Chapter 18: Berserk [Mountain Boar]

After gaining a marginal amount of mana, Shane felt much more vigorous than before and circulating it within his body felt extremely comfortable, cleansing the tension within him.

Having learned many martial art techniques which can be amplified by mana, Shane tested out a few sequences.

His mana circulation was rather crude and enhanced his techniques only by a small margin while it increases the difficulty of observing the overall situation while fighting.

As such he had to find weaker beasts that would fight him head-on instead of running away, like amber rabbits or curved horned sheep which could be found nearby.

Thinking for some time, Shane remembered two beasts that met his requirements, being at the low-Wild stage or barely at the 4th Wild stage(Mid-Wild), which were the [Mountain Boar] at the low-Wild stage with a strength of a mid-Wild beast and a high speed but a large tropic and low intelligence. The strongest mountain boars can even reach the 4th-Wild stage without evolving, but meeting such boars is extremely rare nearby the shelter.

Once evolved, the boars would venture deeper into the mountain range, leaving normal mountain boars alone.

The second beast that came into his mind, was a [Fanged Coyote], which was a beast infinitely close to the 4th-Wild stage, and most fanged coyotes with higher quality could even reach the mid-Wild stage, while the lower quality fanged coyotes would stay at the peak of the 3rd-Wild stage. They were nimble and had razor-sharp fangs, like the name already indicated, while their defense was extremely thin.

After pondering for a second, Shane decided to search for mountain boars due to two reasons.

First, the corpse of a mountain boar was worth a lot more than a fanged coyote's, and second, he wanted to search for a larger number of beasts at once.

As such boars were the perfect target for him to hone his skills while gaining a small income.

Umbra would be entirely useless with his fangs, as they couldn't even penetrate the thick hide of the boars until he grew stronger, and thinking about that was sad but not changeable.

Even if he fought coyotes, Shane wouldn't allow Umbra to fight them head-on, as such he did what he wanted to do.

Walking towards the small forest on the outskirts of the large mountain in front of the shelter, Shane was expecting what kinds of beasts he would see and how long it would take for him to meet his first group of mountain boars.

Umbra already adjusted himself to the harsh sun and squeezed on Shane's shoulder within the robe, only for his head to stick out of the collar.

He also wanted to explore the outside but was too weak and he knew that.

As such Umbra listened to Shane and admired the surroundings.

Only a few minutes passed and Shane was still circulating his mana within him in order to increase his proficiency with mana control, when he saw a small flock of mountain boars with three matured and two adolescent mountain boars that were slightly smaller compared to the others.

From the looks of it, the matured mountain boars were all at the 3rd-Wild rank, while the adolescent mountain boars were at the 2nd-Wild rank and Shane smiled at this sight.

Until now, he was still not uncovered, as such he tried to sneak up to them, gaining a small advantage once he attacked.

On earth, he would have never even thought of attacking or even killing beasts, but the last eight years completely changed his life as he already killed thousands of cruel beasts.

As such his animal-loving behavior changed into something cruel, that doesn't even differentiate between innocent and guilty, carnivore and herbivore, which shocked him sometimes.

Nothing of that mattered and the only excuse Shane would accept to not kill beasts, was that he couldn't gain anything from them or them being cubs or hatchlings.

Maybe he would also make exceptions for pregnant beasts, but for anything else, Shane would have to think about it.

Sneaking up to the mountain boars, that grazed on the flourishing green grass in front of them, Shane suddenly bent even further, circulated mana into his lower body, and shot up, once he reached a distance of ten meters.

With his physique of a 4th-Mortal stage, he could release a shocking speed, with his high acceleration and within a single moment, the ten-meter distance was already crossed.

The mountain boars squeaked out in shock and roared at Shane to intimidate him, but it was already too late, as he trusted out with his dagger, piercing into the neck of the first matured mountain boar, causing a blood fountain to spurt out of the wound.

Withdrawing the dagger out of the wound, more blood spurted out, sprinkling on Shane's face, before he adjusted his stance and accelerated once again right to the two adolescent mountain boars that looked at the collapsing matured mountain boar with shock.

Coming back to their senses, they wanted to rush at Shane with wrath in their eyes but their mother already charged towards Shane, once it noticed its partner was murdered.

Shane, who noticed the matured mountain boar charging at him from the site, used a small amount of mana and the tree next to him, to catapult himself slightly into the air, causing the mountain boar to miss him, before it crashed into the tree, causing it to shake heavily.

Before it could regain its senses, and turn around, it already heard the two adolescent mountain boars roaring out and only a moment later, their painful squeaking was their last sound that resounded throughout the forest, before their lifeless corpse collapsed on the ground

Circulating mana around his lower body was already difficult while fighting at a numerical disadvantage.

Shane didn't even want to imagine fighting against more powerful beings while exerting complicated techniques with his mana during fights and the expectations within him about his future fights soared even higher, as he killed the adolescent mountain boars before he vanished within the bushes next to him.

The other mature mountain boar charged at Shane and with him vanishing within the bushes, there were only two things it could do.

Stop the charge and wait patiently for Shane to return or ignore the imminent threat coming from the bushes and charge inside, without caring for anything.

Due to the low intelligence of the mountain boar, it chose the second option and charged through the bush, without caring that Shane was hiding behind a tree that stood next to the bush.

Once the mature mountain boar charged through, Shane thrust towards its hind leg as he would more likely injure himself by attacking the shoulder or more vital areas during a full charge from the peak low-Wild stage mountain boar.

Thrusting his dagger towards the hind leg, Shane was once again at an advantage and thanks to the lost balance caused by the severed hind leg, it collapsed on the ground and was about to rise up with difficulties, as the few sunlights that shone through the lush forest were covered by a bipedal being which looked at him with cold eyes as the shiolite dagger pierced into its neck, killing the mountain boar within seconds.

Storing the dead body within his spatial ring, Shane heard a loud and enraged roar coming from the last mountain boar that was still alive.

The female mountain boar didn't see him vanishing into the bush, as such, Shane could push aside a few leaves to scan the surrounding, and seeing the last mountain boar, his eyes gleamed lightly.

'It went Berserk? I am really fortunate, huh?' Shane thought and normally people would be extremely scared seeing berserk beasts, whatever race they belonged to as it was an extremely terrifying state some beasts entered under special circumstances.

Either they had to face annihilation, female beast's cubs were abducted or deep wrath and agony exploding within them, were the most common scenarios that triggered the berserk state and not only had Shane killed all of its companions but also her offsprings, which was definitely enough.

Due to the berserk state, she was currently in, the female mountain boar lost all reasoning and its strength increased by approximately 30%.

But more importantly for Shane was, that one could obtain an [Title] after defeating a certain number of Berserk beasts.

Shane didn't plan out this scenario, but thinking about it, the situation wasn't that bad.

Staying quiet, the berserk mountain boar could only roar around and run around wildly without a target to vent its anger, and seeing the dead bodies of her offsprings was even worse.

Once the berserk mountain boar was nearby the bush he was inside, Shane used all his remaining mana to circulate it within his lower body and he increases his velocity to the limits while he pushed himself from the ground.

Hearing the rustling of leaves, the berserk mountain boar could barely see Shane's outlines, as it roared out once again before it began to charge at him.

Never would it have imagined that Shane would jump to the side, avoiding her charge, while at the same time thrusting the shiolite dagger into her chest, bereaving her from her lifeforce, ending her wrath and agony.