Dawn Architect

Chapter 28: Hunt and Challenge

While hunting, I pulled a small vial from my inventory. During the ten days that delayed our trip, in addition to preparing weapons and the children, I also asked Christian and Chris for help in creating many of these potions. Although they didn't know what kind of potions these were, the procedures were simple and the materials something that even Chris, a novice alchemist, could handle.

These potions, on their own, had no effect, something that puzzled Christian and his son. But that changed when they were combined with the blood of beasts. These potions allowed, for a certain amount of time, to improve the gaining of stats. Something really beneficial. In addition to gaining stats, every time you rank up, getting them through training or combat experience is not impossible, but difficult.

You have to push your body to the extreme to gain something. For example, to increase vitality, you would have to tire your body and drain your vitality, and recover enough times to improve that stat. The same goes for speed; you have to push yourself to reach your absolute limits and gain a small stat increase.

Strength may be easier, as muscle training helps to achieve this. However, over the years, humans have created exercises that maximize stat gain, but unless you invest a lot of time, those gained stats won't make much difference in actual combat. 

That's why these potions were considered a revolution around the world, and their creation was due to Chris. That was something that brought him the leap to fame and put the world's expectations on him.

Putting those thoughts aside, I made sure to mix the exact amount of blood and after mixing it, I drank it. I immediately felt a warmth disperse through my body. The exact effect of the potion depended on which beast's blood I was using and its level. The potion I just drank was from a three star beast with the lightning element.

The reason was that, if you used the blood of a beast with a different element than yours, it would have no effect and you might even have a violent reaction. Also, this potion was too weak to withstand the blood of stronger beasts. With that said, this momentary increase in gaining stats was enough.

Wasting no time, I approached a four-star creature that was in my detection range. Fighting a beast of that range was dangerous, but necessary for what I had to do. It was a granite rhinoceros, an earth element creature. Its defense and toughness were outstanding, but its speed left something to be desired compared to creatures of its rank, something ideal for my training.

With that in mind, I headed straight for it without hiding. The beast noticed me and charged towards me with the intention of crushing me. It was nearly ten feet tall, so it wouldn't have a hard time crushing a ten-year-old, but I still didn't get out of the way. 

The metallic golden mana, like gold, began to surround me and the spear in my hands. I took a firm stance and met his blow head on. The result was that I was able to parry his charge, but he sent me flying backwards. My hands were bent in a direction they should not have been and my head was dripping blood, but still white light flooded my body and arms, and the wounds began to heal.

I slowly got up and the rhino, who didn't think there was that much resistance, seemed amazed at my survival. He didn't seem to like that someone seemed to challenge him, and he charged at me again.

However, I faced it head on again and countered it every chance I got. This scene was repeated for another half hour. The rhino seemed out of breath, while I, apart from my gear being a bit shredded, was fine.

 During all this time, I had not used any spells and was only using the passive characteristics of my elements: acceleration to find a good place for the counterattack and avoid a lethal blow from his horn, and will to strengthen my whole body, keep my mind clear and survive the charges without dropping my weapon, as well as circulating the healing mana in my body to heal me quickly.