Offense is the best defense

Elsewhere in the Morath Labyrinth, a paladin is facing off against a giant 3-headed toad in the midst of a marsh. Bodies of different beasts and humans littered the place, while brawls are still taking place all around. The battle is coming to a close after much blood shed on both sides. The giant 3-headed toad, as the overlord of the marsh region had put up a fierce fight, but it is on its last legs now.

In a desperate last struggle, the toad croaks indignantly and the water below it ripples, using all its remaining strength, it leaps off far into the distance so quickly that no one could have been able to react to the sudden retreat in time before it made its escape. That is if Atlas wasn't there. Atlas: a name with the meaning of endurance. True to his name, he had endured the abnormal's full onslaught of attacks and is still standing with only mild injuries. However, just because he excels at defense doesn't mean his offense is lacking.

As soon as the toad had croaked, Atlas had already predicted the heavily injured overlord would attempt an escape. Focusing most of his remaining mana on his mace, he gripped it like a javelin and threw it just a few milliseconds after the toad had leaped off the ground. The mace travelled like a streak of light, the trajectory overlapping with the toad's jump path and hitting dead on into the toad's underbelly. The spikes on the mace piercing through and the momentum carrying the toad into the roof of the region, causing a loud *boom* to resound through the battlefield.

The poor toad, along with the mace, then fell onto the marsh with a loud *splat*. Atlas approached the corpse warily, tower shield placed in front to protect him in the case of surprise attacks but his worries were all for naught as the system notified him of the toad's death. With the abnormal's death a reward presented itself in front of him.

_________________________________________

By the time i was brought to safety i was already contemplating if i should just ditch my idea of balancing my endurance. From my previous experience with thay snake, it didn't seem like increasing my endurance would help me survive that much. Therefore, i decided to take the route of offense. Thats right! I'm getting the so-called glass cannon build! If my attack power becomes too overwhelming then i can kill those idiot beasts before then can even start to think about eating me with their pea-sized brains. Whats already dead can't hurt you! Forget durability! Focus on offensive power!

Opening the system interface, i go straight to upgrades to improve both my beak and talon sharpness using 2 evo points.

|Beak> Beak(sharpness I)|

|Talons> Talons(sharpness I)|

That leaves me with just 1 evo point left. I haven't checked the skills section yet coz i didn't think i would end up fighting so soon but i really do not want to feel pain ever again.

Skills:

Scratch(F-rank) :claw at foes with your talons> 1 evo point

Peck(F-rank) :stab enemies with your beak> 1 evo point

Compress(F-rank) :squash whatever is within your grasp >1 evo point

Whats up with these skills? Pretty sure i did all that by myself while attacking the dumb snake and i can pretty much fly on my own. This seems pretty useless. And are these all the skills that are available? They also have some kind of ranking system, i can assume that it can go all the way up to A or maybe even S. All these skills are F-rank though, probably the lowest of the low. The same principle most likely applies to my current evolutionary stage as a hatchling. This is very pitiful. No way thats all right?

|Obtained skill (compress)|

I got the compress skill anyway. If this turns out to be useless then i will just ignore this section. I bite off a piece of snake meat to test out the skill with my beak. Alright, uh, compress!?

My beak then snaps shut onto the snake meat. The only difference from normal being a little more force applied.

So thats it. From what i just experienced, skills are basically actions with more oomph that are done automatically upon activation and to activate them i just have to think about it. So if i got a fly skill i would be able to fly better once i activate the skill, but automatically as well. Its like some unknown force is moving my body for me. I can feel myself move when i activated the skill, but i'm not the one that controlled my beak to slam shut.

I will test it out more later when i get more skills. Next is my status.

Name: Haruto

Species: Skepre Avis Hatchling(F-rank)

Lvl: 3

Health: 50/50

Mana: 20/20

Attack power: 9

Agility: 11

Endurance: 7

Intelligence: 38

Title: <Defective Avis That Cannot Fly>

Nice! My attack power went up to 9! This feels great! I also notice how my health and mana went up. Is that because i leveled up? I was wondering how to increase those stats. So each level gives me 10 hp and 5 mana? Oh whats this? It wasn't here before. Title?

...Oi.

Defective Avis!? I'm defective!? Me!? Didn't i already manage to fly!? It may have only been for a few seconds but it still counts! Trash system calling me defective. NO! YOU'RE DEFECTIVE! YOUR CREATOR IS DEFECTIVE! YOUR CREATOR'S MOM IS DEFECTIVE! I just suffered from a little bit of trauma and i already get called defective! How unreasonable! Now that i think about it i didn't see a fly skill just now. Damn system. How am i supposed to remove this title? Whats even the point of titles anyway?

|Titles provide bonus effects, whether it be negative or positive|

Judging from my title, i'm not looking forward to the effects of my new title. It literally has defective in it. It can't be anything good. Um, system-sama, how do i remove titles?

|To remove titles, user has to get a new title that contradicts the old title, canceling out the old title, and effectively replacing it with the new title and new effects.|

I think i get it, so to replace my current title i have to fly basically. Thats gonna be rough. So does this mean my fellow hatchlings got a title for flying? Oh yeah i haven't appraised other individuals of my species yet, how could i forget? Before that however, i should check the effects of my title. I'm curious as heck.