Chapter 25: Three Lizards

[ Quest received ]

[ Defeat all basic tier beasts in front of you ]

[ Quest time: Two minutes ]

[ Quest rewards ]

[ +15 exp ]

[ +1 skill point ]

'Another quest? And this one has a time limit. Well, at least it confirms that what I am facing are indeed basic tier beasts.'

One of the lizards quickly stepped forward and launched its tongue straight at Neo.

The tongue was launched at a fairly decent speed but before it could get to him, he quickly stepped to the side allowing the tongue to completely miss him.

'I'm guessing that's how they catch their meal, wrap their tongue around it, and pull it in.'

After the first miss, the other two launched their tongues in quick succession working together to block both sides and stop him from getting away.

Seeing that simply sidestepping wouldn't stop him from getting hit this time, Neo proceeded to jump back with a quick backflip.

He was able to jump out of the range of their tongues with that one flip and now he was staring at the lizards as they hissed at him.

"Well, their attacks are slow so it makes sense that I'm able to avoid them but I'm quite certain I should be moving faster than this."

All three lizards charged straight toward him at that moment, the two on the flanks launching their tongues to block the flanks while the one in the middle charged straight at him with increased speed.

'Huh, for beasts they know how to coordinate themselves pretty well.'

He didn't try to move away from the beast and just stood there waiting for it to get to him.

The beast got to him in no time, and as soon as it did, it opened its mouth wide to take a bite.

However, the beast ended up biting nothing but air as Neo could be seen right above it now. He quickly descended from there, immediately slamming the lizard's head into the ground before quickly jumping forward, creating distance between him and the beasts once again.

The one who got its head slammed into the ground was quite pissed now as it quickly turned around, hissing louder than the other two.

"I guess beating them without a weapon is going to be tough, especially with that strength value, I'm not used to hitting stuff with my sword so I can't exactly tell if my brute force dropped like my speed did."

The lizards quickly charged toward him again, launching their tongues forward as soon as they got well within striking range but before their tongues could hit him, Neo quickly jumped back.

"Is that really all you guys know how to do?"

'I guess I should be grateful that basic tier beasts don't possess abilities.' He said inwardly. 'Now then, I guess I have just a minute to finish this now.'

[ Blood skills ]

[ Blood slash: level one ]

'Now then, how does this stuff work exactly?'

[ Blood slash activated ]

"Huh?"

[ Perform motion to use skill ]

'Motion? Oh, I see, a slashing motion.'

Once again, the three lizards charged toward him, launching all of their tongues straight at him but this time, he didn't try to jump back as he quickly brought his right hand close to his chest and did the slashing motion.

[ -2 Energy ]

At that moment he sent out a crimson crescent slash that clashed against their tongues heading straight for the lizards and with their mouths slightly open, the slash lodged itself in there cutting deep into the side of their mouths.

Neo didn't stop there as he quickly sent another slash flying forward to finish the job the first one started, dividing the heads of the lizards into two, the mouth serving as the division point.

[ -2 Energy ]

"I could have sworn I heard a clang when the first one slightly hit their tongues." He muttered as he watched all three lizards drop to the floor along with their tongues which had failed to retract, their tails wagging violently.

[ Quest completed ]

[ Three basic tier razor tongue lizards defeated ]

[ +15 exp received ]

[ +1 skill point received ]

[ 35/100 exp ]

'Razor tongue lizards?' He uttered inwardly, his eyebrows raised in confusion.

He squatted beside the tongues at that moment and just slowly reached for the edge of one, he wanted to just touch it slowly but the slightest touch was all it took to slice his finger.

Blood quickly began to build up on the area but just before it could form enough to force a drop, the wound slowly closed up, and with a fling, his finger was back to normal.

"They look so normal yet they're that sharp." He remarked, staring at the tongues quite intriguingly. "What about their tails?"

He made his way to the tails which looked quite as razor sharp as ever and now it was time to confirm what he had in mind.

"Hmm."

He wasn't as careful as when he tried to touch the tongue and it turned out there was no reason to be, the tails might have appeared as something sharp and dangerous, but they were really just normal tails.

'I see, so that's their game, make you focus on the tail and then hit you with the actual deadly stuff, the tongue. It's quite sketchy that I wasn't informed of their true nature until after defeating them.'

That last part was meant from the system but just as always, there was no response from it. Well, there was one, but it had nothing to do with what he just said.

[ Would you like to absorb organism's blood? ]

[ Yes/No ]

'Absorb blood? Is that just like consuming it?'

[ Beast blood is toxic to your system, it cannot be consumed ]

'Oh, I see, so it's different, nice to see you finally answer a direct question.' He said inwardly. 'Since I'm getting the option to absorb it, might as well…' He shrugged.

[ Blood absorption initiated ]

[ 10 liters of blood acquired ]

[ Cauldron capacity: 10/500L ]

'Cauldron, what's that?'

There was no response from the system so he went to the other beasts and absorbed their blood too.

[ Cauldron capacity: 30/500L ]

It was only after getting that over with that he noticed something quite strange.

[ Condition: 77/100 ]

'Huh? I could swear that was at ninety-nine just a few minutes ago, when did it drop that much? I was informed when I lost energy for the blood slash.' He halted at that moment and turned to his hands, the realization suddenly hitting him. 'I see, so the blood slash used up part of my blood. If it makes my condition drop this much every time I use it then I don't really see the point unless there's an alternative.'

He half expected the system to give him some sort of answer to that but there was no response from it.

"I should better get going, just hope no more rifts show up out of nowhere, I might be able to handle a yellow one but if a blue one pops up, it would be best to make a run for it."

He had only taken a step forward when he suddenly remembered something.

"Yeah, I forgot these things have essence cores that can be extracted." He muttered before turning back to the beasts.

'I wonder how useful a basic tier sword will be.'