Absorbing the six small Cores from the cubs – still bigger than the other level 0 Cores he’d absorbed – and the two Cores from the adult and sub-adult lionesses, Dominic checked the Abilities currently on the road to being acquired in his status panel.
Acquired Abilities:
Powerful Kick (52% to level 1)
Rage (24% to level 1)
Charge (12% to level 1)
Sharp Nip (50% to level 1)
Stunning Roar (19% to level 1)
Easy Landing (48% to level 1)
Rending Bite (17% to level 1)
Pounce (100% to level 1) Level up to acquire this ability
Group Attack (100% to level 1) Level up to acquire this ability
If he could, he’d be rubbing his hands together. Two abilities had reached 100% and he had enough points to level up. Just.
Progress to Evolution: 294/287 PP level up
Without any reason to delay it and every reason to do it immediately, Dominic promptly selected the level up.
‘What are we improving this time?’ Leo asked.
‘We need to be able to finish fights quicker,’ Dominic told him. While he’d wanted to put some points into his mana this time, he was finding it hard to justify the investment to himself, let alone Leo. With his magical stats so significantly reduced thanks to the method he’d chosen to access mana, it meant he’d have to put in a lot to get relatively poor results.
He didn’t exactly regret choosing to open the scroll when he did, but he couldn’t help wondering if there might have been a better time. Or a better way. Hopefully he’d find a way to get rid of the penalties because then his magic would definitely be worth exploring more.
For now, though, especially fresh off a fight where he lost two out of the nine lionesses of the pride, not to mention the handful of cubs who hadn’t even had a chance of life, he was determined to do something which would actually help him be the protector he was meant to be.
‘I think we should enhance either our Claws or Bite for the first choice, and either Strike or Muscular Body (speed) for our second. What do you think?’ The lion considered the question carefully.
‘I find I must agree with you,’ the lion admitted, almost as if the prospect was painful. ‘Though would you not consider improving our Roar: if we can drive the enemies off before they even attack, would that not be better?’ Dominic mentally shook his head.
‘And what if they’re not driven off? Then what? I feel like it’s too much of a gamble. Besides, if we drive enemies off, we don’t get the Prey Points.’
‘Isn’t the constant search for Prey Points not what caused the death of the females?’ Leo asked, almost accusingly. Dominic felt a hint of guilt before he once more shook his head, this time actually physically, his mane ruffling around his ears.
‘I didn’t take this attack seriously enough, I admit it,’ he said to his companion. ‘However, avoiding fights isn’t going to help us; it’s only going to let our enemies get ahead of us and weaken our ability to fight in the long run.’ He understood where Leo was coming from, though. With his connection to the lion he was able to get a better understanding of what life had been like before the System arrived. ‘This isn’t the old world where fights meant courting either death or disabling injury. Now a level-up seems able to fix most damage, and winning fights by killing our opponent is the only way to increase in strength. You agreed with me before; what’s changed?’
He heard a mental sigh from the lion, but Leo didn’t verbally respond for a few long moments.
‘Very well,’ he accepted finally. ‘I recognise the truth in your words.’ The closest to saying ‘you’re right’ that the lion seemed to be able to bring himself to express. ‘I just don’t want us to lose more, simply in the pursuit of Prey Points. Perhaps enhancing our Bite and speed would be the best options, then,’ he said, clearly wanting to move on from the subject.
‘Why do you say that?’ asked Dominic, curious.
‘Our Claws, while good, are by no means our primary weapon. I do not see that enhancing them a single time is likely to result in being able to more quickly finish fights. Our Bite, however, is already strong; enhancing it another time will make it stronger. As for the other enhancement, to finish fights quicker, we need to be able to move with more speed. Our use of Quick Strike will only multiply that.’
‘Good points,’ Dominic said. ‘So the question is whether we should choose Mouth and increase our bite power, or Teeth and lengthen or sharpen our teeth.’
‘Tearing damage is already our highest in teeth, but we have Crushing Bite to help enhance our Crushing damage. The question is whether we wish to gamble on a waterhole or spread our chance out more evenly.’
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‘You could just say ‘put all our eggs in one basket’, you know,’ Dominic told his companion with a trace of amusement.
‘And why would I wish to be human about it, pray?’ Dominic felt that he should probably be offended by that, but shrugged it off.
He didn’t bother discussing it any more with Leo – the lion didn’t seem concerned about which option he most preferred, so he felt that gave him licence to choose. After a moment of thought, he decided; not wasting any more time, he immediately levelled up.
Pulling up the changes to his status screen, he was pleased to see the results. It definitely seemed that concentrating on a single enhancement offered greater and greater results. On the other hand, levels were requiring more and more Prey Points per time, the difference between the required points for level 15 and level 16 now being 28 PP. He wondered what the difference would be like at level 30 if it was like this at level 15.
Status of Dominic Martin Cole / Leo
Species: Lion (body) / Human (mind), Two-Souled
Level: Evolved Beast Level 15 Tier 2 (Path of Evolution)
Progress to Evolution: 7/315 PP
Acquired Abilities:
Quick Strike (T0) level 3 (5% to level 4) – 3 SP for+25% –> +35% speed; 6 –> 8 SP for +45 –> +70% speed.
Second Wind (T1) level 1 (8% to level 2) – activatable when under 50% health or stamina. Gain 50% of your maximum health and/or stamina for the duration of the timer. Timer: 05:00. At the end of the timer, lose 50% of your max health and stamina.
Crushing Bite (T0) level 1 (27% to level 2) – Use stamina to enhance the crushing power of your jaws. +6% - 60% Crushing damage for 2-57 stamina per second.
Group Attack (T0) level 1 (0% to level 2) +1% to offensive damage dealt per other being who is considered to be in the same group during an attack or defence.
Pounce (T0) level 1 (0% to level 2) +50% damage to a hit which is delivered without the target being aware of you until the attack is too close to avoid. +25% damage to an attack which is made directly to a vulnerable area.
Offensive abilities:
- Bite level 3 (51-80 –> 54-82 Crushing damage, 60-89 –>72-100 Tearing damage, 48-70 –> 55-76 Piercing damage)
General abilities:
- Muscular Body level 6 (max speed 28 –> 35 mps; max speed duration 16 –> 14s) (170 SP)
Lots of changes. The first thing he realised was that Quick Strike had levelled up without him realising, and the increase was pretty awesome. Although the cost in stamina of the bigger increase in speed had gone up, it was worth it for +70% speed. With his new max speed of 35 metres per second, the equivalent of 126 kph or 78 mph, he was almost reaching the maximum speed allowed on motorways by cars. Only for 14 seconds, of course, but still!
And that was before Quick Strike was applied. A 70% increase would mean a speed of 214 kph or a massive 132 mph when he was attacking. The combination of his stats was starting to add up in a serious way.
That’s not to mention the next additions. With his newly-sharpened teeth, his Tearing damage had increased significantly, able to hit 100 points at its maximum. And that was only his Tearing damage. Surprisingly, both of the others had increased a little too. He’d been expecting Piercing to increase a bit, which it had, but even Crushing had gone up a couple of points. Perhaps that was due to his Bite being one of those enhanced during his tiering up?
So, if he got the absolute maximum damage he could with his bite, he could potentially hit for 258 damage points in total. Then, he could apply Crushing Bite which, at its maximum, could enhance the Crushing damage of his bite by 60%. That was another 49 points, taking the maximum up to 307 points of damage. Add in the +10, +5, and +5 of Strike to Crushing and other damage types and he was looking at 327 points of damage.
And then, of course, there was his new Ability: Pounce. He wasn’t sure if the percentage increase was applied to base damage or if it would be applied to damage after other abilities. Assuming it was base damage seemed safer: until he learned better, underestimation was probably better than overestimation.
So, take the 258 points of base damage. If he ambushed his prey, he’d get a +50% damage increase: 387 points. If he didn’t ambush his prey but got it in a vulnerable spot when pouncing, he’d increase it by +25%: 322 damage points. If he managed to do both, he could do a whopping 451 points of damage. Then add the 49 points of Crushing Bite and the passive points of Strike and he was looking at a potential 520 points of damage in a single strike.
That was massive. Dominic was left momentarily speechless after he’d worked it out, and Leo seemed rather taken aback too. That was his whole health pool as a Tier 2, level 15 lion. No, he hadn’t enhanced his constitution much, but he had done some. Of course, that was an attack at absolute maximum, and assuming that his target had no armour. In reality, he was more likely to do between 300 and 400 points of damage, maybe upwards of 400 on an easy target. Still, it was looking pretty good, if Dominic could say so.
And then, of course, there was the bonus offered by Group Attack. Though, again, he didn’t know whether it would apply to his attack pre or post other bonuses, and at this point would only offer him 7% at the absolute max with his current pride, it was a good addition.
Actually, I wonder if any of these bonuses would apply to my tail morningstar, he wondered, remembering about the thing that he’d practically forgotten about in the past few days. With a thought, he rematerialised the armour directly onto his tail. It was heavy, pulling down at his spine, but he reckoned that it didn’t feel quite as heavy as it had before he’d increased his mass. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to be pinching either, so perhaps it had the capacity to grow with him a bit.
Level up done, Cores absorbed, and results analysed, there was no reason for Dominic to stick around here for any longer. Well, that’s what he thought until he saw the two abandoned corpses of the buffalo. He didn’t reckon that they’d be abandoned for much longer, but he did want to find out if they offered Charge. He thought it was a strong possibility, at least.
Going over to the buffalo he’d killed, he absorbed its body, then checked his abilities list. Sure enough, Charge had increased by 2%! Excellent! Not even needing to check the Core – he knew the buffalo was below level 6 so therefore didn’t have a second ability, and he’d already seen that the first ability was Charge – he licked it up and then trotted to the second corpse. Another Consume and Core later, he checked his progress with Charge.
Charge (30% to level 1)
Not there yet, but getting there, he thought to himself with a mental smile. Plus, he’d found another creature which offered the coveted ability: buffalo. He eyed the other members of the herd – they’d moved a bit further away, but not much. No, he told himself. He wasn’t confident in being able to take one down by himself, and the lionesses were clearly not up for another hunt.
Heading towards the other lionesses, he soon was able to join them underneath the tree. The sun hadn’t yet risen, but the other lions were clearly ready to have a sleep. Well, not all of them.
The female in heat approached Dominic and started doing her now-familiar routine of tail flicks and sinuous pacing.
‘Leo, your turn,’ Dominic said hastily, pushing at the ‘bubble’ of his partner’s mental state. Leo didn’t object, happily retaking the driver’s seat.