Chapter 59: Mountain Bear

The Hellhound looked more like a wolf than a dog to Kiro. Nonetheless he wanted to tame it. How can it be a puppy but be already at level 50?

Kiro activated taming.

Ding!

[Taming failed. The beast may be weakened but it's extremely proud, it bows to no one.]

Kiro sighed loudly.

"Hey, pup, you either accept me as your master or become lunch for whichever monster did this to you."

He activated taming again.

Ding!

[Taming failed...]

This went on for an hour, trying to tame was exhausting. The hellhound's HP had dropped to 5. It took a lot to refuse being tamed, if a beast can't afford it they submit, but not this one. It was stubborn.

Just then an ear piercing warcry could be heard from the mouth of the cave. Kiro used his vibrational sense to see what it was, a bear, a mountain bear. This was not good. His lips curled into a smile though.

"He's coming for you, if you won't submit I'll let him kill you. Choose."

The hellhound didn't move an inch, it locked eyes with him, looking at him dangerously and cautiously. Kiro knew this little thing wouldn't give in, and for a moment he thought about just leaving it. But the fact that it was so stubborn made it a little special to Kiro.

The mountain bear had already reached where they were, it growled dangerously as though they were intruders trying to steal its cub.

Kiro took a fighting stance, "hey, chubby, hit it with your best spell."

Ishaan was kind of pissed at the nickname, but he didn't say anything. "Hellfire" he said.

Wild purplish flames could be seen roaring, speeding towards its target. They were fist sized balls of flames, it rained hellflames on the bear.

The bear was bombarded by a myriad of fireballs. When the spell ceased, it seemed to not have done much damage, other than pissing the living hell out of the bear.

"That's it?" Kiro spat.

Mountain Bear

Level 50

HP: 30 000

"Uh, well, it worked on goblins." Ishaan said, unsure of what else to say.

"What did you do with your skill points?"

"Spent them all on the force field spell." He shrugged.

Just then the bear lunged at them, like a tortoise sensing danger, Ishaan cast his force field spell on him and Kiro. The bear's paws couldn't even leave a scratch on it. Kiro nodded in approval.

"Not bad. You aren't useless after all."

However Kiro quickly found out that, he couldn't use his staff or any skill within the barrier. It was truly infuriating as it meant he'd have to leave a safe haven, to fight the beast. The skill was truly a cowardly one, maybe a means to escape with your life.

Kiro sighed, and huffed loudly, "keep that ungrateful hound safe, I'm going out."

As soon as he stepped out the barrier, the bear swiped at him, he activated blink to evade the attack, at the same time he hit the ground with his staff activating vibrations. But alas the bear wasn't stunned at all, so he hit it with whirlwind.

It was strange that, as big as the bear was, it was as fast as Kiro was. Since vibrations couldn't work, he had to fight it in close quarter combat risking his life. He went in for a bending kick, but the bear grabbed him by the leg, and pummeled him to the ground.

Left, right, left, right, then it tossed him to the side as if he were nothing. Kiro coughed a mouthful of blood, he had lost more than half his HP. He had to change his strategy, he opted for semi range combat.

His staff connected with the bear's claws, as they exchanged blows. Kiro with his staff, the bear with his claws. It seemed they were evenly matched. Neither of them wanted to back down. 3 minutes passed and the bear was getting careless.

Kiro aimed at its head, as soon as it's hands were raised to block his blow.

"Ryu!"

Ryu understood the command, the staff shrunk itself, Kiro quickly positioned it at the same level as the bear's stomach, just in time for Ryu to regrow. Pounding the bear right in the gut.

It was sent flying backwards. It crashed on the wall, but nothing seemed to be broken. Its body was sure sturdy.

Ding!

[Congratulations user. You've achieved perfect synergy with the sentient staff, Ryu. Your usage has risen to 10.5%]

"Just a 0.5 raise? What a joke!"

The bear got up and stood on its two legs and roared louder, before it took off straight for Kiro. He quickly summoned lightning, but unlike with Isaac the bear had thick skin. He couldn't possibly have hoped to burn it into a crisp when the skill's rank was so low.

He went to punch the bear, it blocked him and swiped, creating a gash with its claws right across his chest. He crashed into the rocks nearby Ishaan. His chest looked like freshly slaughtered beef. Bones could be seen amidst the red and flesh.

"Hey, let me in. My HP is extremely low." He had to crawl to reach them.

Ishaan didn't hesitate. Kiro was banged up pretty badly. But he didn't get inside the force field just to lick his wounds, he decided this was the time to enter meditation properly.

Before that, he decided to put all 25 of his skill points to lightning Manipulation. Which raised its rank to C.

Satisfied and in pain he sat, cross legged and concentrated, hoping something would come to him.

"What are you doing?" Ishaan asked surprise on his face.

"Shhhh."

"But—"

He didn't finish that before Kiro opened his eyes and stared at him coldly. He immediately erased everything his mind wanted to say and kept shut.

Kiro went back to his meditation, he couldn't concentrate well because of the pain, so he breathed in and out slowly, hoping he could concentrate on the breaths and not the pain. It seemed to have worked because 5 minutes of this, he had entered the meditative state.

Almost immediately, the Chi skill activated and he was gathering energy from the surrounding living things. Plants, water, animals.

The energy accumulated would then be stored in his mana veins, as soon as the mana veins had some energy, the regeneration skill activated, as it purified that energy into Mana and feeding it into his body to heal.

It was a sight to see, as the wounds from his chest were slowly but surely closing.

This shocked Kiro, he almost lost concentration. In his past life, nobody had mana veins, or nobody publicly bragged about having them.

He concluded it was due to awakening his true blood, as people who awakened in his past life were few and far between.