he just hoped that it wouldn't take him too long, and especially that he wouldn't lose track and time like he normally did, since it was already getting pretty close to sun-rise.
Contrary to his worries, the refining process did not take Zareth long at all. After about an hour or so, he was finished.
Checking his stats, all of them had grown significantly more than before, and his rank now showed:
[Rank: Foundation Creation (90.9%)]
Which meant that he was now only moments away from breaking through into the Earth Formation sub-rank.
*Ding* [Achievement Completed! First Core]
*Ding* [Achievement Reward: 50 Exp added!]
*Ding* [You've leveled up twice!]
[Exp: 8/30]
*Ding* [Congratulations! You have reached a skill level (6)]
*Ding* [Achievement Reward: New skill (Inventory) description found in status menu]