[You have killed African Black Rhino (Half-Step Evolved level 6)]

[You have earned 32 PP]

Once more faced with a behemoth, Dominic wondered what to do with it. Somehow, absorbing it seemed to be a bit of a waste. After all, the last time he’d gained most of his health bar and stamina pool back. With only a little of his health missing, and being quickly replaced with Regeneration, there wasn’t much benefit for him – most of the golden dust would be lost.

What if I can fit it in my storage space? he wondered. Is it big enough? He quickly called up the description of the gorget again, and looked at its size. 6m³, apparently. It didn’t sound big enough, but he remembered enough about volume to recognise that a cubic metre was actually a lot bigger than he thought it was. Isn’t it equivalent to, like a hundred litres? Or was it a thousand?

After a moment of thought, he shrugged to himself. Either it would work or it wouldn’t.

A moment later, he was mentally grinning in delight – the rhinoceros had successfully disappeared into the magical spatial dimension of his gorget. Best of all, it only took up about half the space meaning that he could still put other things in there.

Thank you dungeon, he said to himself fervently. Out of all the loot, he still reckoned that the gorget was the best, even if it was, in fact, from the first loot chest.

Although he still wasn’t sure if the meat would spoil, being kept in his storage space, he suspected that it would at least last longer than sitting out in the hot African sun – well, hot sun, anyway – and away from the flies that would buzz to lay their eggs in its wounds. As long as he pulled it out soon enough, it should still be OK.

I don’t want to benefit my enemies, though, he thought, remembering how the rhino had seemed to absorb some of the golden dust. He could just imagine dissolving this new body into a cloud and then healing his attackers at the same time.

Then again…. He could think of another use of a cloud which didn’t distinguish between the being which had triggered it and others around. And that fit in nicely with his plans for his pride. Dominic would have to see whether it would work in practicality, though. Ah well, if nothing else, it’ll be a nice lot of meat to feed everyone.

The lion pulled the rhino out again now he had checked that it worked: he might want to tuck the carcass away for later, but he wanted the Core now. If he hadn’t been able to put the body in his storage space, he’d have freed the Core by dissolving the body anyway. As it was, he ended up with the longer job of needing to chew his way into the rhino’s skull from the back of its neck.

This turned out to be rather more labour-intensive than he’d have liked – his teeth weren’t really made for chewing, and the tough rhino-hide only gave way to reveal almost as tough muscles below.

Eventually, though, and with judicious applications of his various enhancing Abilities, he managed to get through. When his teeth clinked against the crystalline shape of the Core, a wave of relief went through the lion.

Finally! he exclaimed mentally, his jaws aching and protesting. Digging the Core out with his claws, it finally came free with a liquidy schloup sound. He quickly put both the Core and rhino itself into his storage space, dropping lightly to the ground when the body disappeared beneath his feet.

Then, taking off, he travelled for a few minutes in a direction vaguely towards the rest of the pride – he’d spent too long in this one place. Even without any bodies present, the scent of blood and death still hung in the air. He’d had enough experience with unwittingly attracting the wrong kind of predators to his own kill to not want to do it again.

When he figured he was far enough away, and after having checked that the new area he was in appeared to be clear of threat, he stopped. Sitting down, he pulled out the two Cores.

‘Fingers crossed for Charge, eh?’ he muttered to Leo.

‘We don’t have fingers,” the lion reminded him with the sensation of nudging him playfully with his nose.

‘Paws crossed, then,’ Dominic chuckled in response, flipping one paw so it lay over the other.

‘Just get on with it,’ Leo grumped at him, mock-embarrassed at his antics.

Since he was also keen to know what he’d managed to get from the dangerous fight – not Prey Points, anyway – Dominic willingly turned his attention back onto the Cores. Information.

[Beast Core: Black African Rhino level 6

Ability option 1: Charge (80% chance))

Ability option 2: Gore (20% chance)]

That was the first. Dominic next turned to the second.

[Beast Core: Black African Rhino level 6

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Ability option 1: Charge (80% chance))

Ability option 2: Enhanced Absorption (20% chance)]

There were several things Dominic found interesting. The first, that the two rhinos were the same level. He hadn’t registered it when their kill notifications came up, but he did now. That they were the same level when the lions had all been different was interesting to note.

I guess that indicates that my assumptions herbivores had a way of making progress just by surviving must be true: why would two rhinos have advanced at exactly the same speed otherwise?

A second interesting note, now he had two practically identical Cores to compare, was that while the first Ability was the same, the second was different. What is ‘Enhanced Absorption’ anyway?

[Enhanced Absorption (T1): Increases your ability to voluntarily absorb the various energies of the world. +10% general energy absorption at level 1. Percentage increases as Ability increases in level.]

A Tier 1 ability at level 6? Dominic still didn’t find himself much enlightened, nor did he know whether this ability could be useful for him or not. After all, maybe this was just something that applied to herbivores. On the other hand, what if it affected mana regeneration? Or, even more out there, stamina or health regeneration. Was it possible?

‘You’d have to get it first,’ Leo reminded him. That was a point. And since this was the first time he’d seen it, there were no guarantees that he’d see it again any time soon. No, on second thoughts, it would be better to get Charge – at least that had clear benefits and he was already working his way towards it.

Gore was probably pretty self-explanatory – and probably pretty useless for Dominic. He checked it out anyway, just in case.

[Gore (T0): Adds damage to a stabbing attack. This is a +25% enhancement to the base damage of the equipment used to stab for a flat cost of 10 stamina. Percentage may increase as Ability increases in level.]

OK, a little less useless than I thought – potentially. It all depended on if his claws or teeth could be considered as a stabbing attack. Anyway, like with the other Ability, it was rather immaterial: he wasn’t going to earn either of them from a single Core, so they’d potentially just end up being a wasted Ability.

Dominic did note the fact that it seemed the new Ability offered at Half-Step Evolved could either be T1 or T0 – he’d sort of noticed that before, but hadn’t known whether it was based on the species. With this relatively fair test, he could now see that it was either a matter of luck or randomness which decided the Ability and its level. Or actions of the rhino, though what one could have done to gain ‘Enhanced Absorption’, Dominic didn’t know.

Either way, he quickly absorbed one then the other, both him and Leo pushing to increase the chances that they would gain Charge.

Coming out the other side, Dominic quickly checked his list of Abilities in the course of being acquired.

Rage (24% to level 1)

Charge (67% 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)

Fleet Foot (15% to level 1)

‘No new Abilities here,’ he remarked to Leo.

‘We haven’t got Charge yet, either,’ the lion responded pessimistically.

‘No,’ Dominic agreed, ‘But we’ve almost doubled our progress to level 1 in it. Just need to find a few more warthogs or something.’ Certainly, the rhinos had proven not to be particularly good prey for Core farming.

The lion grunted in acknowledgement.

‘What are you going to do now?’ he asked Dominic idly. The former-human mentally shrugged.

‘I was figuring to continue patrolling, but I’d like to keep an eye out for some more swarm predators.’

‘Keen to level up again, are you?’ Leo said with the hint of a yawn.

‘No,’ Dominic answered quickly and then paused. ‘I mean, yes, of course I want to level up again. Since something special happened at level 10, I’m hoping that something else will happen at level 20 – maybe the next half-step? That would be cool. But that’s not my reasoning here.’

Dominic got the sense of the lion opening his eyes properly and paying full attention.

‘Then what are your intentions?’

‘The lionesses need to level up, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘And hunting a couple of herbivores every day or few days isn’t going to do much for levelling up, right?’

‘Agreed.’ Then the lion seemed to realise where he was going with this. ‘If you endanger the cubs, the lionesses will be furious with you.’

‘It’s a risk,’ Dominic accepted grimly. ‘And believe me, I have no desire to see more cubs killed. But do you think the lionesses are likely to hunt more than necessary at this point?’

Leo considered the matter for a long moment.

‘No,’ he admitted. ‘But we now have telepathy. Perhaps we can communicate with them and encourage them to do this voluntarily.’ Dominic did the mental equivalent of giving Leo a side-eye.

‘You just don’t want them so upset that they reject your…attempts to mate,’ he accused.

‘Precisely,’ Leo agreed, his fur unruffled. ‘And I want females to mate with as well – the last time we were attacked by swarm predators, we lost two of them.’

‘Which is exactly my point here. If the lionesses are a higher level, they should be more powerful, more intelligent, able to protect themselves better. They need to level. Just like we do.’

‘I’m not disagreeing with you,’ Leo told him, patient in response to Dominic's vehemence. ‘I just suggest that we discover if we can convince them to join us on a hunt first.’

‘Alright,’ Dominic accepted. Leo’s reasoning was sound. ‘But if we can’t convince them, then back to Plan A?’

‘Agreed.’

Satisfied, Dominic started moving back to where the pride had been last time he’d seen them. Time to convince some lionesses to come on a hunt.

Hopefully.