246 Grinding time

It had been a while since Fex had last used Ham and he was starting to miss his little companion. Ham was able to be seen by anybody, he didn't have any special skills that allowed him to turn invisible or hide his presence, but he was able to transform.

If the students saw a flying bull-like creature, it would have immediately caused alarm bells to ring, and there would be a hunt for a beast inside of school.

This was why Fex had also kept him hidden as an earring, but right now they were underground, it was unlikely any other students would be down here, and even if they were, it wouldn't be so strange to see a beast flying around on a beast planet. All Fex would have to do was pretend he didn't know his companion and later meet up with him again.

"Finally, finally, I get to spread my wings about!" Ham cheered.

Quinn had so many questions he wanted to ask Fex right now. He was curious about the little beast and wondered if it had been with Fex the whole time, what it could do, and if every vampire was able to get some type of companion.

The problem was Quinn was unable to tell what was the norm with vampires and what wasn't. He could ask the system, but it wasn't the right time.

"Can you sense what's around us?" Fex asked.

Ham closed its eyes, allowing it to concentrate. "I think some beasts are surrounding us," Ham replied.

"We know that!" Fex shouted. "We wanted to know how many and how strong. If you aren't going to help, then you were better off on my ear as a fashion accessory."

Ham responded to the complaints by pulling out its fairly large and fat tongue.

"This place is disturbing the flow of my powers." Ham then started to look around at where they were. "Wait are we back home?"

"You really are usless," Fex said. While in the earring, Ham was able to see everything that was going on outside. As long as he was paying attention and him saying this made it clear that he wasn't.

While the two of them were busy arguing, the creatures that were busy growling away at them, from the dark and behind the crumbled buildings had revealed themselves.

The two boys were completely surrounded by what looked like strange dog-like creatures. There were more than twenty and possibly, even more, in hiding.

The dogs had no fur but displayed a slight tint of red on thier skin. Thier tounges were left out hanging wide from their mouth dangling. A bit longer than regular dogs and a little pointed.

However, the thing that looked creepy about them most was the fact that the dogs had no eyes. The long tongue with thier teeth showing, but nothing, where their eyes were meant to be, was quite the frightening site.

[Inspect]

Although Ham was unable to give them the information they wanted, the same couldn't be said for Quinn.

[Basic tier beast - Furry hound]

Seeing this information put a smile on Quinn's face. If it was an intermediate tier beast or higher, Quinn didn't know what to do. Now he only had one thought on his mind.

'It's grinding time.'

Now unafraid of the beasts, Quinn wanted to get a kill in before Fex, just in case, no one had killed the beast before. Immediately, Quinn lifted his leg, ready to perform the crescent roundhouse blood kick.

"Wait, Quinn, we don't know how strong they are yet, it might be best if we just run!" Fex shouted out, but it was too late.

Quinn had finished his motion, and the attack had already left his leg. The distance between him and the beast wasn't great but Quinn chose to use the blood kick to try to finish the beast in one strike.

Hearing the attack through the air, the dog prepared to jump away but it was too slow and as it turned its body was sliced in half.

[10 exp gained]

[Fisrt time killing beast (Furry hound) 100 bonus exp gained]

[2640/3200 exp]

Quinn had recived the bonus points for killing a new creature, but he did not obtain any more bonus points. It was expected since the beast was in some type of establishment. They likely had contact with something else that had killed it before.

When thinking about this, he felt lucky that he even got the first kill bonus on the rock beast above ground.

Seeing how easy Quinn dealt with the beast, Fex decided to step it up a gear as well. "Ham above!" Fex shouted and immediately, Ham flew up in the sky. Fex then lept in the air and attached one of his strings to the ring around Ham's nose.

As Ham rose up into the air, so did Fex, and now he could see the hounds in the area form below.

"Have you gained some weight, you haven't just been pigging out have you?" Ham complained as he struggled to lift the young master.

"Shut up, you've just gotten weaker." From above, Fex was easily able to see his targets. As he detached himself and started swirling down, he precisely knew where to throw out his pieces of strings.

"Hardern" As the strings fell a power surging through him left his body and was inserted into the strings, now making them just as hard and sharp as a sword.

When Fex landed, the strings went down with him slicing the hounds to pieces.

Five of the hounds were killed in an instant.

Quinn continued to battle it out with hounds, while doing so he was cautious about using his blood abilities. They were underground, and there was no telling when they would get out of here.

He didn't want a similar situation happening like last time. So instead, Quinn stuck to the basics, attacking with both the basic vampire and human martial arts. His stats that had been inputted into strength and his intermediate tier equipment was enough to allow him to easily deal with the beasts.

One of the dog's swung its head out, wrapping its tongue around Quinn's gauntlet. It tried to pull using its strength, but when Quinn didn't move an inch, the dog looked slightly confused.

Then, he pulled his arm with all his might, and the dog's tongue was completely dislodged from its mouth. The site looked cruel, but they had been the first ones to attack.

Finally, all the hounds in the area had been defeated. Fex had defeated 15 of them, while Quinn 8. There seemed to be more, but after seeing many of there own kind defeated, they quickly rushed off.

When comparing the two numbers, Quinn could tell that he still wasn't quite at Fex level, but with improvements in his shadow ability and others, he could tell he wasn't far off.

[2720/3200 exp]

After defeating the dogs, Quinn decided to collect the crystals. Fex didn't look too bothered. Basic tier crystals weren't worth his time, but Quinn still thought they might come in handy when creating a weapon from the system.

"Boss, you're not planning to head to that tower are you?" Ham said as it flew up in the air. With its little hoof, it started to rub its nose. When Pulling Fex up using the ring, it had made his nose a little sore.

"Yeah, we wanted to find out a few things, maybe there's a map or something telling us the way out of here. Why what's wrong?" Fex said.

"I think there might be danger there," Ham replied.

"I thought you said you can't sense anything down here?" Fex asked, annoyed.

"I can't, but something in my gut is telling me."

While Ham and Fex were busy talking, a notification screen appeared directly in front of Quinn.

[5 exp shared]

It was a message that he had never recived before, and he found it strange that it came up while he had done nothing. When reading the message carefully, it made Quinn think back to what the system had mentioned.

Quinn would gain exp, as long as Peter had killed something and was nearby.

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