Spiritual alignment activated with a thought, Lewis's mind and body flooded with new power as he exploded into motion, his eyes snapping onto the dark outline of the large, shadowy creature as mana detection sharpened further. Belatedly, he threw an [Identify] at the predator.
[Shadow puma - lvl 11]
With his impressive speed, he closed most of the distance to the puma before it reacted, its jaws dropping the dead deer as its face spun to face him, its eyes narrowing as it took Lewis in, its gaze filled with predatory greed as it welcomed another meal walking straight into its maw.
Lewis didn't slow despite losing his element of surprise, instead focusing all his energy to watching and anticipating the puma's moves, which is why he was able to lean out of the way of a large dark clawed paw swiping through the air where his head had just been, the creatures eyes widening in surprise as it attack was dodged, Lewis barely loosing his stride in his hyper focused state as he recovered and jabbed a full power strike into the creatures now exposed chest.
Unlike Lewis, the Puma wasn't expecting the strike as it let out a rather feline squeak and stumbled back, his punch not enough to inflict lethal damage but certainly strong enough that the puma was definitely feeling it, one of its bones likely cracked from the direct hit and its pained sputtering indicated some internal damage, yet the beast recovered remarkably fast, blending into the shadows where not even Lewis's heightened mana detection could track it.
Lewis looked around nervously at the dark forest, the faint shadowy signature from the puma having disappeared entirely.
Did it run away?
Movement from his right told him otherwise, the shadowy creature exploding from the darkness with its teeth bared, its claws wrapping around his back and maw inches away from tearing his face off, but before it mauled him to death, Lewis's greatly enhanced mind allowed him to squat down just in time to avoid the creatures claws and snapping maw as the creature sailed over Lewis and disappeared back into the shadows as if it was diving underwater, disappearing from sight once again.
This time, Lewis was extremely concerned. That had been far too close; he hadn't even heard it moving to his side before it was already leaping for him, and its shadow magic bullshit was making it impossible to locate. He knew he was on the losing end of this exchange now that his element of surprise had vanished, so he tried to imagine what advantage he held over the puma. His mind was still focused on the idea of spiritual trifecta, the merging of the spirit into a singular entity that elevates all aspects of a person.
A small smile crested Lewis's lips as an idea came to him. As far as he was aware, spiritual alignment was a crude version of spiritual merging, yet it not only empowered his mind and soul, but it also greatly boosted his anti-mana, both in potency and the precision with which he could use it.
With a flex of will, he flared his mana, sending out a pulse of anti-magic all around him, similar to his mantle skill but focusing on expelling the mana as far as he could instead of sustaining it around him. With the boost to his mana from spiritual alignment, he was able to pulse his anti-mana out dozens of meters in all directions. It didn't last long, fading rapidly, but it acted like an EMP to all nearby magic, including whatever shadow magic the puma was using to blend into the night.
The puma didn't even seem to notice the pulse or its stealth skill being nullified, its long and sleek black fur suddenly reflecting the moonlight as it crept straight towards Lewis. He was surprised that the pulse actually worked, not having known what to expect, so he couldn't help but grin as he suddenly rushed the now visible puma, the beast being caught off guard by Lewis's sudden charge as it faltered.
He noticed that the anti-mana effects of his pulse only lasted about a second before the puma's fur began darkening again as its skill worked to hide the predator once more, so he sent out another pulse, this time primarily directed in front of him, washing away the unnatural darkness not only directed from the creature's body, but also the darkening of its surroundings that Lewis hadn't even noticed until it was gone.
His steps brought him right before the beasts, his fist shooting out at blinding speed and impacting the puma's chest once again, this time clearly breaking bone as his arm pushed into the beast's chest, but just to be sure, he blasted a his mana from his fist on contact in the hopes of destroying its mana like he had done with the stone spider. He had no idea if it would actually work, but if the creature used mana to power its skills, then it reasoned that destroying its mana would leave it weakened.
The creature was clearly tough since it had resisted his first strike, so he expected it to be severely injured from his anti-mana and enhanced strength strike combo, but what he wasn't expecting was for the creature to explode.
His sharpened mind caught everything as his fist impacted and delivered a concentrated payload of anti-mana directly into the creatures body, the shadow mana that resided within it disappearing entirely as its entire body was swept clean of mana, leaving nothing but its purely physical body to resist an extremely empowered strike Lewis still didn't have a good way of quantifying, but he knew that it was at least strong enough to smash through trees with his bare hands in this boosted state. As a result, stripped of the magical protection, its body came apart like an exploding watermelon, blood and guts spraying the surroundings along with shards of bone and viscera.
Lewis was frozen with his fist still outstretched, bodily fluids coating him as he closed his eyes and squeezed his mouth shut to avoid accidentally swallowing any of it.
Holy shit, this is so gross. I guess I underestimated the importance of mana within a creature's body. I knew some creatures used it as a life source, like the stone spiders, but who knew it also had something to do with their overall toughness. That first mana-free punch had dealt only minor damage, but as soon as I stripped it of its mana, it was completely helpless to the same strength punch.
You have slain Shadow puma - level 11
Congratulations! You have reached level 9 (+3 free points available)
Skill: Mana detection has reached level 10
Skill: Anti-magic mantle has reached level 10
Skill: Spiritual alignment has reached level 6
Skill: Spiritual alignment has reached level 7
He added all three points into willpower to bring it up to twenty, realizing that further refining control over his mana would be instrumental in surviving this place. After all, if he could disable the ability for his foes to use mana, then as long as he is stronger than them, he would be able to slay them easily.
Wiping the gore off his face and body, he began awkwardly walking deeper into the woods, searching for somewhere to wash himself off. Peter had claimed there was a river nearby, but Lewis had absolutely no idea where it was in relation to himself.
In the end, he had to simply wipe as much of the blood off himself as he could using grass and leaves, but his face was still stained red, and he had an intense feeling of being dirty. But right as he was randomly walking through the forest in search of any hint of running water, he suddenly heard a scream, which made his body go straight and his ears perk up.
Unlike the constant sounds of animals or even the not uncommon screeches of battle, this cry sounded very much human, if a little high-pitched. Without hesitating, he rushed in the direction of the foreboding sound, his mind racing as to what was happening. Was another human in trouble? The voice sounded oddly young and feminine, like that of a little girl. Based on everything they had gathered, Patch had said that only the fit and mentally capable are likely to have been sent to this tutorial, but was a child sent here by mistake?
He blazed through the underbrush, branches rustling from his passage, his body having been augmented beyond human limits even without the use of his spiritual alignment spell, which he only ever activates during a fight and dismisses right after to avoid another prolonged cooldown issue. The high-pitched screaming continued for a few seconds, which allowed him to pinpoint its direction, it sounded fairly loud, although the dense forest made it difficult to properly tell.
When he finally emerged at the source of the screaming, the scene that greeted him was not what he expected. Before him, three silver-coated wolves were jumping at a large tree, their steel-lined jaws snapping at empty air as they attempted to reach the screaming figures within the tree, two people lying face down on the ground, their bodies being torn apart by the wolves as they fought over their meal.
One of the wolves turned to him, its silver fur reflecting the moonlight and showing off the intricate steel fangs it had in its jaws, making it look like someone had decided wolves' natural teeth weren't enough and figured their would enhance their deadliness even more. That steel reinforcement seemed to apply to their entire body, too. Lines of thin yet abundant glinting steel intertwining with their fur coat to make them into some sort of natural tank with a bite that could shred bone with ease, the bodies on the ground looking barely recognizable as three of its four limbs were ripped off, long clawed insidious covering the bodies' pale skin as the wolves' metal claws cut through it like paper.
Lewis's vision turned red, images of that man in the alley bleeding out right before his eyes superimposing themselves over the dead figure, and a rage began boiling within him, the cry of despair he could now identify as screaming the word 'dad' only pouring gasoline on his rage as he exploded into action, activating spiritual alignment as power flooded his limbs, but he didn't faulter at the sensation, simply moving faster as he rushed the steel jawed wolves before most of them even noticed his arrival, another large pulse of anti-mana firing out from his body and washing over the steel wolves like a crashing wave, their silver shine suddenly dimming as their steel coats cracked and began evaporating into motes of silver energy, but the effect was far less impressive than when he used it on the shadow puma, the steel wolves not loosing their metal reinforcement, simply weakening it momentarily, before the wave passed them and their mana flared, steel regrowing to fix the minor damage Lewis had inflicted, yet he didn't slow as his fist shot out and struct the closest wolf in the jaw, despite the beast's attempt to leap aside.
Flesh met steel, and flesh won as the wolf was sent flying backward, its body flipping in the air once as its jaw protruded at an odd angle, clearly broken, shards of silver metal flying from its chipped steel jaws. The sight seemed to shock the other wolves, who stopped fighting over the two dead humans and turned toward Lewis in shock, but Lewis didn't slow, his anger and regrets fueling him. Two rapid steps brought him toward the second steel wolf, his foot kicking out in a vicious side kick, slamming into the beast's ribs and shooting it towards a nearby tree, where its back broke from the impact, its body folding the wrong way as it curved around the trunk before slumping to the ground.
Lewis idly wondered if all this strength would have been intoxicating, but since the spell also focused his mind and soul on the task at hand, he knew that this state was merely temporary and still far from all-powerful, which kept him grounded. After all, that puma had taken a strong hit and walked away with only a scratch, but it was only level 11, so he doubted it was the peak of what lived within these vast woods. Yet that was why he had used his anti-mana to weaken them first, so he sent out another pulse disrupting the wolves and clearly making them uncomfortable as the mana devouring energy slammed into them and destabilized their apparently magical steel enhancement.
But unlike last time, he didn't settle for a single powerful pulse of anti-mana, instead firing repeated waves of magical disruption, stopping the wolves from being able to reconstruct their steel jaws and metal fur, which meant every hit from lewis's enhanced body resulted in devastating damage as he dispatched the beasts, the last two running off into the darkness when they witnessed the insurmountable threat he posed.
Lewis once again deactivated his boosting skill, feeling a slight sense of fatigue deep within his bones, a feeling he had grown to recognize as his spell on cooldown. With the wolves dead or chased off, Lewis finally noticed the screams had stopped, replaced with a quiet crying as he looked up in the tree the wolves were jumping at and finally lay eyes on the humans. Only, they weren't what he expected.
Skin as pale as snow and ears that protruded out like blades, Lewis immediately realized he had been wrong in his assumptions. The three huddled figures all looked down at him with their eyes of pure black, only a single small pinprick of white within their gaze, which gazed at Lewis with what he could only describe as a mix of hope and fear. He glanced back at the mangled bodies of the humanoids on the first floor, piecing together the situation as he sent an identify at the clearly not humans in the tree.
[Elf - lvl 4]
[Elf - lvl 2]
[Elf - lvl 5]
Oh, so these really are elves? Not what I expected. I mean, long ears and pale skin, sure. But black hair and black eyes weren't like any fantasy story I ever heard about.