All around, corpses of Gloom Stalkers surrounded Noah. The smell of blood permeated his nose, but rather than feeling repulsion, he felt an urge to devour it.
He inhaled sharply, trying to shake off the strange dryness from his throat. There was no way he would drink the blood of these monsters, Noah swore.
The battle in his transformed form had made the essence stored in his core fully absorbed, which made him a Tier 2 runner.
His attributes were all boosted by the upgrade, allowing him to obtain twenty attribute points in each attribute and twenty free points.
The continuous fights had already improved his attributes a lot, and with the tier-up, they increased further.
Noah was sure that with his current strength, he would defeat the miniboss before him.
With an excited grin, he summoned his status panel.
:
Name: Noah Walker
Age: 16
Tier: 2
Exp: 0/10000
Talent: Inverse Mana
Talent grade: Impossible
Blood line: Thundrith
(Effect 1: 2000% of increase in every attribute with a price of 100% Mana in the mana pool.
NB: Applicable only for reverse mana)
(Effect 2: Bloodline transformation (Use 100% of blood to transform into the full form of Thundrith.)
Health points: 1500
Mana points: 800 (Inversed)
Magic damage: 10* spirit
Essence damage: 10* strength
Magic defense: 10* spirit
Physical defense: 10* Defense
Attributes:
Strength - 70 (15+20)
Defense - 90 (40+20)
Speed/Agility - 60 (10+20)
Spirit - 30 (+20)
:
After upgrading to Tier 2, not only did his attributes increase, but the purity of essence he used in attacks also doubled.
Another thing was about mana points…
Mana points were the amount of mana he could store in his spirit. Unlike essence,which only stores in the essence core, it filled every cell of his body.
The increase in mana capacity in his spirit allowed him to have almost ten times more mana than before, which in turn allowed his bloodline to boost his attributes ten times more than before.
"2000% boost in attributes, with my bloodline transformation, this is almost like a 4000% boost."
Noah had no idea how absurd this concept was. He only knew that now the monster before him was not a challenge to him.
The mini-boss gazed at him with wariness, its previous arrogance disappearing without a trace. It growled at him, trying not to lose the momentum it had been keeping until now.
But to Noah, this almost felt like the desperate stance of a kitten. He laughed, activating his bloodline again.
The raw power that flowed through his body was so overwhelming that the mini-boss took a step back.
"Where are you running, little kitten?"
It heard his cold, mocking voice. He zoomed forward without giving it a chance to even defend.
Noah reached it instantly,at a speed that almost felt like teleportation, and poked his scaled hand through its forehead.
-28000
"Aeeeiiiiaaaaah!"
The mini-boss whimpered in pain, evading his next strike with great difficulty.
Noah slid through the ground a few meters and slammed back-first into the wall.
"Ugh…"
The power-up was instant, so he had no absolute control over it, which made him hurt himself.
Noah spat the blood from his tongue.
"I have to train for controlling my power…" he thought, looking at the mini-boss with a thoughtful expression.
He was surprised by the monster's ability to evade his attack, despite having caught it off guard.
"If I hadn't level up, can I defeat this monster?" He contemplated, staring at the angry face of the monster.
The pain enraged it, making it forget the power Noah had shown.
It sidestepped, searching for his weakness to utilize. Its fur stood on end, its canines enlarged, along with its nails.
Its movement created screeching sounds on the cold floor and the power of darkness surrounded it.
Noah widened his eyes when a beam of darkness rushed towards him as it waved its paw.
"Boom!"
He was unprepared for such an attack, so the beam knocked into him, slamming him in to the wall again.
-300
"Damn it!" Noah cursed, his heart beating like a drum as he received the damage notification.
"How could you use mana?" he asked, rolling on the ground to escape another attack.
Even without mana cultivation, his spirit was boosted to 600 attribute points, which were further doubled as per his bloodline transformation.
His magic defense was a whopping 12000, so for this monster to damage him, it had a magic damage of at least 15000.
This dungeon was marked as an essence one, which meant monsters here were supposed to have zero magic power.
But this mini-boss had magic power, and it seemed to be powerful at that. Noah wondered why.
If Noah hadn't become Tier 2 and his bloodline hadn't improved, he would be dead now.
His eyes followed the movements of the monster, his mind calm and without panic.
He had less health points, five such attacks from this monster might kill him.
The thought of dying… somehow, Noah was excited by it.
His eyes turned a darker shade of blue and the scales on his limbs shined with lightning.
Noah liked this feeling…
The factor of uncertainty somehow thrilled him. Noah had always loved close matches.
Even in the orphanage, he tried to fight stronger children, he enjoyed the feeling of nearing loss, only for him to suddenly emerge as victor at the last minute.
Probably this was the main reason many hated him. Whenever they thought he was going to lose, like a stretched spring,he would return for the win.
Sometimes the warden warned him about this behavior, and Noah wholeheartedly agreed—or that was what he always thought.
But now…
"I like it…" His eyes shone in delight. The pain was like fuel, that slowly burned, emitting as excitement.
"Perhaps I am a masochist…" Noah cringed.
"Boom!"
Another dark beam rushed towards him, but his feet moved diagonally, evading continuous attacks from the monster.
He leisurely enjoyed the fight as he moved towards the now-panicking mini-boss. It also sensed the abnormality in Noah,prompting it to turn around to run.
"Where are you going?"
But a teasing sound came from just behind it, and before it could defend itself, a scaled hand pierced through its back,shattering its internal organs to pulp.
-3000
"Ahh, disgusting…"