The Wolves Ch. 023

My opponent was equipped the exact same way as last time, but this time he was actually very close to my size, if not just a tad bigger. Rather than come up with any plan, I decided to just step in the ring and see what happens.

I stepped into the circle and entered a defensive stance, waiting for the horn to sound. As soon as it did, I was surprised to see my opponent quickly jump forward into the air while thrusting downward with his spear. I barely managed to block it with my shield and as a result, wasn't able to counterattack. We circled each other for a short time with my opponent occasionally using his spear to feint.

I went for my own strike which ended up connecting with nothing but air. My opponent reacted immediately and stepped to the right while crouching down. Before I even knew what was happening, I felt my front foot being swept out from under me, sending me falling on my ass, followed by a pain in my gut. Looking down, I saw my opponent on one knee with his spear sticking out of my abdomen. He ripped it out, increasing the amount of pain by many multitudes and immediately went for another strike.

Before I could do anything, I was teleported out of the ring and there was no longer any pain in my abdomen. I looked down and there wasn't even a hole in the leather armor I was garbed in for this part of the evaluation.

Now that I had lost a round, I needed to win the next two to advance. I stepped in the ring, but this time rather than immediately going into a defensive stance, I just activated Precognition and stood there waiting for the horn to sound. With Precognition active, I heard the horn sound and saw my opponent start thrusting with his spear before he actually did. As soon as the horn sounded for real, I Blinked to the side where my opponent couldn't protect himself and used Barbed Spear to elongate my spear, impaling him through the neck. As I ripped it free, blood began pouring out of his wound, and I found myself teleported back outside of the circle.

My opponent was back to his normal self, but it actually looked like he was a little angry. I smirked, turned off Precognition and stepped back inside the ring. I wouldn't need it to beat him this round. When the horn sounded this time, my opponent tried rushing at with his shield in front of him like I did in the first round of the combat stage last time. Rather than lift my shield up in front of me, or dodge the strike, I activated Mana Shield for the first time.

It was my opponent's turn to be surprised when he landed on his ass, followed shortly by my spear impaling his side. He barely grunted when I ripped it free, and was able to knock away the followup with his own spear. Holding his shield between us, he slowly got to his feet and adopted a defensive stance. We circled for a solid minute, not giving the other the chance to land any hits. I had to win this round, otherwise I would have had to restart this stage, so I came up with an idea.

I let my mana shield dissipate and circled for a few more seconds, making sure my mana pool was full. When I was sure it was, I quickly thrust forward with my spear while creating a small portal just in front of my opponent, with the exit just behind him. I couldn't see my spear exit from behind him, but I could clearly see my opponent's reaction. After a moment, my opponent fell to his knees, but not before my spear was severed by the two portals closing.

"Stage 4: Combat completed. You won two rounds and lost one round."

"Initializing Stage 5..."

I was once again teleported to the room with the orb on a pedestal, but this time the orb was quite a bit bigger. I knew the drill so I walked up to it and channeled my mana into it before the voice could even speak.

"Evaluation complete. Calculating base attributes...Calculation complete. Your base attributes are as follows: Strength: 8, Agility: 7, Intellect: 46, Constitution: 7, Endurance: 8. Please retrieve your phone and exit the evaluation room."

Like before, as soon as he finished speaking, the room reverted back to its original appearance when I first entered. I unplugged my phone and then left the room to meet up with my friends, who were already finished.

Ben was the first to notice me. "So, what's your base Constitution?" he asked.

"A solid 7," I answered. "I figured it would've been higher, but it's cool."

"How did the combat go this time?" Mason asked.

"My opponent actually surprised me in the first round, sweeping my leg out from under me and then impaling me in the chest twice. In rounds two and three, I used my abilities, including Portal, to take him out pretty easily."

"Portal huh?" Sonja asked. "I definitely need to practice with mine. If I had it when we fought that Skeletal Archer, I probably could have killed it on my own."

"It is a pretty handy ability," I said. "Unfortunately it was only dinner plate sized, so hopefully that's not what I'm limited to right now. I'll have to practice later. Alright, enough standing around, let's knock out this dungeon. I bet we can hit level fifteen before it gets late."

"Nah, we'll easily hit level twenty," Mason said as he started walking towards the dungeon entrance. "We were leveling pretty quickly earlier, and that was when we were fighting enemies four times lower than us."

"He's got a point," Ben said. "We'll probably be getting a little over one hundred experience for every kill, and we'll be fighting beasts again for the first five levels."

I took my phone out of my inventory and brought up my profile page. "So eight or nine kills for me to reach level ten. You're right, that is fast. I don't think we'll hit level twenty though, so I'll change my answer to eighteen."

Mason laughed. "I'll take that bet."

I put my phone away and we all followed Mason down the staircase leading to the first floor of the dungeon. As soon as we were down, I began changing into my hybrid form once again.

This was going to be fun.