Chapter 24: Entering Stage 2

Adam sat down for a few minutes relaxing and recovering after his battle.

"Status"

Mortal LVL: 5

EXP: 233 / 400

HP: 123 / 140

MP: 13 / 17

Strength: 14

Speed: 15+4

Intelligence: 19

Charisma: 5

Luck: 5

Seeing his HP and MP had already lowered on the first stage, Adam was unsure whether he would be able to complete the Sub-Dungeon in one try and was also curious about whether he had good luck and what was to come.

After a while, he stood up, deciding not to dwell on it for too long, and without overthinking it decided he would go through the middle tunnel.

Adam knew he had no time to waste and the thought that there were powerful cultivators out there kept lingering within his mind.

"I wonder how people cultivate" he mumbled to himself as there was a large thud behind him from the tunnel being closed off.

Seeing the empty area that was double the size of the previous one, Adam now knew that it didn't mean that he had lucked out and with his daggers in hand cautiously headed to leave the tunnel.

As soon as he stepped out of the tunnel and into the larger open cave, 5 LVL 6 coyotes appeared out of thin air.

He intentionally only stepped in with one foot, hoping to outsmart the dungeon and retreat back into the tunnel if he wanted to retreat.

But just as he was about to turn back into the tunnel, he was pushed in by an invisible force and the tunnel was closed off, as he faced off against 5 strong and furiously growling coyotes.

"Darn system" shouted Adam who was forcefully trapped into a cave with 5 scary coyotes.

They were much larger than the fox beasts, so Adam assumed they would have less speed and more strength.

Coyote

LVL: 6

HP: 170

Strength: 17

Speed: 14

Intelligence: 14

Seeing the beasts stats Adam couldn't help but become cautious and nervous to battle them seeing their higher HP and strength.

With his two daggers in hand, Adam still had an advantage in terms of speed and intelligence, but was disadvantaged in every other way including numbers.

Biting his tongue to jolt himself out his fear, Adam allowed desire to drive him and his wish to be stronger, wealthier and most importantly to be able to save and provide for his aunt, and burst towards them without hesitation.

With his daggers and boosted speed he was almost twice as fast as an average prime human had covered the 10-metre distance between them in seconds.

The enclosed cave-like room he was in was 20 metres long and the 5 beasts stood in the centre.

In the same way as the past stage, the beasts were programmed for aggression and didn't seem to be able to attack until they were attacked, so Adam exploited the advantage he was provided.

He attacked the beast to the far left and holding his daggers in a standard grip, dug both his daggers upwards into the beast's throat as blood burst out of the wounds.

-90

As soon as Adam attacked him, he felt the beast could move and with his faster speed and reflexes was able to jump back before the beast could counter-attack.

-5

-10

-7

Adam could see that the initial attack took more than half of the beast's health that continued to rapidly fall as it lost more blood and struggled to breathe.

Already seeing the beast he attacked as defeated as it collapsed in its pool of blood, Adam had 4 beasts left to defeat.

Knowing that attacking all four of them would only cause him unnecessary injury and struggle, Adam planned to split up the beasts as he circled around the outer walls of the cave to spread out the beasts that attempted to catch up and stop him.

It was both exhilarating and thrilling, and scary as he fought against 5 coyotes with his daggers and he felt the wind crash against his face as he ran at incredible speeds for an average human.

As he ran past, a single coyote beast that was closest to him, pounced before him attempting to block him off as the rest attempted to catch up to them.

Running past Adam slid under the coyote that pounced at him, and as it was was mid-air, he slid under it and stabbed his twin daggers into the stomach of the beast and used his forwards momentum to slice its stomach open as he slid past.

-80

Blood splattered all over Adam's face as he slid past and as he stood back up and continued running so that the rest of the coyotes couldn't catch up to him.

He lost a small amount of HP and could feel his back stinging and his fur jacket being scraped and losing durability, but wasn't affected majorly.

Adam felt that the first coyote he had attacked had died as he received a notification.

{Would you like to integrate this beast as a part of your Canidae Summon YES / NO}

[Yes] answered Adam who already had his daggers and didn't need a weapon.

Instantly he felt a figure of a coyote integrate with the arctic fox beast within his mind in a place that seemed to be formed by the Collector Skill.

The beasts walked straight into each other and as they collided they fused and formed a hybrid beast that was in between the two beasts in terms of size and gained some of the speed of the Arctic fox and the strength of the coyote.

Watching the scene within his mind, Adam was in awe, but being in the heat of battle couldn't pay attention to the moment and focused on his battle.

But he couldn't help but think about how incredible his Collector Skill was and wonder what its limits were.

The second coyote beast that had its internal organs shredded by Adam's slash had also died within seconds and disintegrated into pixels.

Adam felt an item had entered his inventory and knew he had gained gold, but didn't check what it was and suddenly stopped running and turned to the final three beasts that stuck together after realising Adam's tactic.

"There is no point to continue running, now to finish these final three beasts" he mumbled with a devilish smile, enthralled in the heat and adrenaline rush of battle.