Chapter 78 - Bloodlust
Another day had passed and there were only a few hours left until Umbra's quality would finally be upgraded. Shane was woken up from his trance when he heard thunderous roars reverberating throughout the shelter.
Opening his eyes, he took a sideways glance at his status, before he dried himself in order to put on some clothes.
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Title: [Berserk-Hunter(F)]
Occupation: [None]
Name: Shane Suro (Orus)
Race:[Human 100%]
Cultivation Level: Mortal-9th [Purity 8.43%]
Body Refinement:
→[Perfect Physique→Mortal-5th]-[Mortal-7th]
Cultivation Manual:
→Mana purifying [Tier-1 (Bronze)]
→Mana gathering [Mortal-(Platinum)]
Body refining manual:
→[Mortal-(Mythic)]-[Tier-1 (Bronze)]
<Skills/Techniques>
![Artemis' Blessing]+
[Innate Skill]: Taming |Common-★★ (+)|
Finances: 975 gold coins 3 silver coins
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Having used up all Tier-1 trash quality mana stones, Shane was able to enter the 9th Mortal stage of his mana pool with a mana purity of [8.43%]. His perfect physique had reached the 5th Mortal stage, increasing his combat prowess by a large margin.
With two extraordinary quality nutrition solutions left, he would have to purchase another batch of mana stones sooner or later, but for now, the thunderous roaring seemed more important.
It seemed as if the purple furred wolves, whose name was apparently Lesser-thunder Wolf, had attacked the shelter. Shane saw the ten ballistae at the northern wall shooting out their huge bolts in retaliation.
The northern wall was only a few hundred meters away from his current position and Shane wanted to see what was going on, on the other side of the wall as his curiosity was piqued.
Without trying to hinder the military's archer who rushed towards the wall, Shane jumped on a house. He climbed further on the three-story-tall inn's roof, where he could finally see something.
The green and lush grass field that Shane could see on the other side of the shelter wall was filled with small Lesser-thunder wolves and their evolutions, namely, the Thunder wolves and Lightning-elemental wolves that were both at the Elite stage.
A rough estimate told him that there were a few hundred Wild and close to 100 Elite-stage beasts.
This was no threat to the shelter's massive existence. He was sure that this small group of wolves was the cannon-fodder used by their enemy to test the waters, which was a cruel yet efficient tactic.
Far behind the WIld and Elite stage beasts, Shane could barely see a large wolf whose bloodlust could be sensed over a few hundred meters. It shocked him greatly, to see the bloodlust try to infiltrate his body.
He was unsure if this was an innate characteristic of this beast, as such he decided to call it [Bloodlust thunder wolf].
The bloodlust he felt couldn't be considered strong or extremely distinct. He was very far from the thunder wolf and could only see an extremely faint and feeble red hue around the wolf from this distance.
'Is that a manifestation?' He began to wonder as his eyes widened subconsciously.
If Shane were to stand right in front of the wolf, he didn't doubt that he would be killed faster than he could blink his eye.
Considering that he was only at the Mortal stage, he started to wonder if someone at the Apprentice or even Expert-stage would be able to move freely under such thick bloodlust.
The only thing he could hope for humanity was that the bloodlust thunder wolf in front of them was a rare variant, mutation, or maybe even their leader.
If the bloodlust thunder wolf was the most common evolution path of their race, it would end up in a disaster. Every single wolf would most likely be able to fight a dozen expert stage humans at the same time under the assumption that the bloodlust restricted their combat prowess.
But that was only Shane's estimation and it could be wrong. But, he held onto the hope within him, as the other possibilities looked rather dark and less fortunate.
The whole skirmish was pretty boring as a few hundred dead wolf-corpses laid on the ground after a few minutes. The bloodlust thunder wolf left the scene without a backwards glance, seemingly unaffected by the death of its brethren.
Shane couldn't help but shiver at this sight, as he questioned the existence of such a wolf in his mind.
He wasn't the only one who had noticed the bloodlust thunder wolf observing the small massacre without caring about its dead brethren one tiny bit, while the bloodlust infiltrated every being around it.
It didn't hinder their actions, but they also asked themselves what exactly would happen to them, if they were to directly face the bloodlust thunder wolf. It caused them to shiver slightly before they regained their composure once again when their superior arrived at the shelter wall.
When Shane saw that the soldier's superior arrived at the shelter wall in order to talk to his subordinates, he quickly climbed down the inn's roof, before he walked into it once again.
He was still shocked by the awakened stage wolf's bloodlust as he started to wonder about how the military would react to this new information.
'Would the military immediately initiate an attack or gather more information in order to figure out if the bloodlust thunder wolf was the most common evolution path?'
Shane was interested to know but there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn't simply intercept the military actions, even if his strategic knowledge and way of thinking could be helpful in this situation.
There was a weird feeling creeping up his mind, which told him that the bloodlust thunder wolf's behavior was well thought of.
This was extremely odd because there was not a single sign that would tell or prove something about it.
However, even if that was the case, he began to wonder why the bloodlust was released to such a degree. The distance between him and the wolf had been a few hundred meters, maybe even more than a kilometer which was obviously not a short distance.
Accidentally releasing such a bloodlust was definitely not possible for anyone within the Basic Primordial Dimension and everything seemed extremely illogical to him.
`Did the bloodlust thunder wolf try to test us, if we would be influenced by the bloodlust within such a large range? As if it wanted to make sure of the efficiency of the bloodlust without a debuff?` Shane asked himself as another idea popped into his mind.
`What if it wanted to stall for time with the small skirmish and the revelation of its bloodlust? Did it compare us to normal beasts that would be mentally affected by the thought of fighting an enemy that wielded a high degree of bloodlust?`
He couldn't be sure about either of his ideas and another few theories formed in his mind.
From `stalling time`, 'playing mind games' to `Testing out the bloodlust effect`, everything was apparently evident. But Shane was sure that the military must also have thought of the exact same theories as more than enough clever minds were nurtured by the military as strategists.
While the possibility of the bloodlust thunder wolf being a common evolution path was extremely low, it was not 0%.
In the end, one had to consider every possibility in a war in order to prevent any surprises.
As such, the military had to send out another batch of scouts in order to figure out the final strength of their opponents. They seemed to be smarter than previously predicted, even though they had sacrificed a few weaker staged beasts.
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