Chapter 135 - Monster Lair (1)

"I guess they are doing fine. After all, I already told them to contact me if they find something." Arnold shook his head and started walking towards the pile of dead monsters, "They are more than capable of handling themselves. Right now, I should be focusing on other important matters. For starters, Let's see which monster would be suitable to feed to the egg...

If I want the Wyvern to grow stronger than Vritra, I should feed it with the blood of rarest and strongest monsters, like the trolls." he mumbled pulled the wyvern egg out of his inventory and placed it on the ground. A single notification popped up on his interface. 

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Creature's hunger grows.

The creature is learning to control its hunger. Control increased! 

The creature is still hungry.

If not fed within 20:00 minutes, the creatures HP will start decreasing at a rate of 10HP/minute. 

Current HP: 3500/3500

Time remaining to hatch: 115:01:35:23 (Days: Hours: Minutes: Seconds)

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"Looks like remaining hungry for a while has some effects other effects as well... Interesting. However, it's better not to wait any longer. I don't want it to die before I get the chance to ride it."

He went ahead and grabbed the severed head of the troll chieftain and held it over the egg. The blood slowly flowed out of the head and fell on top of the egg. 

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The creature is absorbing the nutrients from the blood... 

Hunger diminishes...

The creature has successfully absorbed the nutrients from the blood of S ranked mutated monster. 

Attributes Increased!

HP: +300

Strength (STR): +25

Defense (DEF): +30

The blood of the monsters contains two compatible abilities. 

The creature can learn two new abilities!

• Yes or •No

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"This is something new... I didn't get a notification like this last time. Did it happen because of the Wyvern blood I fed it last time? It could be possible." Arnold stroked his chin, lost in his thoughts, "This egg is like a living blood rune on its own! Looks like I'm going to have a lot of fun feeding the egg now. But first, let's see what ability it can learn. Yes."

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The creature is learning the abilities... 

Ability learnt successfully!

• [ HARDENING ] : (Active ability) When activated, the user's defence increases greatly and user's hide hardens allowing him/her to take tolerate more damage than usual. It takes more mana if the user tries to harden his/her entire body at once. 

[ Rank: A ]

[Mana cost: 200/per use, Full body hardening cost: 1000/per use]

[COOLDOWN: None]

• [ FURY STOMP ] : (Active ability) The user gains herculean strength and furiously starts stomping the ground which open ups a crack inside the ground that grows wider and wider until the user stops stomping the ground. Creatures who fall in this crack are trapped inside it. 

[ Rank: S ]

[Mana cost: 5000/per use]

[COOLDOWN: 1:30 hours]

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"You bast*rds had a skill like this but didn't use it? What the f*ck was wrong with you!?" Arnold smiled in disbelief, "I don't even want to imagine what would've happened if you had used it on us... forget about the others, even me and my summons would've been in grave danger. Why didn't you use it? Was it because of the high mana cost? I doubt it, when faced with death nobody would be foolish enough to even think about saving mana. Maybe this skill had some drawback that the system isn't aware of? Who am I kidding, the system knows everything."

if you haven't guessed it yet... Yup. Arnold was conversing with a severed head. Half expecting it to answer back. It was a side effect of forcing his overworked brain to work more.

He then realised something.

As far as he was aware, the trolls didn't activate a single skill of theirs while facing Dread and Asterios, other than the hardening skill. Maybe they didn't know how to use any skill other than hardening? It could've been the case but he doubted it.

"it's a shame I can't resurrect you. I should have told Dread and Asterios to go easy on you... Damn it! You could've answered so many of my questions."

One of the most important conditions for Talos to perform resurrection on someone was that the corpse of the being should've been intact. He could still resurrect someone who didn't have hands or legs, but Talos couldn't resurrect a headless being. Sadly both Asterios and Dread had only aimed for their heads. During the fight, the body of the only troll who still had his head in its designated place got crushed under a building, it's entire torso looked like mashed potatoes so Arnold didn't have much hope of successfully resurrecting it either. 

He let go of the severed head and kicked it like a professional football player. It flew towards Dread who immediately sliced the head in half with his katana. Arnold couldn't help but smile at his reaction afterwards. After slicing the head, Dread held the katana over his shoulders as if it was a baseball bat, expecting Arnold to throw more heads his way. Asterios also imitated Dread and pulled the Warhammer over his shoulder, ready to hit a home run.

"Are you guys for real?" He shook his head and picked up the egg which once again had grown in size, "If it keeps growing every time I feed it, then it'll be troublesome to store it in my inventory."

He carefully placed the egg in his inventory and then walked out of the void.

"I think it's time to make some gears for the summons or should I analyse-"

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Your summon has killed a mutated being.

EXP: +1000

Total number of Mutated Ogres killed: 4

EXP awarded : 6 × 800 = 4800

A total number of Mutated goblins killed: 6.

EXP awarded : 5 × 600 = 3000

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Without wasting a moment, Arnold immediately contacted Talos. 

"What the hell is happening out there?" Arnold asked Talos as soon as the connection established. 

"Master looks like we found a monster lair! It seems they have captured a few humans as well. We're currently trying to fend then off..." Talos replied in his emotionless electronic voice.

But Arnold wasn't listening, he was already sprinting towards the garage.