Chapter 44: Hulking Puppy (Patreon)

“Remind me why we’re out here, again?” Zed asked.

“Because I have to see you fight before I can know how to teach you to fight,” Ivan answered.

“I guess it’s a good thing you didn’t have to see me fall first,” Zed muttered.

Zed and Ivan were outside the town, far enough that there were no signs of buildings as far as Zed could see but close enough so he could always run back to town if he had to. He held his tomahawk in his hand, following behind Ivan as he led the way wearing a new outrageously sized belt buckle. It seemed the man had a thing for outrageous belt buckles. They’d been walking for a while now and Zed was once again pleased at a mage’s stamina.

Ivan led Zed up a hill north of the town.

Despite how casual Ivan walked, his steps were brisk and filled with the cloud of military efficiency. Whatever Ivan had been before the awakening, it had no plans of letting him go.

“More likely, he’s the one refusing to let it go,” Zed muttered under his breath.

“Coughing again, kid?” Ivan asked with a chuckle. “I think you better get yourself something for that.”

“I will,” Zed answered. “Once we get down this damned hill.”

Ivan ignored his complaint, leading him higher up the hill until their ascension began to level out. It was slow but noticeable and they found themselves walking down the length of a wide plateau.

“You have got to be kidding me!” Zed groaned.

Ahead of them, a considerable distance away, a creature sat in the grass licking itself. It looked like a cross between a dog and a leopard with the size of an abnormally tall moose.

“How did you think I was going to watch you fight?” Ivan asked, folding his arms.

“I don’t know,” Zed shrugged. “Maybe we’d spar a little?”

Zed lifted his tomahawk, staring at it.

“I guess the tomahawk should’ve been a hint,” he said. “Can’t be expecting you to want a spar with a deadly weapon.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Ivan asked, his tone flat.

“Let me guess,” Zed said, lowering the weapon. “You’re so strong I couldn’t even cut the air you breathe with this thing even if I tried.”

Ivan smirked. “You did say I was the Chuck Norris around here.”

“Ha!” Zed barked a sarcastic laugh, taking his shirt off as he walked towards the creature. “I was lying to make you like me more.”

“What are you doing?”

“You wanted to see me fight,” Zed said, “how I fight can be bloody and—I’ve been told—inefficient. I don’t want to mess my shirt up since Oliver’s already running out of wearable shirts as it is.”

Ivan had no response for that and was quiet for a while as Zed tossed his shirt back, approaching the beast bare-chested.

“Good luck,” Ivan called after him, shouting between cupped hands.

His voice was loud enough that the monster stirred and Zed gave him an incredulous look.

Ivan shrugged.

Really? Zed thought, turning back to the monster. For such a stuck up guy he sure knows how to be petty.

New Quest: [An Unfriendly Spar]

An opponent is required for a spar, and while an opponent is necessary, an enemy is not. Enemies show neither the restraint or the discipline of an opponent. Do not spar with an enemy. You have been pitched against an opponent. Show it the reason it should not spar an enemy.

· Objective: Defeat [Hulking puppy] 0/1.

· Reward: Mana Beast core.

· You have 1 pending Quest.

Zed’s jaw dropped even as he ignored the last line of the notification.

There’s no way that’s a puppy, he thought, staring at the thing. If that’s a puppy, then I’m a Bazooka with flame throwers for side options.

The monster rose to all fours and stared Zed’s approach down. It was a terrifying thing to look at with spittle dripping from its maw, well over six feet above ground level. Zed was beginning to think there were no normal sized monster.

Then again, he thought, hefting the tomahawk. They wouldn’t really be monsters if they weren’t at least this intimidating to look at.

The monster’s mane stood on end now that it was alert. It gave it the look of a lion with electricity keeping its mane standing. Zed reached out with his aura sense and found that while the beast was intimidating and terrifying to look at, its aura was Beta rank. He put it at category two, at best.

“Well,” Zed muttered, picking up his pace from a brisk walk to a jog. “Here goes nothing.”

The monster barked once as Zed approached it. The bark was loud and the air around it shook in a ripple of force. Zed felt the mana tremble and knew it was a magic infused bark. Something about the mana in the air around it seemed familiar. He’d touched upon something similar enough times to recognize something with force magic when he felt it.

Zed ran straight into the area of force aura, the sun shining down on him as he raised a hand and drew a symbol in the air with a finger. His finger didn’t move as fast as he would’ve liked but it was as fast as he could get, and he was more than willing to accept it.

Zed channeled mana from his core as he drew in the air and his finger left a trail of blue lines crossing and swirling. Once it was done, he activated the symbol and it shone a dark purple.

· You have cast basic rune [Force].

· Basic rune [Force] has applied effect [Knockback] on [Hulking Puppy].

· [Hulking Puppy] durability is too high.

· [Hulking Puppy] has resisted effect [knockback].

Zed ignored the notifications, relegating them to a small part of the world where he could sense but not see them, charging forward. His intention had never been to apply the rune on the monster, his intention had been different and it had been successful.

The force mana around the creature clashed with the effect of the force rune. And while it didn’t immediately cancel out, it shook the spellform or whatever it was monsters called it from the monster’s focus. By the time he got to it, the force aura around the creature had dissipated and his tomahawk was swinging.

Zed fought with the wild exuberance he was prone to. Tomahawk swung with wild force and he took blows he could’ve avoided. Some of his strikes caught the monster now and again. A glance here and a tear there. He marked the beast in battle wounds and it marked him back, claws going through flesh and drawing more blood than was necessary.

There were brief moments were both fighters needed the most minute moment to catch their breaths. Zed tired out, losing mana from his body’s constant healing in its determination to keep him alive while the Hulking Puppy took its time simply to recuperate. It lasted too briefly to be considered resting as each of them sought that time to bring the other down.

Zed rolled across the dirt, tossed from a blow that tore his cheek. He hit the grass in blinding pain but his finger was already working, casting a rune in anticipation of what came next. It was the thing about runes, as long as there was a portion of his mind that held the rune intact, he could cast it even with a chainsaw going through his leg. He just needed the will power to keep it going.

Zed rose to his feet, picking himself from the momentum of his rolling fall. His index finger finishing the final curve on his rune, he raised his hand, flinging it forward as the monster’s clawed paw came down on him viciously. His finger finished the rune in a rush and he activated it.

· You have cast basic rune [Force shield].

· Basic rune [Force shield] has applied effect [Deflect].

The beast’s paw struck the air around Zed, rebounding from the defense of force aura gathered before Zed like a shield of translucent blue. It was without shape, scattered at its edges like torn paper. It lit up in a dull blue glow where the Hulking Puppy struck it.

The monster bounced back from the attack and Zed sent his tomahawk flying with a swing. He rushed after it as he cast a new rune he’d learnt. His finger drew the final line of the rune, a curve with a calligraphic flare at the end, and he activated it.

Zed watched the rune come alive then pitter out.

It broke.

The rune failed, shattering on activation like a broken glass, and Zed knew he’d messed up. That was the problem with new runes not practiced enough, they were less than dependable in moments of conflict.

His tomahawk, however, made its way to the beast and embedded itself in its neck. The cut was firm but not deep enough to stop the monster and it charged Zed, running straight into him with an open maw. It moved too fast for Zed to react, yet his eyes followed its arrival with dread. It closed in on him and its mouth closed around his shoulder. Its teeth sank into his skin, deep enough to touch bone.

Zed screamed at the pain that filled him and his mind threatened to go blank. He fought the touch of unconsciousness off with a force of will, struggling to stay awake.

· You have gained +1 Wil.

Zed knew exactly what he wanted to say to the notification but was too engrossed in staying awake and alive, hands clamped into the beast’s mane for support as it swung him about, shaking him like a ragdoll.

It brought him down, whipped him into the ground, and he bounced off the soft soil as the Hulking Puppy staggered away from him with a low whine.

Zed’s palms splayed flat on the dirt as he pushed himself up with patches of fur under them. He wobbled as he stood and felt his body right itself by its own will. The massive holes in his right shoulder where he’d been bitten were already healing, but their sluggish rate was an indication of how much mana he had left.

He was not new to how quickly he expended mana to heal, but besides not getting wounded in a fight, he didn’t know how else to conserve mana. If Festus was to be believed, Zed had more mana coursing through him than most mages of his rank and category. But he also blew through it faster than most mages his rank and category. It was the reason his regenerative attribute was able to remain always active without hindering his fights. It was also the reason he could use runes so much. Apparently, it cost twice, if not three times the amount of mana used for a spellform to cast a rune. It was another reason people didn’t use runes. Considering how much more powerful runes were than spellforms, it was understandable.

The monster stomped in pain, bleeding from both sides of its mane, where Zed had held it. The injury in its neck where the tomahawk had embedded itself was flowing freely while the weapon lay in the grass somewhere.

Zed tried to steady his breathing, to channel his core and know how much mana he had left. From his rough estimate he had enough for a few more rune-spells but couldn’t be sure. Especially if healing his injuries drained it all.

So he fought against his regeneration attribute, slowing it down, opting to take the pain rather than lose the mana. If he was to carry out the plan growing in his head, he needed all the mana he could get. The Hulking Puppy had used its force attack twice more during their fight and he had no idea how many more times it could use it or if it had any other skill left.

Zed kept his mind open, prepared to act against whatever it had. For that he kept a rune trapped in his mind while another hovered at the tip of his finger. One rune would lead and the next would follow. In this way he sought to end the fight.

He took a step forward and the beast moved.

Its speed was a phantom of what it had once possessed and Zed knew it was weaker than he’d assumed. Regardless, it was fast, paws carrying it faster than the average eye could keep track of. Zed’s finger twitched at the thought of a rune but he didn’t cast. He needed to time it right. It wasn’t just about a wasted rune; it was about using the right rune for the right attack or defense. He only had two runes in his arsenal, three if he counted the basic shield rune he hadn’t perfected.

Zed kept his eye on the beast as it approached him, bloodied spittle dripping from its snarling maw as it growled with angry eyes fixed on him, paws pounding away at the soil beneath it with so much effort Zed could feel the ground shake. Still, he did not let it dissuade him. He kept his attention on the injury in its neck still bleeding from his tomahawk’s strike and kept his mind cycling through two runes. When he cast them, he was going to cast them right.

The creature barreled into Zed and his finger twitched into a burst of simple lines. A rune properly fixed in his mind, he twisted his torso to the side at the last moment. One hand gripped the monster’s fur to keep Zed from falling as it barreled into him and the other finished his rune. He aimed it at the injury in the monster’s neck and activated it.

It glowed purple as he poured his mana into it, his hold tight as he stuck his hand into the creature’s injury. His other hand held on to the beast for dear life

· You have cast basic rune [Force].

· Basic rune [Force] has applied effect [Knockback] on enemy.

· Basic rune [Force] has been applied effect [Knockback] in an enclosed space.

· Effect [Knockback] may prove catastrophic.

· Effect [Knockback] has inflicted fatal effect [Mutilate] on [Hulking Puppy].

An explosive pop followed the notification like the sound of a burst balloon. One moment Zed was barreling through the air under the force of a charging monster, and the next he was rolling through the grass as the beast crashed to the dirt with a massive hole in its neck blown through the other side.

· You have defeated [Hulking Puppy].

· You have gained +35 Exp.

· Exp to category 2: 1290/2500.

Quest [An Unfriendly Spar]

· Objective complete: Defeat [Hulking puppy] 1/1.

· You have received [Mana stone (Beta, category 2)].

· You have 1 pending Quest.

Zed lay in the grass, catching his breath. His chest heaved and he allowed his body suck in all the satisfaction it could get. It hurt to move and he had no intentions of indulging the pain even as he released his mental hold on his regeneration attribute. A moment after, he felt its drain on his core as it struggled to heal him.

“You still need to learn what receive means,” he muttered at the notification, groaning at the pain from just talking, still staring at the notification.

As if in response to his complaint, the air around one of his hands warped mildly as a whisper of blue smoke leaked from the hole in the dead monster’s neck and a mana stone appeared in his hand.

More notifications popped up in front of him.

· You have acquired [Mana stone (Beta, category 2)].

· You have gained +2 Strength.

· You have gained +3 Mana.

· You have gained +1 Agility.

Zed basked in the bright light of the sun as his injuries closed sluggishly. His mana core was depleting quickly and he controlled his breathing, taking measured breaths. He thought of his core and turned it, refining his mana and hoping it helped. While it sufficed to ease his pain, or at least distract him from it, it did nothing to increase his mana. So he laid there, breaths still controlled.

It was a while before a shadow blotted out the light of the sun and Ivan stared down at him.

“Do you always fight like a madman with an axe and no home training?” Ivan asked.

“Yes,” Zed groaned.

“And the others let you fight like this?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I guess that explains why you took your shirt off,” Ivan said, holding up the shirt. “And with all that blood, I certainly can’t give it back now.”

“I won’t advise it,” Zed agreed.

“I am well aware. At least I get why they wanted the best to teach you,” Ivan said, folding his arms.

“And why’s that?”

“Because you’re the worse. All you’ve got is durability because of your attribute, uncontrolled rage, and zero skill.”

“I wasn’t angry.”

“Well you could’ve fooled me. You fought like that thing killed your grandmother.”

“It might as well—”

“Be quiet, Zed. You don’t need to have a response to everything.”

Zed nodded. The action barely qualified to be one. Ivan continued to stare at him, assessing. It was akin to the look a man would give a rundown car he was beginning to think he’d been wrong about.

“How long will it take you to get back on your feet?” he asked Zed.

“I didn’t break any bones,” Zed answered. “But my core’s almost empty so about an hour, maybe less. I think it would be faster if I took a potion.”

“You think?” Ivan asked, confused.

“Yeah. I’ve never had a potion before so I’m not sure.”

“That’s unreasonable,” Ivan said. “Every mage deserves to have tasted the effects of a good potion at least once.”

Zed stared up at Ivan expectantly as the man slipped one hand in his pocket.

“Sadly,” Ivan continued, “I didn’t carry any with me. So stew there for a little longer and wait. Once you’re better we’ll check out your other skill.”

“Other skill?” Zed asked, confused.

“Yes, Zed,” Ivan said. “Your other skill. The one where you touch a monster and make it disappear.”

Ivan’s gaze panned to Zed’s hand and he frowned, staring at the mana stone.

“Where, and how did you get that?” he asked.

Zed chuckled lightly.

“Man, do I have a story for you.”