Chapter 12: Speed

[Beast Armament: Awakened White Ox, Awakened Sabertooth Wolf.]

As Nick was hoping, his eyes were greeted with a sight he never would have even considered just a few moments prior.

He had two Awakened Beast Armaments now…

He struggled to even wrap his head around the concept — was he really that lucky? The idea of being as lucky as he had been failed to compute in his mind.

His whole life he had to suffer through all kinds of misfortune thanks to his lack of luck, so this sudden switch just didn’t seem real.

But it was.

Getting two Beast Armaments in a row was incredibly lucky, but it wasn’t that uncommon that it should be called heavenly luck.

In general, the chances of getting a Beast Armament from killing a beast was around 10%, which wasn’t actually that low in the grand scheme of things.

Most people who had average luck could acquire one if they just focused on killing beasts.

Hence, getting two Beast Armaments in a row wasn’t that rare.

But this was what tripped a lot of Altered and even some Evolvers up in their exploration of the Beast Domain. Killing 10 Mundane beasts wasn’t that difficult, even if one were alone. Even those without much fighting experience, like Nick, could do it given enough time.

It’s just that the difficulty increased exponentially from Awakened beasts onwards.

After obtaining a few Beast Armaments at Mundane rank, Altered might get complacent and start having delusions of grandeur — thinking that they were capable of taking on Awakened, sometimes even Mutant beasts.

99% of those who fell into this trap died.

Not even Nick was as stupid as them. Both his fights against Awakened beasts were ones where he was an unwilling participant… or in the case of the Sabertooth Wolf, and unknowing participant.

Still, that didn’t mean Mundane ranked Beast Armaments were useless in a fight with an Awakened beast — the reality was that they were.

It’s just that most Altered were too inexperienced to put them to good use.

This aside, Nick felt ecstatic seeing his second Awakened Beast Armament, and with his heart practically pounding out of his chest in anticipation, he checked what type it was.

[Beast Armament type: Augmentation.]

’YESS!! It’s still an augmentation!’

Nick felt like screaming aloud in excitement, but had learned from his lessons by now. He didn’t want to run the risk of attracting over another Awakened beast, or several even.

Just because he had taken out one Sabertooth Wolf, didn’t mean he would be so lucky a second time.

’That’s right!’

It was just then that he remembered something just as important as well.

Pushing any feelings of excitement aside, he quickly but quietly made his way back over to the corpse of the Sabertooth Wolf, and using his dagger as a tool, he dug into the chest of the beast with ease.

’It seems the wolf’s defence was still rather low even though it was an Awakened beast, rather than Mundane.’ Nick thought.

He was relieved to know that the main weakness of the beast remained even though it was a whole rank higher than normal.

Nick didn’t plan on dilly dallying for too long in Vaylan forest, so he was rather rough in his methods, directly cutting deep into the core of the beast’s chest and ripping its heart out without any reservations.

The heart itself felt tougher than the rest of its body, but Nick had no trouble cutting through it with his White Ox dagger.

In just a few seconds, a slightly bigger than thumbnail sized piece of rock fell out of the mangled heart, onto the ground.

[Awakened Sabertooth Wolf Beast Core consumed. 45 Awakened Soul Seeds gained.]

Nick snatched it up and proceeded to swallow it whole before anything could take the chance to sneak up on him and steal it.

’Sweet! Only 5 away from the max you can get!’

Nick felt a much larger boost to his physical abilities upon acquiring the Awakened Soul Seeds.

In fact, the difference between each rank was staggering.

Beast cores were just as valuable to other beasts as they were to humans. Heck, for all Nick knew, there could even be people in his vicinity — waiting for him to slip up or drop his guard.

But he doubted it.

It was getting rather late, and the sun hung low on the horizon, making people much less willing to go out hunting.

Plus, even if they did, those heading into Vaylan forest wouldn’t be much stronger than Nick himself. In fact, they were probably even weaker, especially so now that he had 79 Awakened Soul Seeds in total. In fact, that meant he had more Awakened Soul Seeds than Mundane Soul Seeds now! How miraculous was that!

Added onto the fact that he had yet another Awakened Beast Armament to his name, Nick doubted there were many Altered in Vaylan forest who could call themselves his match — unless they knew proper fighting techniques of course.

But, speaking of Beast Armaments, Nick was eager to test out his new one.

He willed the Sabertooth Wolf Beast Armament to appear, but rather than something physical appearing in his hands like what happened with his dagger, he felt a surge of power enter his legs.

’A speed boost!’

Nick recognised what it was immediately, and he was shocked.

He knew that Mundane variants of this Beast Armament gave a speed boost, but he was skeptical on whether his Awakened one did, even after seeing that it was also an Augmentation type.

…Until now, at least.

He performed a few jogs around the area, but after a few seconds, he lost his bearings and crashed into some nearby shrubbery.

’What the fuck…’

Nick was speechless, feeling like his eyes were deceiving him.

’This isn’t Awakened levels of speed…’

He’d never even seen one in person, and he was very happy with keeping it that way for a long while, but Nick was certain that the speed he had just travelled at was…

… Mutant rank.

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