After leveling up, Agra decided to take this fight to the next level. All he had been doing so far was running and dodging the thorns thrown to him, which proved to be effective so far.
But for how long exactly? For how long would he be running around like a headless chicken all in the name of surviving?
The trees were massive in numbers. A name "forest," comes with a reason, right? And it wasn't like they could run out of stimina like he can.
Worse, the trees never seemed to run out of thorns. Each time one was launched, another would sprout almost instantly, regenerating to fill the gap as if the forest itself refused to be depleted.
Simply running around and felling two or three trees at a time was exhausting, and he knew he had to change tactics as this fight demanded a new angle
He needed EXP, and he needed it fast as leveling up was the only way to raise his chances of survival.
His stats had improved, yes, but stamina was still bleeding away with every frantic sprint. He couldn't keep this up forever. It was only a matter of time before exhaustion dragged him down, which was all the more reason to act quickly and change the pace of the fight
He thrust out his hand, fingers clamping around a thorn mid‑flight, and for an instant, the world seemed to have been slowed around him.
His grip tightening with perfect precision. A grin spreading across his face as he whipped the thorn back, sending it hurtling into the nearest tree.
[A Feral Tier Beast has been slayed]
[+5 exp]
"Wait..! Did I see that wrong?" He thought out loud as he couldn't understand what he has just seen.
To test his theory, he caught another thorn and hurled to the tree in front of him, only to be proven that what he was seeing wasn't an illusion.
[A Feral Tier beast has been slayed]
[+5 exp]
Somehow, after leveling up, he wasn't receiving 10 exp anymore for a kill. It was kind of confusing since the quest clearly stated that he would be receiving 10 exp per kill.
He just couldn't make a piece of this as he had already calculated in his head, just ten kills for his next level up.
It was still a fight for survival, but after leveling up, the battlefield felt less like a death trap to him and more like an EXP farm waiting to be harvested.
The stat points he had allocated sharpened both his body and mind. Where before he had struggled to dodge the thorns, now he could track them from a distance, his heightened reflexes turning each attack into an opportunity, whether to evade with ease or to catch and hurl the projectiles back at the trees.
"Maybe it's just that I don't have control over the system, or maybe it is the fact that it is just but an additional quest." He muttered with unsettling voice, as he knew he still didn't know anything about the mystery of the system.
But that aside, one thing was still clear in his mind, he needed to level up.
Something had happened earlier when he started this flight. And to make his work easier, has had to just clear a straight path in front of him to initiate his plans.
"If only I could have mana, I could have just create an ice barrier around me and avoid this whole drama." He thought with a hurtful face as the image of Irene flashed in his mind in a split of a second.
But even so, Agra wasn't just running around anymore. He was running with a purpose while heading to a specific direction. He could step back here and there, side step, tornado spide, rizz spin and even from and back to avoid the thorns, but his direction remained constant.
[Bloodshatter Fist skill activate.]
A bang sound echoed through the forest as Agra hit the closest tree using his bear fist. It was an amazing feeling, not a desperate attempt like the one he tried before and accidentally created this skill.
This time, the system calculated everything to him and executed it effortlessly. The tightening of the grip, the power behind the fist and the calculated velocity.
It was flawless and perfect that, if someone would have been watching the action, they would have thought that it was just but some other basic punch which made it even more dangerous. The only different thing was the bang sound echoing afterwards as the force of impact was afr greater than one could have imagined.
[A Feral Tier Beast has been slayed]
[+5 exp]
[Skill: Bloodshatter Fist has gone to a 30 seconds cool down period.]
The text did not even linger for a while two seconds before being replaced by a new ding notification sound as more texts flooded Agra's vision.
[A Feral Tier Beast has been slayed]
[+3 exp]
[A Feral Tier Beast has been slayed]
[+3 exp]
[A Feral Tier Beast has been slayed]
[+1 exp]
[A Feral Tier Beast has been slayed]
[+1 exp]
[Exp: 74/100]
All along, Agra's plan was simple. To clear a straight path in front of him and charge right through.
Earlier, he had received an 10 exp when a tree accidentally killed another tree when it tried to shoot a thorn at him, and he prayed that it would work the same, and it did not disappoint him.
The running, the thorns were thrown, and now that he was running between them, they ended killing each other with their weak defensea.
The only downside of it all was that the more he directly or indirectly kill the dream tree, the lower the number of exp he would receive, which made his fantasy of wanting to level up fast difficult.
But thanks to his plan, he had cleared a large number of the tree and now he could breath as he was actually out of range from the remaining trees, and granting him a chance to catch breath as he dropped to his knees while panting heavily, exhaustion washing allover him.
He breath, then breath again, and just as he took the third breath, he felt a beautiful and familiar sensation washing allover his aura with a system message dangling in front of his eyes that left him startled.
"Why is she even trying to help me?" He muttered with confusion written allover his face.