The First King of Beasts

Dustin was sure that it had been at least a week since he got here in this weird place, and ever since, he had been constantly moving, but still, he was yet to find anything useful. In order to not tire himself and to make the travel more efficient, Dustin had to switch between the beasts that he had while they moved, and when the other tires, another one will take over while the tired one would return and rest within Dustin.

At first, Dustin began by running forward nonstop and fighting any night crawler that came before him, but after a week of doing this, his enthusiasm had died, and now he just walked and jogged forward while fighting any night crawler that came before him. Whatever the case may be, the experience points were still paramount.

'These things don't even have a core. What kind of creatures are these.' Dustin didn't care much about the myth behind these creatures, as all he wanted from them was their experience points, plus it wasn't like there was much he could do to begin with in such a surrounding and environment.

After Two weeks had passed, Dustin started noticing changes in the night crawlers around. Some seemed to have developed wings, while others started gaining different abilities that made them quite different from the normal ones which he had been facing up until now. Overall, the monsters seemed to have become stronger, and that was true for those that didn't show any physical variant.

Slowly and slowly, the monsters were starting to push back the tigers, and there were no one sided battles as much as before. Dustin could see the changes in these night crawlers, and of cause, if push came to shove, he still had the stat points that he was yet to use, so he wasn't too worried unless a really strong monster was to appear. Before something like that happened, Dustin made sure to prioritize the development of his most promising tamed beast, which was the serpent.

After three weeks, the serpent had actually grown very much and its rank had risen to D rank from the original E+. Taking a look at its stats, Dustin could see that some of its skills had also increased in rank.

..

[Sea Serpent]

Rank: E+ >> D

Favourability: Mid

Hp: 400

Mp: 200

[Skill tab]

Passive: Lightweight (D), Streamlined (D), Water Loving (E)

Active: Water Manipulation (E), Serpent's Domain (E)

..

From this also, Dustin noticed something that he had been thinking about. The sea serpent could do some things that didn't appear on the skill tab. For example, the reason why it was able to over power the night crawlers even after they got stronger was because of its poison, which seemed to be very lethal, but them there is no mention of poison in the skill tab.

Seeing this, Dustin started thinking of things that he would be able to do that wouldn't appear in the system, but would still make him more powerful and give him an edge over others. After some time, Dustin had thought of many things, like how to use weapons and things like that, but being stuck in this place, there wasn't much he could do about his current situation.

The more Dustin advanced, the more dangerous the monsters became as their strength increased, and Dustin could see that the system was not joking at all when it said these monsters grew stronger the hungrier they got.

'Imagine if this power was accessible to people like me and Sil. Fuck, I know many guys who'd transform into super saiyan blue if they could grow stronger the hungrier they got. Heh.. These night crawlers are so privileged in a way.' Dustin thought to himself as he said in his mind.

He himself have made some advancement too, and was close to leveling up, at least more than he was after the last level up.

..

Level: 18 (5,610/10,500)

..

There were many theories he had come up with while travelling through the endless darkness, and he would really love to test these theories out, but one of them, which was also the easiest he could do required him to use some of his saved stat points, which he was very hesitant to use especially because he was not even sure if it would work, in fact, he had doubts that it would fail.

..

Level: 18 (5,610/10,500)

Name: Dustin

Title: Progenitor, Slaughterer

Class:

Nature: Cold-Blooded

Hp: 1,180

Mp: 1,100

[Stat]

Strength: 27

Agility: 34

Sense: 26

Vitality: 27

Intelligence: 31

Unallocated stat point: 58

[Skill tab]

Passive: Bloodlust (A)

Active: Taming Master (A), Reality Manipulation (A)

..

The intelligence stat affected his mana capacity and how much he could understand things. The higher this stat was, outside of the fact that one's mana would increase, they also became better at understanding complex spells. What Dustin was hoping for was that this stat would also affect his ability to process other complex situations and aspects that were not magic oriented.

He had a feeling that this would not work in the slightest, but with the situation he was in, he could only try, as there was nothing else he could think of doing that was the easiest. So to do test this out, he used 10 points from his unallocated stat points and added them to his intelligence stat.

..

Intelligence: 21 >> 31

Unallocated stat point: 58 >> 48

..

After he allocated the points, Dustin stopped momentarily, but then he couldn't notice any reaction or change in himself.

"Hmm. I don't notice anything, I don't see myself getting any smarter or something like that." At this point, Victor was starting to think otherwise about his original plan and speculation, as it seemed like there had been no difference, but the only way he could give himself hope was to try positive thinking and just hope that it wasn't an instant thing.

'Yeah, change takes time. Even back when my stats grew rapidly, the change didn't come all at once in the moment, it only cemented after I slept and woke up.' Dustin said in his mind.

He felt a little stupid thinking like this, but at this point there was really nothing else he could do. This was the last chance before he concluded whether or not the entire thing was a failure.

…

Back in the dungeon, where the willow group continuously faced off against monsters, they had finally managed to reach the place with a magic circle drawn on the floor, and since this place was not the same as the side where they entered from, they could only assume it to be the entrance to the next level.

They all got on the circle that glowed a faint emerald green, and just like before they held hands in order not to get separated. When they appeared, they found themselves in a place that looked similar to the previous level, but the arrangement and layout of this floor was different. It was quite evident that this was not the same level as the last one, unless the dungeon just liked pulling pranks.

Raven took the lead while the others followed close behind. They were unsure of the kind of monsters to expect in this floor, and they absolutely didn't want to face the monsters from the previous floor anymore. By the time they found the circle that led to the next floor, their weapons were all gone in the sense that if it hadn't melted completely, then the shape had been severely altered. It was a good thing they brought along spares, if not it would have been bad, but then, spares are not their usual weapons. They couldn't complain though, and were satisfied that they were able to keep their lives at least.

"I just feel like this will be a pain in the ass." Raven said. The issue that a child was present was not even an issue. If deaths occurred in front of a child, and that child was forced to kill others and monsters at such age, then trying to make clean speech would be the least of the problems.

They walked for a while, but so far after walking for a couple minutes they didn't encounter any sort of monster at all, but this wasn't necessarily something good in such cases. If there were no monsters, it meant that a more scarier monster was around, that is if the rules were to be followed using logic, or something even more sinister than a monster was at play in the place. The other possibility was that others had been here and happened to kill all the monsters, but then there weren't any monster remains on the ground, nor were there any signs of fighting around the place.

After a few more minutes, the group heard something and stopped, as everybody heard the same thing. It sounded like footsteps, but it didn't sound like it belonged to a human, but the more they listened and tried to figure out if it was monster or human, the more the footsteps sounded like that of a man. Just by the corner where they were, Mizu and the others had readied their weapons just in case, but then it turned out that they wouldn't be needing the weapons, as a familiar face came through the corner.

"Wo! WO! Chill! It's me. What? Too much acid melted your brain?" The person asked.

"Brother Dustin!"

"That's me!"