Chapter 53 Crystal Deer

The red energy that I had now named the 'Blood energy', enveloped my eyes before ingraining itself into my iris and forming a halo around my pupil.

'Blood eyes!'

[Blood Eyes activated]

[Hp: 120/120]

[Mana: 30/35]

Dashing towards my opponent, I dodged all the mana nettles shot at me with ease. While at first, I couldn't see them properly, now I could see that they were nettles clearly due to my blood eyes being activated.

I constantly moved my body with precise movement while trying my best to not waste any energy. While this made me a little slower since I was focusing my all on dodging with as little movement as possible, all that mattered was the fact that I still hadn't gotten hit yet.

'Too bad I don't have daggers on me. I would have practiced that Arsis thing.' I thought to myself with a soft sigh after once again dodging a nettle that was aiming to plunge into my eye.

"You're a little too weak..." I whispered under my breath and in a split second, appeared right next to the creature before stabbing my hand into the bush and simultaneously reaching into its heart yet keeping it barely alive.

Without thinking twice, I activated the red rune within that void space I entered last time, causing the skill 'life drain' to activate alongside it.

I watched as red runes ran down my arms and implanted themselves into the heart of the creature, sucking its life force out and killing it almost instantly.

After having taken the soul core and the EXP message, I couldn't help but sigh and look down almost in defeat.

After having killed the monstrous creature a week ago with the use of my life drain skill, I had noticed that the brightness of the runes as well as the power I felt behind them had become stronger and even a little more lethal than it had been before.

???????????????? ???????????????????????????? ???????????????????????? ???????????????????? ???????? ????????????????????-????????????.????????????

While at first, this seemed like something good, I later realized that there was something wrong with the skill now.

It was demanding the lives of creatures much stronger than the one that I had just killed for the same amount of points. This seemed to be the case, especially for all my skills that have reached the 30-point mark, while other things such as my mana and hp needed creatures that specialized in both of those things. Yet even after having found one with mana, I would need to kill a few dozen more of these creatures to gain a point, something I seemed to instinctually know.

On another hand, I had avoided killing the echidna right off the bat since I wanted to absorb some of its life energy before killing it.

While I could still absorb life energy from a dead body as well as a soul core even after hours had passed, it didn't mean there was no consequence to being late.

First of all, the life energy within a creature decreases depending on the amount of health the creature has. However, death for a creature usually comes when there is only 20% life energy left within their bodies, but the moment they die they also lose another 10%, meaning a corpse would have a lot less life energy within compared to a creature on the verge of death.

"I can forget about trying to find an intelligent creature in the forest.' I sighed to myself for the umpteenth time, already tired of being awake even though I had been asleep for 8 hours beforehand.

My eyes drifted away from the corpse in front of me and eventually looked in the direction of the deeper part of the forest, however, without hesitation I peeled my eyes away from it.

Going deeper meant certain death, and while I could probably take care of the weakest beasts in the deeper areas, I would probably become food for any of the average or stronger creatures of that section.

This did not mean that there were no creatures like that in this section of the forest, it just meant that they were a lot rarer the further you branch out from the forest.

I went on a hunt for the next few hours, trying to find the best-tasting beast rather than trying to find something that would give me stat points.

After having killed several rats, a few insects here and there as well as a few birds that happened to be sleeping, I finally felt a tinge of danger coming from a certain direction.

Simultaneously, I felt like there was a lot of mana being exuded from the direction. The mana currents were powerful, yet at the same time, they were too far away for me to analyze them correctly.

My eyes narrowed slightly while the desire and curiosity to find out what was in that direction began to soar. Eventually, I gave in to the desire and dashed in the direction while trying to create as little noise as possible.

[Blood Eyes activated]

[Hp: 120/120]

[Mana: 11/35]

I eventually found myself crouched on a branch while my crimson-black eyes peered at the creature below me.

It had two beautiful horns that branched out with countless gems embroidered on them. Its two sparkling crystal-like eyes sparkled with a hint of intelligence, yet everything from its movements to its aura seemed natural and instinctual.

The rays of the sun shone upon it with a radiance that would have caused the average man to close their eyes while grimacing in pain.

'A deer?' I stifled a burst of laughter and calmed myself down without catching its attention.

While the beast might have looked like a pocket monster from those old games that I used to play as a kid, it had an aura that made me get serious.

'Being around it feels dangerous.' I thought to myself after having calmed myself down. All my dread bells were ringing, but it was only to an extent. The thing in front of me, while being stronger than the T-rex by a large margin, was still not strong enough to create a disparity close to the one I had with the T-Rex.

'Attacking it right now would give me a significant boost at the start of the fight, but if there is a chance that it is intelligent, I could just speak to it instead.' I scratched my chin.

'Worst case scenario, the deer is both intelligent and unwilling to cooperate. In that situation the best thing to do is to hit and run... Simply running is also an option but I doubt I am as strong as it.' I let out a tired sigh and chose to go with my wit.

'Should have gotten ranged weapons for this.' were the last words that ran through my mind as I descended, touched the floor, and immediately turned into a blur.

The reason why I hadn't collected any of the bones so far was that most of them were of really bad quality, to the point where using my hands would be a lot more effective than using bone weapons from these weaker creatures.

Also, one of the main reasons why I hadn't created a weapon was because Blanca had promised to make me a sword created from the bones, fangs, and a few other things alongside some leather armor made out of the skin of the abomination.

*rustle*

The silent rustle caused the deer to instantly enter its battle mode before turning around, ready to ram anything with its horns the moment it saw them coming towards its direction.

To its surprise, all it saw was an outline of a white figure releasing a trail of crimson from its eyes and moving at a blurring speed. Without hesitation, the deer quickly stepped to the right and appeared several meters away in the blink of an eye.

"Hm?" Confusion was evident within my expression, while my eyes darted in the direction that the deer had gone in.

Pivoting off my hands, I did a front flip off the floor and landed safely with my balance unaffected by the sudden lack of an opponent.

Not breaking eye contact, I slammed my foot into the ground and shot toward the deer once again, a fire of determination flickering within my eyes, and an arrogant smile plastered on my face the entire time.

This, while having confused the deer at first, still didn't affect its reaction time. Without skipping a beat, the deer once again appeared several meters away, but instead of being as far away as possible from me, it was more than ever before.

Its eyes widened to an unnatural level as my hand grew closer to its neck by the second, death standing on its doorstep, the key to the door being the boulder-crushing power within my grip.