34 Drastic difference

Alex roared at the top of his lungs the force of his voice shaking the corals and sand around him at the intense vibrations it created. his voice echoed out throughout the coral highlands telling everyone and everything about his victory. alex was proud of his achievement even if he knew that this particular kirin was amongst the weakest of it's species , likely barely even reaching adulthood. still alex had defeated an elder dragon in a direct confrontation so he felt very good right now. his pride at his success showed when he landed back in astera with the corpse while a smug expression sat on his face.

It took the people in a astera a few moments to compose themselves and have the hunters dismantle the corpse leaving alex with a pile of meat and organs. alcina snatched a small cut of meat after alex stopped her from trying to run off with the liver he had also identified as the tastiest part. having all of his senses improved meant that he was very good at identifying the best parts of his kill. alex got a notification the moment he swallowed a single piece of meat but he ignored it as the meat practically melted in his mouth.

Kirin meat was apparently ridiculously tender as the thunder element seemed to have kept the muscles soft and malleable. the flavor was rich and savory with very little fat and a slight coppery taste as well. the kirin didn't have as much meat as say an anjanath but the amount of points it gave alex was way higher at a whopping seven hundred thousand points. this was also the weakest member of it's species that showed up in the game so alex could only imagine what the strongest would give him.

Apparently elder dragons were chalk full of calories as despite having less meat than his usual prey alex felt more full. the notification he had gotten earlier was the system congratulating him for his first successful elder dragon hunt. as a reward for it the system gave alex a single dynamic change for free which basically told him he could modify his look again. this wasn't that much of a reward for alex but he still used it because it was free. the change he made was to his tail were he modified the spike to purposefully come off.

He did this while adding the description that the spike could be elementally enriched before being launched. this change in addition to his part regrowth meant that alex could now elementally snipe monsters with his tail spike. this didn't sound that great but if you add on his eagle like vision alex now had the ability to attack from stupidly far away without being seen. it took him a few days to improve his aim with his tail spike but if there was one thing not missing it was power. depending on the element he charged the spike with before launching it it could have various effects on impact including exploding.

His favorite though was the thunder spike that gave most monsters a seizure on impact. the water elemental spike dowsed the target in highly pressurized water that stuck to their skin. when used on a barroth or juratodus it washed the mud right off them in an instant. no more elder dragons showed up in the next two weeks but reports of unusually powerful monsters showing up had began to appear. alex knew this was the official moment high rank started and purposefully followed freya on her trips to try and "save" the wasted meat she left behind.

The first high rank monster alex got to eat was the pukei pukei that showed up in the waste as it was the first freya hunted. she didn't mind alex tagging along either as he was a comforting presence in the tense situation a hunter would normally be in hunting. by comforting of course she meant downright radiating power. it was hard to be tense when she traveled with a strong elder dragon. not even the annoying jagras bothered her as she went about her hunts and she even got way more materials since alex would just carry the corpse and herself back to astera. high rank monsters seemed to give roughly double the points their low rank version did so the pukei gave alex about three hundred thousand point.

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