บท 7: Training!

After having run for a short while Ark found himself in the hole of his tree once more, but this time he wasn't as happy as he had been all the other times. He had learned a new important truth today though, that strength was everything in this world, and that he was weak. Having this thought Ark laid down in his tree, trying to fall asleep and heal himself as quickly as possible.

Waking up at noon the next day had Ark a little surprised as he discovered that the wound he had suffered had healed quite well, it would be a day or two before it would return to normal but that wasn't something he couldn't endure. Having thought of something Ark asked the system if he could turn off the option to show his hp, which gained him a positive response.

[Due to the wish of the host, hp has been turned off]

Now you might wonder, why would he do that? It was quite simple actually, Ark felt that it was a bit misleading and distracting. There wasn't a way to quantify how much life someone had, if it had been life force then it would make more sense but life in itself didn't work like that. It wasn't even guaranteed that you'd die after your hp hit 0 since it was just an approximate of how much you could take before going down.

Ark felt that it was something you could feel for himself so why confuse and distract himself with a number? There was simply no reason to. Even though he was hurt Ark still decided that he would go hunting a little later today, since he still needed to eat. But tomorrow, when he estimated that he would be fully healed, Ark had decided that he would try and grind some levels if possible, he still wasn't entirely used to killing yet but if it involved his survival then there was nothing to think about.

Having said that Ark decided to check out his status once more.

Name: Ark

Species: Blue Wolf

Level: 12

Mp: 69/69

Strength: 10

Agility: 25

Dexterity: 11

Endurance: 8

Vitality: 10

Intelligence: 23

Wisdom: 11

Night Vision [Lv.2]

Water magic [Beginner Lv.2]

Growth [Lv.Max]

Inspect [Lv.3]

Mana manipulation [Lv.1]

Mana perception

Swift [Lv.1]

Nimble [Lv.1]

Small Fire Affinity

Small Water Affinity

Yin Yang body constitution

Status points [35]

Having seen this made Ark baffled for about a second before he realized that he had probably killed that stag in his desperate life and death attack the day before. He was still happy that he had gained something from the whole ordeal. And he had decided a little more about his path as well, he had to make it a bit more realistic. He couldn't just level his magic and agility, he needed to put a lot more points into making his status more well rounded than it is now. Some people might argue that a jack of all trades is a master of none but that doesn't necessarily have to be the case.

What Ark was thinking was that he should level his other stats as well, but just not by the same amount, and then if he could, he would try and make up for his deficiencies with some skills, at least if he had some skills that could do just that. With that said he decided to bring up his stats of strength, endurance, vitality, and wisdom to 15, leaving him with 14 points left to spend, he decided to bring his dexterity up to 20 which cost 9 points, then he put the remaining 5 points into agility to make it an even 30.

When his dexterity hit 20 points he heard a monotone voice in his head, this made Ark sure of one thing, he seemed to gain skills correlated to a stat after it had hit level 20, just like a milestone.

[Due to dexterity becoming 20 host has obtained the skill "Stealth"]

"Inspect"

[Stealth]

User makes their body movements emit as little sound as possible

*Can be used with darkness element for better effect

Makes user sound 10% less for 5 minutes when activated

Name: Ark

Species: Blue Wolf

Level: 12

Mp: 69/69

Strength: 15

Agility: 30

Dexterity: 20

Endurance: 15

Vitality: 15

Intelligence: 23

Wisdom: 15

Night Vision [Lv.2]

Water magic [Beginner Lv.2]

Growth [Lv.Max]

Inspect [Lv.3]

Mana manipulation [Lv.1]

Mana perception

Swift [Lv.1]

Nimble [Lv.1]

Stealth [Lv.1]

Small Fire Affinity

Small Water Affinity

Yin Yang body constitution

Status points [0]

At first, Ark was a little confused as to why he only got one skill when his dexterity became 20, but then he suddenly thought of the fact that it didn't have to be 2 skills, it's not like that was a fact, it was just speculation on his part. This skill seemed like it would be really good though, hunting was hard so it would be good to be able to set up an ambush, this would also allow Ark to attack some higher leveled enemies as long as he could kill them from the shadows.

Even though 10% sounded like very little it would probably help him a lot, and not only that, it lasted for a whole 5 minutes! Skills could also level so it seemed that this stealth skill would have some uses for now but a lot of future potentials. It could also be enhanced with the darkness element, Ark didn't know if he would be able to obtain that affinity yet but he thought that there was a chance.

Having brought up his stats Ark soon felt a bright warm light envelop him once more as he felt his body fundamentally changing, his itchy and aching wound was suddenly nowhere to be seen as Ark had leveled up both his vitality and endurance, bringing his health to a new level. When the bright light had vanished there was something that Ark hadn't noticed. On his navy blue body were some patterns, these patterns seemed to look like two chains that were intertwined with each other, one of them being a lighter blue whilst the other one was a bright red.

This was due to the "Yin and Yang" body constitution, because of his newfound constitution and affinities Ark had become a variant of what he once was, this was of course not a bad thing as it would give him more evolution paths, not that he'd know that. After he felt the changes in his body Ark decided he would go out to hunt at once, not delaying any further since he was starting to become hungry and he wanted to test out the changes to his battle ability.

After following the river for what seemed like about an hour Ark suddenly felt some disturbances in the earth Mana fluctuating up ahead. Deciding that whatever was disturbing the earth Mana would be his prey Ark quickly chanted "Stealth" as he started sneaking ahead. What he found was a bear, a big one, it was a very dark shade of brown, almost bordering on black and it was probably over 3 meters tall if it were to stand straight up on its hind legs. The bear was currently drinking from the river in big, large gulps.

Ark wasn't sure whether he should mess with this bear at first since it seemed quite powerful just from looking on its aura alone. But just in case Ark used "Inspect" on the big bear to find out if he stood an actual chance.

[Earth Bear]

Lv: 14

A bear with connections to the earth spirits.

This one is close to evolving.

Strength: 28

Vitality: 25

Intelligence: 12

Constitution: 27

This was the first time Ark had seen the constitution stat, he had a special body constitution himself but he hadn't unlocked it yet, but it was probably just because his special body constitution only affected him when it came to Mana.

Deciding to go for it since he could just run away if he couldn't defeat the bear Ark slowly crept up behind it. Using his newfound stealth to get under the bears belly Ark decided to fuse some fire and water magic into his claws and then slash out, but just as the fusion was completed the bear seemed to sense something as it suddenly tried to jump away, it was a bit too slow though as Arks attack still hit it in the side.

When the bear kicked the ground to get away it kicked up a cloud of dust into the air, when it slowly faded a silhouette appeared before Ark, the bear in front of him this time now had a wound in its side, the wound looked quite ghastly as it dripped with blood, it also looked quite scorched. When the dust cloud was finally gone Ark could see a pair of furious red eyes staring back at him, they were almost glowing.

When Ark saw those eyes he shivered and had a bit of a hard time standing up, he felt as though he was under an immense amount of pressure, just because of a stare, Ark soon got to know the reason though as he suddenly heard the same old voice ring out again.

[Due to the skill "Warriors Glare" host's physical stats has been reduced by 10% for 30 seconds]

This got rid of the confusion that Ark had felt a little while ago, and it also made him more alert since this bear seemed to have skills. As he thought that the bear suddenly started to make a charge straight at him. It was kind of slow since it was wounded and its agility was never good, to begin with, but it was still an insanely powerful charge. When the bear was within a meter of him Ark suddenly shot up into the air and over the bear, in the air, he released a claw attack made out of condensed flames at the back of the bear.

He was a bit satisfied with himself since he had hidden some condensed water bubbles underneath all his four paws, which he made explode, sending him into the air, he soon realized he had gotten a bit conceited as he sensed some changes in the earth when he was just half a meter from the ground. A spike suddenly shot out of the ground and pierced straight at him, Ark was caught a bit off guard but still managed to turn his body in the air.

The spike grazed his back as he made an awkward landing behind the bear, the spike had drawn a thin line of blood on Ark's back but it wasn't that bad, it didn't affect his combat strength at all, it only stung a little bit. The bear suffered quite a lot, on the other hand, the claw attack had gone quite deep and had even lit the bear on fire.

As the bear madly rushed into the water to put out the fire that had appeared on it's back Ark suddenly heard the bushes behind him rustle, he instantly turned his back against the bear and went into a combat-ready stance. The reason he could turn his back to the bear was that it couldn't do anything to him at the moment and if it tried anything funny he would either hear or sense it.

What dumbfounded Ark in the next moment though was the fact that what fell out of the bush in the next second were, in fact, a pair of humans...