~Ding!

[New Quest Available]

Nice!

I still needed 150 Karma Points before dawn to finalize my plans.

I hurriedly opened my quest menu

``

New Quest: Home Alone.

Description: A litter of baby foxes is in danger! A predatorial monster who likes to prey on defenseless babies has lured their mother away and now is on its way.

Goal: Remove the threat.

Rewards: 100 Karma Points, 5000 Experience Points, 3 Free Stats Points, and 1 Skill Point.

``

Hmm... the system used the word 'likes' which was very strange, could it be a characteristic of that monster to love preying on young animals?

That was unsettling, to say the least. I couldn't help but shiver when I thought about encountering a monster like that when I was still a hatchling.

I needed to hurry.

However, I had no idea where they were! The system only detects quests whenever the attacker or the victim were in the map's range. Meaning they were already detected by my map, however, I did not notice anything strange nor did I discover any litter.

Which only meant one thing, I was not able to see them due to the filtering option. Currently, I only had High Body Refinement and up visible. I quickly changed it to Low rank and above, then made a sharp turn returning to where I came from.

As expected, after moving back a bit I noticed a cluster of little blue dots, focusing my gaze on them I was able to see a big shrub that appeared to be very normal from the outside at the side of a tree, however, underneath it was a hole that connected to the bottom the tree which was hollowed out and there lied five dark fox pups.

How fucking cute.

As with almost every monster in this forest, the puppies were pitch black except for their lower jaw and the insides of their furry pointy ears. They looked fat with their fur puffed up and they were at that age of just starting to walk and explore. They already had their eyes open and were playing with each other whilst stumbling and falling with every step.

Looking at these gorgeous creatures and knowing that I'd be protecting them, I could not help but think of those hero stories in which the hero always has his head right up in his ass and has a very strict black and white perspective about life whereas the villain was the one who has depth and was just misunderstood.

Just as I was thinking that I noticed a monster slowly making its way into their tree home.

The white bat!

Hah, misunderstood my ass.

This guy clearly had a thing for eating babies, even the last time I caught him doing the same thing but I could not do anything at the time.

I also noticed that the reward for beating this guy was 200 Karma Points previously, whereas now it was reduced by half, it must be due to my recent power-ups which would lower the difficulty of the task.

[Appraised Target: Lurid Khoverus Bat

Cultivation Realm: Foundation Establishment(Mid)

Health Points(HP): 288/288

Magic Power(MP/Mana): 364/364

Spiritual Power(SP): 271/271

Magical Resistance: 66

Physical Resistance: 49

Spiritual Resistance: 45

Vitality: 175

Strength: 169

Stamina: 157

Intelligence: 195

Agility: 182

Spirit: 144

Description: The Lurid Khoverus Bat, is a sinister bat species due to an innate skill of being able to absorb the strength of newly born monsters with the rare chances of absorbing one of their skills. They also have a terrifying ability to be able to completely hide their cultivation realm even from monsters stronger than them.

]

This just made a whole lot of sense.

However, that skill sure was unnerving! The ability to absorb the strength or even the abilities of a monster below a certain age.

Although I was not able to appraise him the last time we encountered each other, I could tell he grew stronger just in a couple of days which was very inconceivable in this forest, especially with how slow monster cultivation techniques were.

The puppies were underneath an unimposing tree, the only notable characteristic of it was the fact that it was whorled up by a strange long plant with prickly thrones on its thin stem and equally thin dark green leaves.

Currently, I was lying in ambush amidst the thick leaves and branches of a nearby tree, giving me a clear vision of the whole scene.

Shit! I just remembered something but thank god I did, the last time I used Predator's WarCry it dealt damage to allies and enemies alike. If I used it now with my empowered 243 Spirit I'd blow up the heads of the puppies to tiny particles.

The bat finally made its way. He was truly the king of low-key! He looked so indistinct and unspectacular standing at 20 cm tall that you'd feel frustrated for even losing energy thinking about such a nondangerous fella.

Of course, this was only visually. In my senses, however, he was glowing like a swarm of fireflies in the night following a full moon.

Fortunately, he was not able to sense my existence at all. This made me realize something, High spirit definitely correlates to deep stealth. I did have a passive stealth skill Mask Presence, but It was undoubtedly supported by my sky-high Spirit attribute.

It appeared as if there was a hierarchy or rather a battle of stealth that goes unnoticed, his low-level spirit and its quality could not even fathom and grasp the depth I had reached coupled with my stealth skill and already high darkness affinity he couldn't sense a thing!

Just as the bat was about to dive into the shrubs, I gently moved my wings and nudged a branch to move slowly which made it bump into another nearby branch making a very subtle and low rustling sound.

However, it was clearly not a sound that is a result of the rain or wind, but a stronger force.

He turned around and looked exactly in my direction, only to see two golden pearls amidst the leaves of the tree.

[Piercing Gaze]

I once again gave the skill everything it was able to unleash.

The bat looked stunned, its unassuming eyes fell into a strange daze in which only his wings kept flying back and fro without moving a step.

I jumped down from the tree and moved myself to the side because my wind blades go in a straight line and I did not want to harm the tree behind him.

*Whoosh* *Whoosh* *Whoosh*

The three wind blades darted in his direction at an astonishing speed!

The first wind blade landed, leaving a nasty gash on his chest area, blood running down his body and dripping from its legs.

Unfortunately, or fortunately for him. Thanks to his small proportions and the fact that he was moving a bit back and forth, he managed to avoid the other two wind blades through sheer luck by a hair's breadth.

I created two other wind blades aimed directly at the previous wound, I was also planning on shifting their trajectory a bit to ensure their successful landing.

*Whoosh* *Whoosh*

Suddenly! Just as the two wind blades were about to make contact with his body thus completely obliterating him, they passed right through him!

In the fraction of a second that he was about to suffer the blow of my wind blades, his body turned completely ethereal!

I could not believe it.

Then, he immediately bolted in the opposite direction. I activated Sky Dash and hurriedly chased after him.

He had 184 Agility, whereas with all of my passives and current active skill I had a huge 214. Yet, I could not catch up to him at all!

It must be thanks to that ethereal skill!

He was slowly but surely leaving me behind.

My Umbra Hands were only at the Advanced realm, if it was higher I was sure I'd be able to stop him.

Just as I was about to stop chasing and let him go after all I was too deep in the forest at that point mindlessly chasing somebody at my full speed with no regard to my surroundings was the literal definition of looking for death.

Then, I remembered that we were outside of the pups range, and I activated it at full capacity. Unleashing the full might of my newly gained 243 Spirit!

[Predator's WarCry]

"Screeeeeech!"

Hearing the high-pitched eagle cry the bat seemed as if it crashed into an invisible iron wall, his wings lost their previous balance and composure and he started flailing around losing the flexibility and skill they had just moments ago.

I did not stop my charge and in the blink of an eye was less than a meter from him.

I created two huge wind blades and I tilted my body flexibly while mid-air and smashed into him, claws first.

*Bang!*

The two vertical wind blades managed to completely cut him in half!

[You have Killed a Foundation Establishment(Mid) Monster |Experience Points +16000|]

[Quest Achieved Successfully. Rewards: 100 Karma Points, 5.000 Experience Points, 3 Stats Points, 1 Skill Point]

I grabbed on half of his body with my claws and swallowed it whole, then I dove down and gobbled up the other half.

That was unexpected! I was waiting for a twist in the fight and was very focused to react to it at a moment's notice yet!

But it was only natural, I had already fought with peak Mid rank Foundation Establishment and won. The bat appeared as if he had just broken through, except for his high intelligence. His resistances, vitality, strength, and every other thing were low.

Seeing that everything was in order I returned to the tree.

Just as I was about to go check on the pups and maybe even play with them for a bit, I stopped. I was too large for the shrubs and once their mother eventually returns she'd notice my traces and change the nest in fear of another monster returning. Going out in this heartless forest with five pups who were barely able to walk was maybe the perfect speedrun to certain death.

I really couldn't help but admire how considerate I was. Sigh...

After a quick session of self-patting myself in the back, I continued east.

After eating the bat, I thought of something that I had missed.

Food!

I had a bunch of humans for the kids and Ashe to take care of their needs for a couple of days until we figure out the situation there. However, I had prepared nothing for myself, of course, I would not eat humans so finding an alternative was necessary.

I still had the bodies of the pangolin and the drake, but I had other plans in mind on what to do with them.

I opened my map changed the filter options to High Body Refinement and above and continued moving east.

...

[You have Killed a Body Refinement(High) Monster |Experience Points +6000|]

[Congratulations Host for Leveling up from 32 to 33. +5 Stat Points, +2 Skill Points.]

I leveled up after killing the first High-rank monster. It was a horse-looking monster with sword-like legs, sort of like a praying mantis. Its legs were able to cleanly cut a thick tree in half, of course, it only took me a wind blade to finish it.

I quickly opened my Status Window to allocate my points.

[~Status Window~

Host: Zed - Umbra Storm Eagle.

Titles: {Blazing Heart}, {Truth Seeker}, {Dauntless Spirit}

Level: 33

Experience Points(Exp): 2850/74000

Rank: Body Refinement(High)

Health Points(HP): 351/351

Magic Power(MP/Mana): 381/381

Spiritual Energy(SE): 424/424

Magical Resistance: 41(28)

Physical Resistance: 42(29)

Spiritual Resistance: 31(37)

Vitality: 68(102)

Strength: 73(106)

Stamina: 55(81)

Intelligence: 75(112)

Agility: 64(96), Dark: +19, Nearby Enemy: +16, Sky Dash: +19.

Spirit: 81(162)

Available Stat Points: 8

Available Skill Points: 4

Karma Points: 125

[Skills]

[Quests]

[Shop]

[Map]

[Inventory]

[Party(Locked)]

]

I put my free 8 Stats points into Spirit once again and closed the panel, as for the skill points I still needed one more.

My Spirit attribute had reached a shocking 267.

Increasing my spiritual sense by a small margin, but not my map's range.

I noticed that the map only worked in increments of a hundred, this meant that this recent boost in Spirit probably increased its range to 760 meters give or take, but it still only showed 700.

I stored the horse's body in my inventory and continued moving while looking for prey.