Chapter 4 — First Time Using the Skill Caused an Accident
Alex had used his skill on three beasts—one running, one restrained, and one dead.
[Skill used on an Abyssal Beast.]
[Skill used on an Abyssal Beast.]
[Skill used on an Abyssal Beast.]
Ding!
[Received 0.05 Vitality from…]
[Received 0.05 Agility from…]
[Received 0.07 Stamina from…]
Three streams of strange energy fluctuations entered his body right after the skill was activated.
Alex quickly looked at his personal stats:
[Name: Alex]
[Profession: Abyssal Druid (S)]
[Level: 0]
[Exp: 0/1000]
[Vitality: 15.05]
[Strength: 12.07]
[Agility: 12.05]
[Mana: 30]
[Stamina: 12]
[Skills: Corrupted Whisper (3/100)]
His face brimmed with excitement at the increase in his stats. Though the improvement wasn't drastic, it was there.
The most incredible discovery was that his skill could even be used on corpses.
BANG!
The loud sound snapped Alex back to reality. He turned toward the direction it came from.
A strange beast—with the stripes of a tiger, body of a leopard, face of a cheetah, and the tail of a scorpion—was mindlessly attacking its own kin.
"Isn't that the beast I just used my skill on?" Alex muttered softly.
Its previously bloodshot red eyes had turned purple, and it was solely targeting the creatures within its attack range.
Alex's eyes widened in shock.
Without hesitation, he began using his skill continuously on the beast tide.
[Skill used on an Abyssal Beast.]
[Skill used on an Abyssal Beast.]
[Skill used on an Abyssal Beast.]
[Skill used on an Abyssal Beast.]
[Skill used on an Abyssal Beast.]
[Skill used on an Abyssal Beast.]
[Skill used...]
[Received 0.05 Vitality from…]
[Received 0.15 Agility from…]
[Received 0.09 Stamina from…]
[Received 0.08 Vitality from…]
[Received 0.02 Mana from…]
[Received 0.17 Stamina from…]
He spammed the skill without reservation, leading to complete mana depletion.
Alex slumped into a corner as the battle gradually wound down. A second beast tide surged toward them. His face was drenched in sweat, and a slight headache pulsed behind his eyes.
With the awakening having occurred only a few hours prior, his body struggled to keep up with the sudden mana exhaustion.
Sitting there, he reflected on the mistakes he had made.
"Using the skill multiple times doesn't yield additional stats, but the shadow damage persists, and the corruption becomes slightly more potent. I can only use the skill sixty times with a full mana reserve."
"Usually, the average mana reserve for any profession is below 50, limiting skill usage to a 1:1 ratio between mana and skill casts. But I can use my skill twice the number of my original mana points."
"Looks like I have a higher mana efficiency than others." He smirked slightly.
Alex looked at the battlefield. The tank professions were still struggling against the corrupted beasts—beasts he had altered with his skill.
He closed his eyes and focused on recovering his mana.
Twenty minutes later, his reserves were fully replenished, thanks to ambient mana. He suspected this faster recovery was another benefit of his unique talent.
"Hehe… Another perk of my talent!"
For the next few hours, he kept repeating the cycle—spam skills, recover mana, repeat—without rest. Just as the last beast was being taken down, shouts rose from nearby.
"Hey, look over there!""What's that?!""Is that a tree branch?!"
The loud exclamations drew Alex's attention, and he turned toward the grotesque pile of dead beasts.
"Is that…" Alex muttered, barely hiding his surprise.
The pile, oozing blood and innards, was slowly being drained of color.
Where the beasts had been sliced open, thin brown branches sprouted. These grew thicker, forming robust roots. The roots pierced the bodies of the dead, snaking into their orifices and splitting into smaller tendrils.
Up close, the roots looked frail—but were lined with ferocious barbs at every joint. A mere graze from them could make a normal human bleed profusely. Yet, they navigated through the smallest cracks and openings in the beasts' corpses, suggesting how incredibly durable the creatures were.
The roots extended toward another beast corpse. As soon as they came within inches of it, they pierced it effortlessly and dragged it toward the pile.
GULP!
The eyes of every nearby human profession widened in horror at the bizarre scene.
There hadn't been a single plant on the battlefield, yet this grotesque flora seemed to thrive purely on the mana-rich environment.
Meanwhile, Alex stared at the pile of corpses with something close to wonder.
He examined it carefully and noticed something peculiar. The beasts' colors were fading from the top down, their bodies shrinking as though being vacuumed into space.
The original pile, once ten meters tall, had shrunk to just two. The corpses writhed from within, creating a disturbing sight. Atop the highest corpse, a plant had emerged—its tiny bud sprouting from an eye socket.
The surreal show seemed to end, and the remaining people began slowly retreating toward the exit gate, leaving Alex alone, a complicated and wry smile on his face.
It wasn't that he didn't want to leave—he couldn't.
A strange, suffocating pressure had locked him in place.
"Child… was it your doing?" a strange voice whispered in his ear, though he couldn't trace its source.
"F*ck! Why did I have to stand out again?!" Alex cursed his life again.