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Chapter 126: Immense Uppgrade!
Chapter 126: Immense Uppgrade!
Though he was scared, Ark tried his best to calm down. He didn't want to appear weak, and he didn't want others to worry about him, especially not the little cub. Others worrying about you can be a burden for them, and Ark didn't want to become a burden in any way, shape or form. He just wanted to be a dependable figure in this small cub's life, not some weird homicidal monster.
The scene around him was not something anyone sane would normally be capable of doing, at least not under the right circumstances, and Ark was barely even conscious while he did it.
What if he hurt the mother and the cub the next time he went out of control? What if he never regained control? What if he just became a murderous monster on the loose? What would Thufrat think about him then? Ark couldn't help but think a little too much, and he tried to frantically come up with the right course of actions from now on.
Was it really the right course of action to just stay with the cub and its mother and act like nothing ever happened? Wasn't that a little too risky? Ark became a little dejected. No matter how he looked at it, it didn't seem logical to stick around with the cub and its mother for now, but Ark really wanted to.
In the end, he decided to not be selfish for now, he didn't want to endanger them just because of his selfish desires. With that said, what was he supposed to do now then? He could search for Thufrat, but then again that would endanger Thufrat. Maybe Thufrat was strong enough to hold him back? Ark quickly discarded the idea, he didn't believe Thufrat to have that kind of strength.
Seeing Ark troubled like this, the small cub started to feel anxious. Since it didn't know how to comfort people, the cub could only walk up to Ark and nuzzle up against him.
Even though it was something the cub only did on a whim, Ark's head seemed to instantly clear, and he calmed down a little. His once cloudy mind suddenly felt free, and he realised something. Maybe he shouldn't avoid this side of him as much as he had been planning to. In the end, whatever it was, it was a part of him, and just running away from his problems wouldn't fix them.
Now, how was he supposed to confront this problem? Ark wasn't entirely sure, but he was willing to bet on the fact that this cub could definitely help him.
This cub had already calmed him down and helped him numerous times, by just being close to him. Even though the idea sounded a little crazy to Ark, he couldn't help but want to trust his gut feeling this time. Since he had decided on how he was going to solve his problem, Ark decided to stay with the cub and its mom for just a little longer.
He would need to leave eventually, but he didn't want that time to be now.
Even though it seemed like that fight was nothing but pure trouble, Ark had actually benefitted a lot from it, more than you'd think. The idea didn't even cross his mind until he opened up his status.
Name: Ark
Title: Overlord
Condition: Normal
Species: Overlord Elemental Wolf
Level: 30 (74)
Mp: 395/395
Strength: 30 (40)
Agility: 45 (40)
Dexterity: 35 (40)
Endurance: 30 (40)
Vitality: 30 (40)
Intelligence: 125
Wisdom: 60
Night Vision [Lv.4]
Water magic [Beginner Lv.4]
Growth [Lv.Max]
Inspect [Lv.5]
Mana manipulation [Lv.8]
Mana perception
Mana recovery [Lv.4]
Herculean strength [Lv.3]
Swift [Lv.3]
Nimble [Lv.3]
Stealth [Lv.4]
Regenerate
Enhanced Stamina
Small Spatial Affinity
Small Lightning Affinity
Small Darkness Affinity
Medium Wind Affinity
Medium Earth Affinity
Medium Fire Affinity
Medium Water Affinity
Big Ice Affinity
Big Light Affinity
Mental Fortitude
Yin Yang body constitution
Envoy of Holiness
Holy Spear: Dawn
Shapeshift [Lv.6]
Spear Mastery [Intermediate Lv. 2]
Overlord Of The Elements
Body Refining [Lv.8]
Wolf's tongue [Inherent]
Status points [90]
Seeing these massive amounts of status points, Ark was at a loss. How the hell did he manage to level up 18 times? The thought that he had actually killed countless fairly high level demons and humans barely crossed his mind, as he had already begun to try and tuck the experience into the deep recesses of his mind, this experience wasn't something he wanted to easily remember just like that.
Right now, Ark's only concern was what he should invest the status points into, which wasn't the easiest question to answer.
When Ark had levelled most of his stats to level 20, he had gotten corresponding skills for each stat. But after that, he hadn't gotten a single skill even though he had levelled up his stats countless times, especially his intelligence. Maybe he wouldn't get any more skills from levelling up his stats? Maybe the skills he got were tied to his race?
Maybe there were other requirements to get some of the skills? Ark didn't have a single clue, but for now, this wasn't his biggest concern. He had plenty of really strong skills after all, he could live without having one more in his arsenal, though it would still be appreciated.
Ninety skill points… now where was he going to invest all of those? The go-to choice was always intelligence, but he couldn't just dump all of them into intelligence… right? The more he thought about it, the more tempted Ark actually got. Even though he still needed to invest some points into wisdom, intelligence was always so alluring.
Ark also wanted to see if anything happened if he got over 200 points of intelligence. He wasn't counting on it, since nothing happened when he achieved a 100 points in intelligence, which was a much more normal milestone in Ark's mind.
Since that was the case, Ark decided to invest 75 points into intelligence, while he dumped the last 15 on wisdom. A white light started to envelop his figure after he assigned his status points, but instead of the normal soothing sensation, Ark could feel something else.
He didn't know what it was, and he couldn't really wrap his head around what kind of feeling it was either, all he could make out of the weird feeling, was a weird sensation of empowerment. The weird sensation soon turned into a prickling sensation that spread all over Ark's body, or more like, all inside Ark's body.
If he was asked to, Ark would have no idea how to pinpoint where the prickling sensation was, it was basically omnipresent, and it was very uncomfortable.
As the prickling sensation started spreading more and more, Ark could also feel his body getting lighter and lighter, as if the prickling sensation was eating away his insides, making his weight go down in the process. Even though most people would feel scared upon such revelations, Ark felt oddly at ease.
Deep down in his subconscious, he knew that whatever this prickling sensation was, it wasn't going to hurt him, or affect his body negatively at all.
As his body got lighter and lighter, the prickling sensation was starting to get more and more enunciated, and Ark was beginning to feel some slight unease. The unease wasn't a result of him being scared or anything like that, it was just an uncomfortable feeling, that was all there was to it. Without him even noticing himself, Ark had actually started floating.
His body was getting hotter and hotter, and his face started to flush red.
Once again, the cub and the mother were concerned for him, but the mother was a little more sensible than her son, and she forced the little cub to make some distance. Since they didn't know what was happening, it was stupid for them to just stand right next to him, what if something happened?
Even though the mother was concerned for Ark, she was more concerned for her little cub, since it was her own family, Ark was still just an outsider.
After Ark had managed to float just about a meter above the ground, his body suddenly expanded a little, before it rapidly shrunk. During this time, his body also sent out a massive wave of mana, which demolished his surroundings to smithereens. When the wave of mana was about to hit the cub and its mother, she decided to bravely stand in front of it.
To her surprise, the mana wave didn't hurt her at all, instead of crashing into her and demolishing her, the mana wave was absorbed into her body. The residual mana from the wave was absorbed by the small cub, and both of them started to gently float too.
Nothing changed about the physically, but if one were to assess their strength before and after this mana wave hit them, it would be like night and day. After a minute had passed, Ark started to descend again, and he landed gently on the ground. When he opened his eyes, it was like the entire world turned completely silent for a moment, before everything returned to normal again.
As Ark looked around him, he instantly noticed the terrible aftereffects his weird state had on the surroundings.
When he also noticed the cub and its mother lying on the ground not far away, he feared the worst. Before he could get too close, Ark was able to clearly hear each and every one of their breaths as he concentrated. He felt relieved to know that they seemed to be ok for now, but he was also perplexed about how his hearing suddenly turned so sharp.
Before, he would need to use mana to even come close to replicating the effect of his new hearing. He also noticed something else that was a little odd when he looked around, his vision seemed to have grown clearer, but for some reason, it was as if he had grown shorter.
When that thought crossed his mind, Ark decided to open his status to see if he was able to figure out what was happening, and what brought upon such change.
Name: Ark
Title: Overlord
Condition: Normal
Species: Overlord Elemental Wolf
Level: 30 (74)
Mp: 600/600
Strength: 30 (40)
Agility: 45 (40)
Dexterity: 35 (40)
Endurance: 30 (40)
Vitality: 30 (40)
Intelligence: 200
Wisdom: 75
Night Vision [Lv.4]
Water magic [Beginner Lv.4]
Growth [Lv.Max]
Inspect [Lv.5]
Mana manipulation [Lv.8]
Mana perception
Mana recovery [Lv.4]
Cellular Mana Infusion
Herculean strength [Lv.3]
Swift [Lv.3]
Nimble [Lv.3]
Stealth [Lv.4]
Regenerate
Enhanced Stamina
Small Spatial Affinity
Small Lightning Affinity
Small Darkness Affinity
Medium Wind Affinity
Medium Earth Affinity
Medium Fire Affinity
Medium Water Affinity
Big Ice Affinity
Big Light Affinity
Mental Fortitude
Yin Yang body constitution
Envoy of Holiness
Holy Spear: Dawn
Shapeshift [Lv.6]
Spear Mastery [Intermediate Lv. 2]
Overlord Of The Elements
Body Refining [Lv.8]
Wolf's tongue [Inherent]
Status points [0]
In the beginning Ark was hard-pressed to find anything different about his status, until he noticed a new skill in the midst of all his different skills he currently had. Since he had no idea what it did, Ark used "Inspect" on this new skill of his, to find out what it was.
[Cellular Mana Integration]
Allows the host to integrate mana into his body on a cellular level, drastically increasing bodily functions such as strength and speed, to a correspondingly high expenditure of mana.
Although the description was pretty normal, Ark could easily notice the raw potential this skill had just like that. Even though he didn't know the extent of the skills capabilities, he had already gotten a little taste-test, and he certainly liked it. Now, Ark had used magic before to increase his speed and such, but this skill used raw mana, not magic, there was a clear difference.
First of all, he didn't even to use any specific mana in the air to create a spell or anything, he just needed to draw mana from his mana pool, and infuse it directly into his cells.
Even though Ark didn't know how he was supposed to do that, when he thought about it, the knowledge just conveniently popped up into his head. He figured that it was a benefit of the skill, and just accepted it as fact, instead of worrying about the small details.
Even though he was eager to test out the strength of his new skill, especially considering the upgrade to his intelligence, Ark knew that now wasn't the best time. Instead of testing his strength, he decided to just sit down for now, and wait for the mother and her cub to wake up.
He didn't know what had happened to them, and he was a little worried, but after he inspected them closer, he was certain that they were totally okay. Not only that, both of them seemed to contain an extraordinary amount of mana, which was weird to say the least. At least from Ark's point of view.
Ark didn't know at the time, but the mother and her cub was actually in the midst of digesting all of this mana, slowly making it their own, this would greatly enhance their strength afterwards, as the mana also tempered their bodies to a certain degree.
If Ark knew that this fortunate encounter was solely because of him, he would surely smile. After acquiring his new skill, Ark had actually shrunk down to 2 meters in height again. When he had shrunk down, he had actually discharged a large amount of mana, in the form of the large mana wave, which was what the mother and the cub were currently in the midst of digesting.
If Ark knew all of this, he would definitely react to the mere absurdity of some of these events. Well, he would find out about his height sooner or later.
In reality, Ark actually benefitted a little from his new size. It wasn't like he lost any power or strength, as his physical stats were still the same. Since he didn't lose any power, a smaller frame was actually just convenient for him, as he didn't have to tower over everything and everyone anymore, he was still fairly large though.
As Ark sat and patiently waited for the mother and her cub to wake up, numerous magical beasts started converging on their location. Most of them lurked in the shadows and waited a little, before they started to attack.
The corpses of the demons and the humans, as well as all their blood was an excellent bait for magical beasts, and after smelling the alluring scent, many magical beasts had decided to try their luck on this buffet.
Though Ark was concerned at first, when he saw the sheer amount of magical beasts, he could only smile to himself. Since there were so many of them, he wouldn't even need to deal with most of them, since they were going to start fighting each other any minute now. Ark's prediction proved to be correct as the large array of magical beasts started using various means to fight amongst themselves.
The more they killed, the bigger the prise of the winner was going to get, as the winner was going to get all the corpses of the dead magical beasts as well.
Though he didn't need to do anything, Ark was still disturbed by all the noise that was made, and he was also a little uneasy, what if they targeted the mother and her cub when he wasn't paying attention? Since he didn't want anything to happen, he decided that it was probably for the better if he just acted on the situation, and got rid of these troublesome magical beasts himself.
He felt a little bad for them, since they had all come here in search for food, but at the same time, this was a fight to the death, and mercy would lead nowhere, as the magical beasts didn't know how to appreciate it.
Since he had gotten a new skill, Ark decided to put its power to the test. As he started infusing his cells with large amounts of mana, Ark could feel his body heating up. Not only that, he almost felt as if he was as light as a feather, and he started to feel pretty happy.
This skill seemed perfect for him, as he was still a little lacking in close combat, this was also a good way to shorten the gap between his wolf form and his human form. Ark stretched his body a little, before he suddenly disappeared from where he stood.
"BOOM!"
All the magical beasts could hear was a large explosion before almost all of them succumbed to the sweet embrace of death, no longer living. The magical beasts that were a little stronger managed to live a few seconds longer, only long enough for them to be able to see the other magical beasts being slaughtered one by one, by a fairly small wolf, flickering in and out of existence.
Funnily enough, that was also the state some of the magical beasts were in, their lives flickering in and out of existence. Well, until they finally went out for good.
As Ark made short work of all the beasts, he could feel his eyesight getting a little blurry again. He immediately stopped himself, and sat down on the ground. It seemed like killing like this could be pretty bad. All that torture that he had to suffer at the hands of the third prince had definitely changed him, that much was certain.
And if it was for better or for worse, Ark was pretty sure it was the latter. Ark tried to calm down to the best of his ability, which was pretty hard. That was until his eyesight landed on the small cub and its mother. He only heaved a sigh of relief and smiled. It seemed like this little cub was his guardian angel.