Valtar looked at her calmly and did not respond to her snarky remark but asked the system, "What level is she at? And the other elves?"
[The dark elves' group leader is 3rd stage awakened, and the others are all at the 2nd stage.]
"Also, seal all my stats to 20, and if I get enough first-stage cores, can you use that energy to do the 2nd awakening?" he asked again.
[Stats all sealed at 20. Yes, it is possible to attempt the 2nd breakthrough.]
'Tch, if they were any weaker, I would've killed them all,' Valtar said to himself.
"I want to hunt some 1st stage beasts," he said to Elmyra.
"Hm, I suppose it's better if you do that indeed," she agreed.
She ordered one of the elves, "Drop him in the shadow hound area."
That elf told Valtar to follow and immediately started running at top speed. The elf was extremely fast, but Valtar did not fall behind so easily and was keeping up quite well.
After 10 minutes of constant running, they finally reached the designated area, and Valtar was pleasantly surprised by the fact that despite running at such a high speed for 10 minutes straight, he did not feel even the slightest bit of fatigue. In fact, he felt more alive than ever. His old body on Earth now felt like it was more like a machine than a body.
It's only now that he truly feels alive, feeling every single movement of his muscles, even the deep and strong heartbeat that doesn't change its rhythm and maintains the same steady beat as if it's a steady train heading to its destination, not to stop until reaching the designated point.
Even every bit of oxygen that is taken in seems to generate far more energy with better efficiency than what would be thought possible back on Earth.
He had so much power now in his physical body. He could stop even the heaviest and biggest truck filled with goods with his bare hands and do so with relative ease.
Unfortunately, he was not on Earth anymore, and this is also a world filled with creatures and beings with unimaginable might that would make a hundred nuclear weapons look like an utter joke.
"System, analyze the memories of that battle that I saw."
[Analyzing...]
[There is a 60% probability that they should be able to destroy a structure as large as the previous moon of Earth with relative ease through one of their stronger attacks.]
[This is merely a hypothesis, as this assumption could be entirely wrong, as the host has not been able to fully activate the system version 1 yet.]
[Host is too weak.]
Valtar's eyebrows twitched, but he did not say anything and finally focused his attention on the area forward. It was an entrance to an underground cavern, and in front of it was standing a large three-headed dog or hound, it should be said. They have a similar shadowy color like all the shadow beasts but have strange patterns on their skin, almost as if something had whipped them so hard that the marks of the whip were ingrained in their bodies permanently.
The three heads each had different expressions and movements because three heads each have their own thoughts, which make things easier when hunting them, but only sometimes.
All three heads had extremely sharp teeth. Two of the upper jaw's teeth were much larger among them. Those were canine teeth, he mused.
"So, it's basically like hellhounds," he said to himself.
If you are someone able to take advantage of it, that is, at least that's what Elmyra told him before leaving.
"Go kill it and enter the cavern. There are many more of them there, and I won't help even if you end up dying. If you cannot handle these trash, you'll die before that Old Man even becomes serious," said the Dark Elf.
Valtar did not reply and simply strode forward. Meanwhile, the system automatically activated the high-perception skill. As he went closer to the hound, it finally noticed him, and all three of its heads turned to him as their expressions became extremely menacing and ferocious.
Valtar felt a sense of danger as the predatory eyes of the hound looked onto him. He understood this should be the killing intent of a 1st stage awakened beast.
He had a sword with him, given by Elmyra. He immediately ran forward with the sword in his hand. The hound also strode forward with a large jump, and that thing immediately spewed lava from 3 of its heads. He quickly evaded it and attacked from the side with all his might, and a cut appeared on the hound's belly.
The hound slightly winced from being cut suddenly, then it attacked with its lower legs, and Valtar was hit by that, getting flung to the side for being almost under the hound and close to its lower legs.
But he got up quickly and analyzed its attack patterns calmly while maintaining some distance. It seems the hound can't fire that lava attack continuously. There's a cooldown, and it seems after that it can't see properly for a moment or not focus. Now that's a 2-3 second window that can be used to attack. As for the perfect place to attack, it would be its neck. The middle head should not be targeted, "Otherwise, I will be ripped apart by the 2 heads on the side from the middle."
Thus, he used exactly that strategy. After stalling time with the hound for about 2-3 minutes, it fired the same attack, and he dodged, then immediately targeted the neck of its left head and slashed with the sword at a perfect angle. The beast, sensing the danger, slightly moved away, but still received a very deep cut on its neck.
Because of the injury, the head on the left started to whimper to the other 2, but they were furious at the intruder that hurt them and did not want to back down from this confrontation.
The hound's skills were still on cooldown. This time, Valtar wanted to fight it head-on as he gauged the strength of the dog properly. He could indeed fight that thing head-on and overwhelm it as well.
He did exactly that, left the sword on the ground, and went for a hand-to-hand brawl with the hound.
The hound clawed at its opponent, expecting him to be torn to shreds. Unfortunately, Valtar punched at one of the leg joints with full might. A cracking sound was heard as the joint got entirely smashed. That leg of the large dog became sluggish, then the rest became easy. Valtar smashed each of the leg joints one after another.
Sensing its impending doom, it spewed lava one more time, but missed it naturally.
Valtar brought back the sword, this time went for the kill, and severed all of its heads one after another. The dog was dead. He cut the dog's body and brought out the core, swallowed it.
He proceeded to go inside the cavern. He obviously wouldn't let such a good opportunity to grind and level go to waste. He needed as much strength as possible. Who knew Old Man Zhao's real intentions? Then there was Elmyra as well. He had a bad premonition.
After going inside, he commanded the system to release his stats to the peak since the dark elf did not follow him inside the cavern. He figured he should kill as many as possible and get all the cores.
What went forward was almost a slaughter. He was surprised by the fact that just releasing those 5 stat points, he would be so much stronger in all aspects of the body.
[Each stat point after 20 yields much more power than each stat before. Similarly, a single stat point after 30 will also yield much more than points after 20.]
"So, every 10 stat points increase is like a qualitative change, understood."
He hunted the hounds left and right in that cavern. It was like a tunnel inside, and there were pockets, and in each of the pockets was a single hellhound. It seems they don't intrude on each other's area and take that quite seriously, but all the hounds had a strong sense of smell. So after Valtar killed 5 hounds in succession, all others came at him at once, but that was too much for him.
Thankfully, he knew his limits and ran away after managing to kill another 5 hounds and eating their cores. The moment he came out of the cavern, the dark elf was waiting outside and took him away, running through the tree branches with deadly precision and silent steps.
Valtar saw that all the dark elves probably had the silent step skill.
They met up with the dark elven group, and Elmyra told him again to carefully complete the job as it was in his best interest and the only way for him to escape.
He also resolved himself to get out of this mess no matter what. After all, that was the only way to survive.