16. Beast vs Beast

The Forest Vulcan, also known as Gorian, is a large Gorilla-like creature with green fur and a large upper body. Its skin is purple and it has love-shaped marks on its arms.

Vulcan is a rather strong creature, especially for the current Alex. Furthermore, Vulcan can use magic, the same type of magic as him, Take Over Magic.

However, unlike humans' Take Over Magic which takes over magical creatures' power and appearance by "absorbing" them into the Mages' bodies, Vulcan's Take Over Magic is used by entering humans' bodies, basically taking over their targets' bodies.

Alex isn't worried about the Vulcan's Take Over Magic. He's sure his body can't be taken over by the Vulcan no matter how strong they are.

After all, there are Tailed Beasts inside his body that will eat the Vulcan alive if it tries to take over his body.

"Nice, you will be a good opponent for me now. Let's see if I can defeat you without my magic."

Alex attacks the Vulcan that's much bigger than him. As usual, he only uses his bare hands to fight.

The Vulcan smirks before sending a strong punch at Alex. But Alex dodges it and jumps to punch the Vulcan's body. His punch hits its stomach, but it doesn't deal much damage even though the Vulcan seems to hurt a bit.

"So it has an effect, but not that much. My physical strength is still lacking it seems."

Alex jumps to the front, passing through between the Vulcan's legs to avoid the Vulcan's slap. His senses and reflex are good, so he can react to most attacks, even the unexpected ones.

Then Alex kicks the Vulcan's butt, making it fall over to the front face first as it loses balance. The kick and fall don't hurt, but falling face first on the ground makes the Vulcan very embarrassed.

"Pfft! I never know Vulcan likes to eat soil like a worm. Or maybe you are actually a worm, hahaha!" Alex mocks the Vulcan because he knows Vulcans understand human languages.

The Vulcan gets angry and starts attacking Alex more ferociously with its punches. Alex nimbly dodges all of the Vulcan's attacks. He purposely angered the Vulcan so it would attack him mindlessly like this.

He wants to tire the Vulcan by making it using big attacks like these while also using its attacks to train his senses, reflex, agility, and movements by dodging all of its attacks.

Alex keeps mocking the Vulcan while dodging to make it attack faster and stronger. It works and Alex starts having a hard time dodging. But it's still doable, so he keeps going even though the dodging gaps keep getting narrower.

He is dodging well, but he miscalculated one thing. While the Vulcan is spending a lot of energy, the same thing also happens to him.

Instead, he is spending more energy than the Vulcan because he needs to move based on what the Vulcan does while the Vulcan just moves however it wants.

So even if he has a lot of stamina, he gets tired quite fast too. It gets more difficult to dodge the Vulcan's attacks with how tired he is.

"Damn! I miscalculated. This guy has more endurance than I thought and I overestimated my stamina."

"Then why don't you try that, Alex?" Matatabi gives a suggestion.

"That? What do you mean by that?"

"Yes, using your magic power to strengthen your body. It's a basic body strengthening technique for Mages that Ur taught you but you rarely use it."

"Ah, right."

Alex only uses that technique during his training with Ur. He never uses it in real battles because his body will get much stronger when he transforms into Shukaku or Matatabi, so it's not that useful when he's in those forms.

But now he is trying to fight without using his Take Over magic. So it's a good chance to use that technique in a real battle.

Alex makes a distance with the Vulcan and starts flowing magic power all over his body. By doing that, his metabolism will improve, his muscles will get stronger, his bones will be harder, his skin will be tougher, and his senses will be sharper.

It's a full body buff that increases all of his stats if this is a game. High level Mages usually have strong bodies because even without using this technique, their magic power that flows naturally in their bodies has strengthened them greatly already.

If they also use this technique, then their power will increase so much. Though it isn't always the case because it usually only applies to Mages who often fight physically.

These kinds of Mages train their bodies and also use this technique. Even with strong magic power, if their bodies aren't trained, then the effect won't be great either.

That's why Mages who use long range spells and don't fight physically in close combat usually still have weaker bodies even when they have a lot of magic power.

Even so, their bodies will still be stronger than low rank Mages, not to mention normal people. Their high amount of magic power will still enhance their physical power to be at least twice of their basic stats even if they don't train their physiques.

After Alex uses the technique, he feels energized immediately. His fatigue is gone and his body feels a lot stronger than before. But he needs to keep the flow of his magic power stable and not use too much or he will run out of it too fast.

Now it's easier to dodge the Vulcan's attacks although he only uses enough magic power to barely be as fast as the Vulcan.

He wants to polish his senses, so he can't strengthen himself too much or it will be too easy to face this Vulcan and he also wants to use this chance to train his magic power control.

Alex plays with the Vulcan by avoiding its attacks at a minimum distance. He always narrowly avoids its attacks even though he knows those attacks are dangerous.

But doing that really sharpens his senses, increases his awareness, improving his agility, reflex, judgment, and courage.

He knows that he won't die even if he gets hit a few times, so he dares to do all of this. His actions infuriated the Vulcan, but that is what he hopes for because now the Vulcan is using more power and gets faster too.

Although in the end, Alex manages to dodge all of its attacks even though some attacks graze him. Some small scratches are worth the result of this real battle training, so he's happy.

The Vulcan isn't happy at all though. It now lies on the ground while panting hard as it runs out of energy completely. It can't even move a finger because it's too tired.

"Now I feel bad for you. Hmm, well, I guess I won't kill you then because you've helped me a lot. Oh, wait! You, have you ever hurt or even killed humans before?"

Alex squints his eyes while looking at the Vulcan's face. He wants to let it go, but it will be a different story if this Vulcan is dangerous to humans.

The Vulcan can't move its body, but it suddenly has a lot of cold sweat. Its heartbeat rate also becomes much faster, showing that it's very nervous.

"I see, so you've either hurt or killed humans before. No wonder you were so determined to fight me. Then I can't let you off or you will endanger more humans."

Alex strengthens his right arm and punches the Vulcan's face as hard as he can from above while it still lies on the ground.

He doesn't use Shukaku's or Matatabi's power, but his punch is still very powerful with the body strengthening. His punch even cracks the ground around the Vulcan's head.

The Vulcan gets knocked out instantly. Then Shukaku pulls the unconscious Vulcan into Alex's body to be absorbed.

They found out that absorbing a living magical creature will give them more energy to break the seal than a dead magical creature.

But it's not easy to capture strong magical creatures alive. They also need the targets to be weakened and lose their consciousness before they can absorb the targets' power.

"Hmm, it has more power and a stronger soul than the previous magical creatures. But it's still a small amount needed to break the 3rd seal."

"Yeah, I thought a Vulcan would give more magic power."

"Maybe it's because you weakened it too much, so it doesn't have that much magic power left in its body."

"Then next, let's try to defeat it quickly if we find another Vulcan to see if it's true."

"We can do that, but no need to force yourself. It doesn't really matter, we have just started and we aren't in a rush. We'll break all the seals eventually, so no need to worry, kid."

Alex nods before continuing his way to Fiore.

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

Thank you for reading this story. Please support by clicking like or vote if you like this story. It is much appreciated.

Read ahead up to +50 chapters in my patreon page, patreon.com/GrimFairy

Ch. 66: S-Class Exam