Tide woke up to a coarse tongue sloppily hitting his face. Groaning he pushed Onyx off of him and sat up. As much as he would love to sleep some more Tide pushed himself to his feet and began to pack up camp.
The night before he decided to only use earth for a bit to build up enough affinity with it to allow him to use multiple of his skills in a row. After working up his earth affinity which would be the easiest he would turn his attention to the other two.
He check to see how far the golem dug the night before and was surprised to see a hole large enough for two people dug into the side of the hill and a mound of dirt and stone next to it.
He walked up to the mound and reached out his hand. Activating element manipulation he seized control of a couple shovels worth of dirt. He brought it into the air and spread it out into a line.
Next, he started channeling more mana into it as he commanded the dirt to condense. Slowly, but surely the dirt folded in on itself creating a staff of dirt. Dispelling his mana from the dirt he quickly caught the falling staff.
He quickly checked its durability by swing it at a fire log. Tide nodded as he saw no damage on the staff after a full power swing.
Looks like thirty five mana was the right call. Trying to strengthen it further ended up causing the staff to crack under the stress and an less would cause the staff to be to weak.
Tide spent a little bit more mana to round of the staffs edge and add a grove for his hands to grip. Satisfied with the final product, Tide let out a sharp whistle causing Onyx to run over.
Squatting down Tide patted the little guys head before he started walking away from town. Onyx wagging his tail followed closely behind in Tide’s shadow.
First things first he had to get the pup some exp. If he could level up even once he would grow a bit bigger and be able to help fight. Right now there wasn’t much Onyx could do besides be a distraction.
Yesterday Tide decided that horned rabbits would be the easiest thing for him to hunt. Only reason why a lot of people didn’t try hunting the little buggers was due to their speed. They would just run around you stabbing you with their horn and dashing away before you retaliated. Even if you could land a hit or two the rabbits would flee before you could kill them.
Tide had a plan to avoid all that nonsense though. If it worked he would be able to farm the rabbits for the rest of the day with ease.
It only took him ten minutes or so to make his way over to the field he saw yesterday where other people were attempting to hunt the rabbits. He seemed to be the first one there and started to scout out the area making sure to remember where large clumps of bunnies gathered.
It would be idiotic to try and fight more rabbits than he need to. He could probably take on two or three but after that he would be living dangerously. For now though he just wanted to level up Onyx.
To do so he found a single rabbit on its own and gathered a small ball of earth in the air. He condensed it into a pebble before using his mana to launch it at the rabbit at a decent speed. The people hit the rabbit in the side and it let out a small squeal.
It’s health bar and I for popped up showing Tide it’s info.
Horned Rabbit
Level 2
Hp 19/22
It looked around in anger searching for the aggressor. As soon as it spotted Tide it took off with a cloud of dirt puffed up behind it. It began to run erratically all over the place.
As soon as the rabbit started running, Tide began to counting his head, while also absorbing earth through his feet to cover up his calves.
After three seconds the rabbit launched its attack and zipped behind Tide launching it horn at the back of his legs. Tide saw it coming but knew he wasn’t fast enough to respond instead he just let the rabbit hit him.
His right leg buckled as the rabbit’s horn collided with his reinforced calf. It managed to gouge out a small hole in his muscles but it was quite shallow. Most of the damage was negated by his skill. Tide quickly used the length of his staff to smack the rabbit way without having turning around.
It let out another pitiful squeal as it was knocked away before starting to sprint again. Instantly Tide started counting again, but this time instead of infusing earth into his legs he sent his mana into the ground behind him. When he reach three seconds he had the ground behind him raise up forming a short wall that reached knee height.
The rabbit who was racing towards Tide’s leg panicked as it saw its target was suddenly blocked. It attempted to turn or stop itself but was unable to due to its momentum. It collided with the earthen wall violently. It’s horn managed to pierce it, but when it’s head hit the dirt it was stopped completely. The force rattled the rabbit’s head leaving it stunned.
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“Get him boy.” Tide shouted, causing Onyx to jump out of some tall grass where he was hiding and pounce on the rabbit.
The stunned rabbit was now stuck between the wall and the wolf that was tearing it to shred. Now that it’s mobility gone Onyx has any easy time damaging the poor animal with his claws and teeth.
Soon Onyx’s jaw found the rabbit’s neck and with a quick jerk and a pop, the rabbit's health bar quickly emptied. The body was about to disappear but Tide willed it to stay. If it shattered into glimmering lights it would most likely give them some copper coins, and have a chance at dropping its horn. There was a stand at town that would pay coins for monster parts. Tide couldn't remember the amount of coins each horn was worth, but it was worth much more than the coins you could possibly get. Sure you could get the coins and a horn, but it didn’t drop more than a fourth of the time.
Tide pulled his axe out of his storage ring and told Onyx to leave the body alone before chopping off the rabbit’s horn and storing it in his ring. By willing the body to stay and chopping off the horn himself, he could guarantee always getting a horn.
Tide threw the rest of the rabbit to Onyx which happy began to tear off pieces of meat. Tide gave the cub a pat on the head a word of praise, before walking away and sitting down.
He checked his mana which was three fourths empty. He activated meditation and rested for a bit letting Onyx revel in his first kill, before moving on. From then on Tide knew the time it took for each rabbit to attack and was able to start the fight off by creating the wall to stop the rabbit instead of having to take a hit. After three kills Tide had to take a break to let his mana regen.
After killing one more Onyx had a golden glow envelope him and this signaled to Tide that he had leveled up. Tide took a second to stare at Onyx and willed his page to come up.
Onyx
Tide Blackwaters Pet
Black Dire Wolf
Level 2 (3%)
Hp 37/37
Skills:
Pounce: The ability to jump on a target dealing damage, damage increased if a surprise attack.
Tide smiled, the wolf was in line to become a great help. The fact that he already had a skill was a great indicator of Onyx’s growth potential. Tide ruffled the pups hair before starting up the hunt again.
After two hours and several rabbit corpses, Onyx was almost level four. Tide was in the middle of a meditation break when he started hearing the sound of people talking. Instantly his eyes snapped open and he scurried away from the group of adventures. As much as he wanted to finish off Onyx’s next level, Tide wanted to avoid contact with any other humans. Most of them didn’t take the change well and would kill other humans just to get a slight advantage.
Sighing Tide started heading towards the second hunting ground he remembered from the day before. As he jogged away from the field Onyx was able to keep pace better, than before.
The terrain started becoming more rocky and soon found himself near a cave he found yesterday. All around the cave opening were green lumps of liquid surrounding a core. Tide focused on one of them and its stats came up.
Slime
Magical monster
Level 3
Hp ??/??
Tide looked at a couple of other slimes and found out that the closer to the cave, the higher the slimes level. Tide smiled this would be great for grinding up his level. The slimes at the cave's entrance were level eight. As he gained levels he would be able to just start fighting slimes closer to the cave entrance, to keep up the training intensity.
Before Tide started to engage. He had to make a change to his staff. He jabbed its tip into the soil and focused on the soil beneath it. He took control of a clump of dirt the size of his head and began condensing it into a sphere and attaching it to the staff.
Pulling out the significantly heavier weapon, Tide advanced towards the first slime. As Tide neared it, ripples begin to course through the slime. Tide brought the staff above his head getting ready to swing down and splatter the slime. Instead the slime compressed itself before jumping into the air swiftly crashing into Tide’s chest.
It felt like someone just chucked a bowling ball at his chest causing him to fall on to his back and knocked the air out of his lungs. The slime ricocheted off of him but, wasted no time and crawled onto Tide’s legs and started moving towards his chest.
Tide was unable to do anything as a burning sensation began to affect his leg. Tide would have let out a scream as he felt his skin start to melt, but had no air in his lungs to produce the sound.
Onyx seeing Tide’s struggle jumped on the slime, knocking it off of him. After a second Tide was able to recover his breath and regained control over his body.
Tide grimaced, he forgot how annoying slimes were. Tide looked over to see Onyx tussling with the slime. Tide frowned, he saw how his pet's claws and fangs were ineffective against the slimes elastic nature.
Tides frown became a scowl as he saw that Onyx and the slimes fight had gotten the attention of another slime. In a panic Tide quickly sent most of his mana out into the dirt next to his companion to summon a golem. While it was being constructed, Tide got to his feet grabbed his staff. He quickly commanded the golem to attack the new slime, which caused it to promptly tackle the ball of slime like a linebacker.
Tide focused on the slime that was currently dissolving Onyx’s fur. Since it was being distracted Tide was able to raise up his staff and slam it down on the slime. As the sphere hit the slime it was forced to compress to the point where it popped and it’s slime splattered. Quickly Tide stomped on the small core that fell to the ground, preventing the slime from reforming.
Tide wiped the slime from his face as he turned to check on his golem. He looked just in time to see his golem smash both of its fists into the slime that was attempting to dissolve the living dirt. Another pop was heard and Tide was able to casually walk over and stomp on the core.
Tide let out a strained breath and sat down. Onyx walked over next to Tide before he decided to shake off his fur, causing a second splattering of slime to cover Tide.
“Really bud” Tide muttered as his knocked on the wolf's head with his knuckles.
Tide willed away the slimes body, which thankfully included the slime covering him and the ground. After grabbing the coins that fell to the ground he walked away from the cave to recover his health and mana. Entering meditation he commanded the golem to keep watch.