The wind blew by, and he stood attentive. I was listening to the movements in the grass.
Suddenly, he had a fast movement in the grass. Aryan reacted quickly as he smacked his club with all his strength.
But to his surprise, the club hit nothing. He was only causing a dent in the symmetrical grassland.
"Was that a deception?" He thought, but he didn't get to think further, as something he felt was hitting his back.
"Jingg!!"
Like a metal collided against his chain armor. A few chains could be seen flying in the air.
Unaffected by the attack, Aryan turned around and swung his club, but he missed again. In fact, until this time, Aryan didn't even catch a glimpse of his enemy.
Once again, he felt something fast passing behind him. But this time, it wasn't stopped by his chain armor, the three light slashes were made on the back of his thigh.
"I fell for it," Aryan cursed himself. The cut wasn't deep, and barely a few drops of blood came out, but it was still a burning sensation he felt was stronger than being bit by ten honeybees.
'These rats have the advantage of the field here. If I want to kill them, I need some sort of plan, not to mention their incredible speed... I didn't even see a single one of them,' Aryan thought.
A'sheesh' sounded from the grass on his back again, but this time, instead of turning around, Aryan jumped.
While he was in the air, he saw a quick blurry figure passing through the place he was standing just a second ago.
As soon as he stepped on the ground, a 'ting' sound reverberated, and he saw a few chains from his right side wrest flying in the air.
" I was hit again." Aryan gritted his teeth, concluding, "There are more than one or two of them."
He didn't let the attack surprise him, re-posturing to attack mode again. Somehow, he felt the burning sensation on his leg.
'Sheesh' sound was heard. Aryan instantly reacted and jumped to his right, but instead of landing on his foot, he twisted his body to roll on the ground. This time, he was able to see the opponent.
"Gottcha," words came from Aryan's mouth with a bang resounding in the air.
As soon as the club touched a 50 cm-long mutant rat, it was squeezed to the ground, blasting into black smoke, which disappeared into the air.
Between the black smoke were a few particles of light and a violet crystal. While the small particles of light were absorbed by the Aryan crest. He let the violet crystal fall to the ground.
[Evo: 0; Level: 0; Progress: 1.3%]
A notification popped up on his wristband, like a hologram. He was indicating his progress.
A slight smile appeared on his face. "One down, three more to go."
The rat group lost its tactical advantage as one of its friends was killed, and they stopped hiding and attacked the intruder directly.
The rats made a screeching sound as they left off the cover.
Aryan was already prepared for this reaction; he deflected the first rat with his club, pushing it to colloid into another one.
Both rats hit and were stopped midway.
Aryan didn't hesitate to use this opportunity, as he hit his club down on the head of another rat, and black smoke spread on the ground before disappearing instantly.
[Evo: 0; Level: 0; Progress: 2.6%]
He had yet to celebrate his second kill when, 'Slash," a burning sensation passed through the back of Aryan's neck.
"Fuck you!" he screamed as he vertically hit the rat, making it black smoke.
[Evo: 0; Level: 0; Progress: 3.9%]
The last one of the rats was killed by three consecutive strikes.
[Evo: 0; Level: 0; Progress: 5.2%]
Aryan seized the opportunity to run to a safe area and take some rest. The nearest safest place to him was a dump with no grass but a small tree on it.
He huffed a little before pointing his palm in the direction of the ground.
"Come forth"
A green slime with a 15-cm radius appeared as it jumped happily.
"Use first aid," Aryan ordered the slime.
Slime jumped near Aryan as light particles came out of it, making Aryan glow faintly green.
This was an Aryan inherited skill, 'Contract Binding', the ability to make a contract with any beast weaker and lower level than him, and the only skill he had in his arsenal for now.
The information he got from Livia. Each adventurer can gain one skill slot per time he levels up. This can continue until level 10, or Evo 1. After that, a person can only get 1 skill slot per 5 levels they level up.
Most of the adventurers starting their journey will have no skills on level 0. But Aryan was an exception here.
He was one of the 100 people who somehow inherited a skill from one of their parents. This gave him a slot advantage by giving him one more skill than regular people.
He got the rest of the information from the notebook he found in his room; somehow, the previous owner of this body knew about his inherited skill, and he was even prepared for it.
Aryan, at level 0, was only able to contract to bind with one beast, and that too with a slime-level beast.
While normal slime won't be useful to him, green times were different and rare.
I widely used my medics; they could cast low-level healing spells that could be used to detoxify and stop the bleeding.
As the smile continued to cast the spell, white light particles entered Aryan's body, and the swollen cut marks slowly faded into normal cuts with no burning sensation.
Aryan continued the same process on repeat. Killing rats, healing himself, eating food, and then again.
Hours passed by, and his progress bar slowly rose with each passing time. Aryan didn't know the time he had spent in the dungeon or simply didn't care enough.
His current goal was to kill 100 rats and get to level 1, and he was having fun doing it.