For as long as it could remember the silver haired gorilla had always been a tough warrior amongst its peers in the tribe.

Being born bigger than its male peers and also growing at a faster speed than them meant that no male of the same generation could pose as a competitor or even a threat to it. If there was a male foolish enough to try their luck by challenging it in a battle, the male would end up with a bloodied face that would permanently stay disfigured for the rest of its life - that is If it survived the battle to begin with.

Which was why when the big gorilla met two male peers surrounding a prey in the middle of the forest, it hadn't hesitated to throw a punch - claiming the painstakingly hunted prey for it and it alone. And as usual not much of a struggle ensued, the coward males had fled the scene.

It was only when the big gorilla was halfway in eating its meal that its head tingled in response to sensing danger and where it was coming from - a skill that members of its tribe had learnt to sharpen.

A strange small creature walking on two legs had attempted to claim it's life with a weird shaped tooth. The silver haired gorilla which was a champion amongst its peers easily managed to escape the deathly attack and even retaliate by throwing an attack of its own.

After a lot of fighting and tumbling, the silver haired gorilla had expectedly emerged victorious - the strange beast walking on two legs that had dared ambush it was beaten up and on its dying breath, pathetically crumbled against a tree.

The silver haired gorilla now closely observed the tooth the small little thing had used during their fight - the tooth was so small compared to the gorilla ; but when the gorilla pressed it against its rough and toughened hand, it surprisingly managed to pierce it. It was truly a strange th-

" Hagving fon, now arwe ? " (Having fun now, are we?)

The gorilla heard a sound. When it looked, it was met with the eyes of the small two-legged creature staring right back at it with a strange defiance.

The gorilla had never felt it's life-threatened by any small creature. But in that moment, something felt different.

Wasn't the small thing supposed to be dead?

But it didn't matter. The gorilla would beat it up some more and the problem would be solved!

The silver haired gorilla lifted its body and temporarily stood on both of its legs. Right when it was preparing to beat its chest in response to accepting the challenge -

Whaam!

It felt a strong impact hitting it against the chest, the world moved forwards as the silver haired gorilla flew backwards.

Crack, crack, crack, crack

Tall trees broke and fell as the large stature of the gorilla brushed - no, pounded against them.

The silver haired gorilla stopped flying after a minute, a trail of broken trees marked the path it had taken to do so.

Everything had happened too fast, one moment it was preparing to beat its chest and the next it found itself flying after being hit by something. The big silver haired gorilla had never been sent flying before..atleast not since it had challenged the gorilla king and severely lost.

" Thahs coils it even. " ( That calls it even. )

A familiar sound came , when the gorilla was preparing to stand upright considering it had been lying with its back, it was met with a second powerful attack which mercilessly pummeled it to the ground like a small rabbit being stomped on.

But this time it had seen where it came from - The small two-legged creature was now standing on its chest with its leg raised in preparation for another attack after all.

How dare the small creature disgrace it like this?!

The silver haired gorilla found itself fuming with rage as it swiped its left arm to knock the small thing off it. The small creature outmaneuvered the incoming attack by swiftly doing a backflip, landing not so far from the gorilla as if in provocation.

The silver haired gorilla didn't like the way the small creature's mouth rose up in a curve as it stared right back at it.

" Pftt , thahs oil you gos ? " (Pftt , that's all you got?)

Before it knew it , the silver haired gorilla found itself stomping, swiping and even punching at the small creature. The small thing managed to dodge each and every one of the gorilla's attacks, sometimes even making an even stranger sound with its throat. ( A laugh )

And then out of the blue, the small creature spat out some blood - holding its chest with visible pain and distress. The gorilla had tried to take advantage of the moment, but the small thing still managed to avoid the sucker punch ; stomp and swipe triple combo it had thrown, landing a bit further than usual.

" Darm , whah a sham.. I wase hokying tee plee whih you a likk longer. " ( Damn , what a shame.. I was hoping to play with you a little longer.)

The small creature made those noises. A second later, it completely vanished!

Thwik

The gorilla's head fell in front of its body.

The last thing the gorilla saw was the small creature standing behind it, with the weird tooth strongly held in its hand and glistening with blood.

*

Ryan coldly stared at the dead silver haired gorilla's body. The previous wounds the gorilla had inflicted on him were no longer life threatening - his broken fingers had been restored to some degree of optimal use along with his previously broken spinal cord.

All of it was thanks to -

'Mana Drive , what a useful but deadly skill'

Mana Drive, a passive skill Ryan had earned from the system for his consistent hard training and of course his relentless daily absorption and expenditure of mana.

In the description the system had sent to him, mana drive was described as a skill that would allow him to increase the absorption of mana around him as if he was a vacuum cleaner. That meant he could absorb more mana at a faster rate.

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Ryan had been overjoyed by the earned skill a month ago, assuming he had managed to escape the chains of his C grade aptitude.

With his C-grade aptitude , Ryan was like a racer on a sick and dying horse, but with the skill he could release himself from those chains and soar high like a bird that had regained its ability to flap it's wings.

As if !

Ryan had found out a day after from activating the skill and testing it during a hunt that it was very taxing and possibly life-threatening: The skill absorbed large amounts of mana at a fast rate , the negative effects of this didn't become immediately apparent but after 6 minutes spent with the skill active - he got irritating chest aches which gradually got worse, along with nose bleeds.

Wung Dao had explained why :

This was because Ryan had a black mana core, him absorbing those large amounts of mana at a fast rate became detrimental after a certain point. It was basically like fastly pouring a bucket of water inside a styrofoam cup , the cup could only contain water of its own volume and pouring more water after that volume had been reached would possibly lead to its destruction, Ryan's core in the situation was the cup.

Ryan had tried out the strategy of constantly using the mana by imbuing it on his attacks, movements and pale dagger in an attempt to expend mana and balance everything out but after a certain time the rate of absorption became faster than the rate of expenditure.

Further use of the skill beyond 15 minutes would lead to severe noise bleeds and chest aches. Wung Dao had also told him that if he used it for more than 20 minutes his core would explode, meaning he would become a literal human grenade.

' Good thing I kept it under wraps , it's too dangerous to casually use in a fight after all. '

Which was why Ryan had left the skill as his trump card. Well, calling it a last resort was more fitting for his situation.

'Oh?'

Whoosh , Clang

Ryan quickly deflected a projectile thrown at him he had seen at the corner of his eye.

Whoosh

However, 3 more sharp black projectiles replaced the previous one, all coming from 3 different directions but at different speeds.

Ryan deflected the closest projectile and then swiftly dodged the rest.

'Mana Drive!'

Ryan quickly activated his trump card, dodging and deflecting 4 more projectiles that came his way. However this time he did it faster than before , hence why he managed to see 4 beastly insects around him flying in circles; they had sharp legs, large beady eyes , black and yellow stripes and of course also large stingers which were ready to shoot at any moment.

Ryan would have to be an idiot to not recognize the little monsters.

'How did these bees find me!'

It was of course the menacing bees Ryan had been avoiding fighting ever since he had encountered them. Ryan who once watched them from the shadows hunt other monsters finally became the hunted.

'Tch , one cannot even catch their breath for a single second in this damned forest !'

Ryan leaped quickly at the nearest bee which flew the closest to him, catching it by surprise. His pale dagger easily cut the bee in half as Ryan accurately slashed it.

So what if they hunted him? Ryan was confident in attaining victory against the 4 measly bees now that he had activated mana drive. They were like 4 small puppies picking a fight with a lion.

He just had to deal with them quickly before they called out for back-up. Even though their nest was pretty far away, it was usually better safe than sorry in Doom Forest.

Ryan landed after the leap, and then dodged 4 stingers which were launched at him.

'Pathetic.'

He leaped once more at the nearest bee, slashing with his wyvern dagger in an arc so as to slay the bee. Somehow anticipating the attack, the bee flew higher , easily dodging it. Ryan unfortunately couldn't step on air and was forced to plummet down due to the pull of gravity.

'Damn it, these things aren't as dumb as they look'

Ryan tried the same thing with another bee , but it also managed to dodge by rapidly flying higher than the reach of the attack.

"Argh..!"

Ryan spat out blood after he landed.

He couldn't continue playing the game of cat and mouse for long. His fight with the gorilla with the aid of Mana Drive had taken exactly 15 minutes, and his previous acts of continuously dodging the bees' stingers and launching attacks of his own took 3 minutes. He had 2 minutes to round things up, any more than that and he would become a literal bomb.

Ryan launched another attack again, leaping, but the targeted bee managed to dodge his attack just like the previous bees had done - simply flying higher than then attack. As long as the damned bees had wings, it seemed they would continue to dodge his attacks.

" Screw you ! Dammit ! "

Ryan knew shouting in anger wouldn't help him much, but he needed some way to vent the frustration.

If he didn't turn off Mana Drive after 2 minutes were over then he really would go out with a kaboom, but if he did turn it off before the 2 minutes were over and he hadn't handled the bee yet then he was as good as dead considering the bees would dispatch him quickly.

'Think Ryan , Think!'

Suddenly Ryan got an idea - when an object travelled faster than the speed of sound, a shockwave would be created as it traveled through the air, this was what partially what had happened during Wung Dao's fight with Xue Lan. The shockwaves were referred to as sonic booms.

If Ryan could generate shockwaves from his slash attacks and direct them at the bees, that is assuming he could withstand the shockwaves, then his problem would be taken care of in under 30 or 40 seconds. The bees wouldn't even see the attacks coming.

'But I would have to move faster than sound to do that. At my level that's nothing more than a pipe dream.. wait , what if I used mana ?'

Ryan got another idea , if he could manipulate the mana he had imbued into the wyvern dagger and turned it into a projectile of his own to shoot with his blade then wouldn't he be able to somewhat deal with this bothersome problem?

'I don't have time to wait and think it out..'

Ryan willed the mana he had imbued into his dagger - he rapidly condensed it onto the edge of his dagger. He then imagined an arc shaped pure mana attack being released every time he slashed with his dagger and at the direction he had slashed at.

'its now or never!'

Ryan finally made two quick slashes targeted at two bees which were close to each other. Two blue arcs were released from his wyvern dagger just as Ryan had imagined. The first one was however a bit distorted, looking more like a sine wave than an actual arc. The first arc hit the targeted bee, pressing and squishing it under a big tree before the arc dissipated. The attack had been too fast for the bee to dodge.

The second arc was more refined and faster than the first, it was thinner and sharper than too. However it wasn't sharp enough and only managed to pierce the second bee halfway before a large branch finished the job by forcefully squishing the bee. The second arc disappeared like the first as well.

Finally, Ryan made two arcs. The two arcs were much more refined than the previous two, evident by their slim but sharp edges which made a whoosh sound as they sailed through the air. They were also much faster too. The first refined arc slashed the targeted bee, successfully splitting it into two. it predictably also dissipated when hitting a nearby tree.

The second refined arc quickly sliced the second bee it had targeted, only 2 seconds behind the first one. Not only did it manage to kill the bee but it only dissipated when it was more than halfway dislodged into a nearby tree and almost cutting it too.

'I did it !..'

splat

Ryan quickly deactivated Mana Drive as he spat out blood. The blood was even spewing out from his nose as he felt as if his head was being split into two.

[ CONGRATULATIONS for the synthesis of the skill 'Mana Slash' ! ]

[ As a resul.. ]

Ryan's eyesight began to fade away as he felt the strength in his muscles disappearing at the same rate

'No, no. I can't pass out like this.'

Passing out in the middle of a forest was a sure way of getting mauled or eaten by the beasts in your sleep and was of course the most stupid way to die. Despite his plees , Ryan unfortunately couldn't force his body to stay awake.

His eyelids closed shut as his body fell over with a loud enough thud.