Two figures flashed across the cave!
Woosh!
"You are more monster than I!!"
No one would expect a scream like this to come from the mouth of a literal monster as it ran from a human, but that was exactly what happened as Mark chased down the Ant anima through the tunnels under the island. Mark knew that the ant anima would try to get reinforcements, so he allowed it to move ahead and followed it till it came down to this tunnel.
But once Mark found the entrance to the tunnel, he didn't need the Anima anymore and now he was going to kill it!
There were green stones lining the walls of the tunnel and illuminating the underground tunnel, and Mark would have found it beautiful at any other time. But right now, his gaze was fixed on the anima he just didn't have any time for sightseeing.
Woosh!
Mark zoomed down the tunnel as he chased after the anima that was currently running away from him like he was a monster! The Anima was bolting like a bat straight out of hell, and it knew that looking back even once would be dangerous because Mark was right on its tail! It dashed straight through the tunnels before reaching the two openings that split the tunnels into two paths.
The anima quickly went down the right path. It wanted to lead Mark towards the two large lizard-type Anima that were down this path so they could help it defeat Mark. The addition of those two low-level calamity class anima would greatly increase its chances against Mark, and they could take Mark down together.
But the Anima couldn't even get all the way down the tunnel before it felt a hand brush against its back and grab it by the arm!
"Why are you running, ant!? I thought you were better than me!"
Boom!
[Critical Hit]!
Once Mark grabbed hold of the Anima, he wasted no time as he dragged the anima back while delivering a devastating punch into the Anima's side! The anima crashed into the tunnel wall, and Mark was surprised when the wall broke and the anima fell through the wall and down a steep cliff that appeared on the other side!
Mark walked to the edge of the cliff, and he saw that the anima was holding on with its one good hand while staring up at Mark with a glare. Mark looked down at the deep darkness below, and he only smiled as he saw the sharp spikes below.
"Resorting to dirty tricks for victory is exactly what I would expect from a human. Cowardly scum!"
Mark raised a surprised brow as he used his heel to step on the Anima's fingers!
"Screech!"
Smash!
The anima screeched in pain, but Mark ignored its noise as he started to grind his heel into its fingers with increasing force! Mark knew that slamming his feet into the ground over and over again would only make the platform crack, and he might go over the edge of the cliff with the Anima, so he was going to make it impossible for the anima to hold on instead!
Mark didn't stop grinding his heel until the anima lost its grip on the cliff and fell down the dark cliff edge and into the darkness below. It kept its glare fixed on Mark until it disappeared, and Mark only tilted his head to the side with a wicked grin across his face as he watched it.
Mark would not call himself a particularly vindictive person, but he was not above savoring the feeling of joy that comes with watching your enemy plummet to his death. The anima called him a monster? What nonsense.
"What would a monster like you know about being human? You can only call yourself a genuine being when you've experienced both the good and bad sides of your emotions. Freaks like you that only savor killing and destruction will never understand the beauty of humanity."
Mark said this as he watched the Anima until it finally disappeared, and it took a few extra seconds before Mark finally saw the message from his system.
[User had killed [1] Low-Level Calamity Class +100 skill points.]
Mark didn't waste any time as he opened his tab and moved his skill points to his two most important skills. Mark had one hundred and fifty skill points right now, and he decided that he would use them all.
[Does the User wish to add points to the selected skills? Yes/No]
Mark chose yes, and the free skill points climbed down to zero as they were transferred to the skills he chose.
[User had added 89 points to Mana Circulation]
Current Mana Circulation: E Rank [0/200]
[Stat Improvements Due to Application of Mana]
Strength: +10%
Stamina: +10%
Agility: +10%
[User has added 61 skill points to Blunt Force Trauma]
Current Rank: E Rank [2/200]
Probability of landing a Critical Attack: +4% for every successful consecutive hit.
Once Mark was done with this, he then sent the remaining stat points that he had into his Mana stat. There were only one hundred and sixty stat points left, and Mark knew that it would be best to use them to increase his mana so that the mana would increase his other stats as well.
Since Mana and Mana circulation worked together to increase his stats, the higher his mana and mana circulation, then the higher his other stats would be.
[Does the user wish to add points to the selected stat? Yes/No]
Mark selected the yes option, and the system immediately sent the stats to mana.
[User had added 160 stat points to Mana.]
[Mana: 280/462]
Mark frowned as he checked the amount of mana that he had left after adding in the mana points that he already had. There was barely half of his original amount left, and it only got up to that point because of the extra stat points that he added to Mana. Mark knew that it was supposed to be much lower than that. Mark decided that he would have to find a way to get more mana as soon as possible.
There were still some lower-ranked calamity classes that he hadn't killed yet.
The cause of his drastic drop in mana was probably from the use of his mana circulation skill. As of right now, Mark was still just an A rank, and the only thing that allowed him to fight on equal footing as all Calamity Class monsters he has been going up against was the fact that he had so many good skills.
Most of Mark's skills were helping to boost his regular stats by ten percent or more, and that was compounding to make him stronger. Mark knew that he had been relying on Mana circulation for too long already and he would need to increase his strength so that he would not get into trouble if he ever ran out of mana in the middle of a fight.
Imagine running out of mana in the middle of a fight and suddenly ending up with only half or two-thirds of your regular strength! That would not end well!
Mark decided that once he was done here, he would improve both his regular Strength-based stats and his mana. It is always better to have more strength.
Mark now had to find out where the other low-ranking calamity classes were. He should probably kill them and increase his mana capacity before going to face off against the High-ranking Calamity Classes. Mark already learned his lesson about the differences in strength between low and high-ranking classes in anima.
The Anima that he just fought was a low-ranking Calamity class, and it was nothing like the high-ranking disaster classes. Mark knew that the high-level calamity class would be far stronger than the low-level calamity class he just fought.