The newly acquired Lethal Pounce was quite strong for a few reasons Gary realised. For one, it was the fact that the skill boosted his speed and it seemed to scale with his actual Dexterity. As long as that stat continued to increase then so would the skill as well, since it gave him a 50% boost.
The only sad part was that the boost was purely limited to the execution of the skill itself. Nonetheless it was impressive. A speed increase, coupled with his strength caused, resulted in a devastating attack as the others had just witnessed
So far, the Werewolf had been focusing on his Endurance, Energy and Health, making sure that he would become more and more of unkillable monster. However, his fight against Jayden had taught him an important lesson that stats alone wouldn’t help him against certain kinds of opponents. Skills were needed to make up the difference, and Lethal Pounce was a great start.
If there was one downside the skill, it would be the relatively large Energy consumption. Gary had thought that his days of worrying about that were over, yet using the skill twice had cost him a third of his reserve. One shouldn’t forget that Controlled Transformation, as well as the fighting itself also took their toll, leaving the green haired teenager with slightly less than 100 Energy.
Luckily, there had only been one opponent, but in the future, if he were to fight multiple opponents, or perhaps a beast that was even harder than this one, he would have to conserve the skill and use it as a trump card.
Just like last time, after the beast was defeated there was a clean up crew that entered the facility, looking after the students, while also securing the crystal from the beast. Gary’s eyes were fixed on the men, making mental notes as to where the crystal would be pulled from its body. In the future, he hoped to be able to locate it on his.
‘I was sure, it would have been in the head, but when I broke through I couldn’t find it…maybe next time.’ Gary thought to himself.
[An Advanced tier has been defeated]
[A first time reward bonus for defeating the beast will now be rewarded]
[15,000 Exp has been rewarded]
[You are now level 24!]
[You have gained a stat point]
‘This is it… I'm only one level away from reaching Level 25. Then something is meant to happen to my Warrior Class at that stage. Fighting these beasts or high level Altereds are the only thing that gives me Exp these days. I hope after the next lesson, I’ll reach level 25 and if not, I still have one more lesson before that.
‘Then my time at the AFA, and using the special lessons will be utilised the most.’
For completing the task, Gary had been given his reward just like before. Where the body parts of the beast were placed in a particular room. Before he went in this time, Crowley had decided to go in first. Gary wasn’t sure what his strange teacher intended to do, but he believed that it was in his best interest. After all of that was done, Gary looked left and right to see if James would pop out of nowhere and went in straight away, looking at the strange beast parts in front of him.
‘If my theory is correct, I need to eat this thing as quickly as possible in order to maximise how many stat points I can gain. Without the energy of the crystal, those bodies have epxiration dates.’ With this in mind, Gary did his best to ignore the fact that he was going to eat a giant insect carcass.
As usual, even though the beast parts were several times bigger than his own body, he managed to devour them eventually, as if his body was digesting whatever it was, and turning it into something at a fast rate.
That's when he saw the message appear, and he couldn’t be more pleased.
[The beast that you have defeated has been consumed]
[You have received the following stats]
[+2 Dexterity]
[Dexterity 26>>>>28]
There were also still Gary's stat points form levelling up that he had yet to use.
‘Hmmm, since the System called it an Advanced tier, I had hoped for more. Still, it's not as much as I get when consuming an Altered. Sigh, I shouldn’t complain too much, after all, this is double what I got from the last one. Most likely because the beast was quite strong, and since this one was fast it also makes sense for me to get something speed based.
‘Could it have been more if I had eaten it earlier? Too bad they dry out once that thing gets taken out… I wonder, what… what would happen if I were to eat one of those?’
Since he gained strength from the beast mainly due to the crystal, it seemed reasonable to assume that eating the crystal directly might provide an ever bigger boost. Part of him had hoped to be able to find it, but he had failed… at least this time. In case he ever got lucky, he knew that he would have to be sneaky about it, NIRV did not care about losing the worthless body, but a crystal…
‘Maybe I can do that on my last test or something, then even if I'm caught and they kick me out, it shouldn’t matter.’ Gary decided.
All Gary had to do now, was wait for the rest of the body to disappear after some time had passed and just like that it did. It was a shame that Gary wouldn’t be able to speak to Tom again before he left, but for some reason he thought that the two of them would be able to see each other again some other time.
Like last time, once the lesson was over, their phones and other personal belonging were handed back to them, and finally Gary could pull the medallion out from his special place and into his pocket as he changed clothing from the suits.
While Gary and Numba were walking back to their dormitory and talking about the assessment to each other, Numba’s phone started to ring.
“Sorry Gary, it’s my Dad. He never calls, so it should be urgent. I’ll be with you in a moment.” Numba excused himself as he walked off in the opposite direction.
Gary continued ahead, but as usual his sensitive ears were able to pick up a few things.
“Son… I just wanted to be the one to tell you. Right now… right now it might be for the best if you stayed in the academy. However, do be careful there as well, make sure nothing bad happens to you.” The sound of a man’s voice was heard on the other end of the phone.
“What do you mean, Dad? This isn’t like you. Is everything okay?” Numba questioned, but that was the end of what Gary was able to hear since the phone call had ended.
*****
My Werewolf System Webtoon is out! You can read now in the BILI BILI COMICS APP. Weekly Webtoon chapters. Check it out, help it grow, and there might be news of an official My Vampire System webtoon someday.