He approached the dead carcass and was about to start to absorb its energy when he heard a rustle from behind me.

*Bam*

'Shit...

Without even thinking he immediately activated his side roll skill and escaped from a surprise attack from what it looked like a frog like creature. 

' What the hell is that thing?'

It was about his size in height with strong stout hind legs, two eyes like pearls that shined green, and colourful skin mostly green and grey. The two small hands in front of it were like the claws of a T-rex .

"Croooak...

The frog didn't seem that concerned that it's prey had escaped and slowly turned to face Nick once again, but the later was focused on the ground.

' Shit, I can't escape.

It just sneak attacked me with its long tongue, but it fortunately didn't catch me because of the timely side roll. '

He immediately got up from the ground and took a defence stance with the spear in front of him.

' That tongue attack just now is to  fast for me to handle and by the looks of the ground where it had landed it did a lot of damage to. The ground had now a small hole about 3 cm deep and 10 cm wide.

This is very very bad...

"Croooak... croooak...

After the sneak attack the frog was  just looking at him calmly while he on the other hand was breathing rapidly trying to fill his lungs with as much air as possible.

' Why isn't it attacking me again? Could it be that it's hesitating?

Good, this is good , but I have to make a plan of action as soon as possible.'

 His hands were sweating like crazy, his hair was on its ends and it felt like he was going to shit himself at any moment. The situation was really tense, but his brain was still able to conjure up plan of action. 

"Croooak....

The frog in the other hand  was still staring at him, but it was not hesitation as Nick concluded, it was curiosity. The frog wasn't a simple one like the ones on earth because except it's outer apperance it also had the Inteligence of a 3 year old child, so right it was confused about the unknown creature in front of him.

"Croooak...

'From what I see this creatures way of attack is with its tounge.It strikes it’s prey with incredible speed not letting it have any chance of retaliation and eats them whole, but I'm no mere bug.

It will regret not attacking me when it had the chance.'

From what he just deducted  he started to slowly back towards a tree trying not to make any sudden movements so as not to startle the creature. He was then going to bait the creature to attack him so that when he dodged it's attack it would be left wide open .

*Tap*

' I made it...

When his back finally touched the bark of the tree he took a deep breath and shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Come to papa ,you ugly motherfucker!”

"Crooak...

*Bam*

....

The whole thing from the sneak attack till now happened in less than 10 second, but because of the adrenaline it looked more like 1 minute.

As soon as he shouted towards him came the tongue flying like an arrow trying to hit him,  but he had anticipated it and  again did a side roll avoiding it. Without any second to lose he jumped to my feet and rushed to attack  the creature from its flank before it retracted its tongue, but had underestimated his opponent. Is  was so fast that he didn't know what hit him at first.

"Guuh...

The tongue had retracted in a flash taking a piece of the tree bark with it which hit him lightly on the shoulder. He was not alarmed that much because of his heightened concentration and just continued to close the distance between them. 

"Croooak...

"No you don't!"

The creature prepared its touge attack again, but he managed to arrive faster having closed the 6 meter distance between us in less than 3 seconds and stabbed it with all his might in the throat. 

"Croo...aaaa...

With his new skill ' Thrust ' and with the momentum he had created the tip of the spear entered deeply in the creatures flesh. The knife had pierced the frogs throat until the hilt.

"CROOO.....

The creature let out a pained sound that made his ears hurt, but he was not done with it yet. After he stabbed it on the throat he started twisting the spear repeatedly to make the wound bigger and kill it faster.

' It work....

 He was pretty pleased with the results of his plan, but there was one thing I hadn’t taken into consideration and that was what if the frog tried to escape?

With its instinct to survive in the max it forgot about its wound and started to jump trying to escape but it didn't go far. 

*Bam*

*Bam*

The frog wanted to escape , but wound in its throat was very severe and about four jumps later it landed in the ground heavily.

"Hah hah, you f*cker....hukk...

The creature was now lying dead on the ground, but Nick also had sustained damage by it while it tried to escape. When the frog was trying to escape Nick was dragged along with it because of spear which was still lodged in its throat. Fortunately during its second jump Nick couldn’t hold the spear anymore and fell on the ground heavily. He tried to minimize the damage by rolling but I still got a lot of bruises and scratches.

"Hah hah hah....

He slowly regained his breath that was knocked out of him from the fall and went to retrieve the spear that was still lodged in the creature.

When he arrived there he saw that the frog was as dead as it could be with its throat in a bloody mess.

"Hup...

He yanked the spear out just to realize that the kitchen knife that served as the spears tip had snapped and wasn’t useful anymore. 

“F*ck!

F*cking cheap ass made in china knife that can’t even last for a second.”

The tip was broken and the spear was not usable anymore.

“F*ck, f*ck, F*CK!Cheap ass shit.”

He cussed repeatedly while also kicking the now dead frog trying to relive some of his frustration.

After kicking the hell out of the dead frog he calmed down and started to think strait again, stretched his hand down and started absorbing the frog. He felt the usual refreshing feeling spreading across my body but this time it didn't end just there. A warm current spread to my wounds making them start to heal rapidly. In about a minute his pain slowly went away along with any scratches and bruises.

" I guess I just found another effect of the absorption.It seems it directs the absorbed energy to heal my wounds if I am hurt before moving it into the gem for storage.

This could be very useful."

Being almost completely healed he decided that this was the end of today’s adventure, and decided to head back. During hi road back I came across the carcass from before . It was still lying there rotting in the ground giving off a disgusting smell.

"Wait, I got it...

 His eyes shined as soon as he saw it because this was the solution to his problems . Je immediately absorbed the carcass leaving behind only the skin and bones then turned my attention words its mouth that was filled with numerous sharp teeth easily detaching its lower jaw from its skull and taking it .

"This could work...

While he was focused on the ways he could use its teeth for example replacing the now broken knife with one of the teeth from the jaw he noticed something small and red rolling out of the skull.

"A red head? What's this doing here?"

It looked like a marble with red colour, but when I picked it up I was immediately shocked . There was a reaction from the blue marble in his soul , a feeling of hunger.

"Amazing! This small marble ses to contain a big amount of energy inside, almost as big as the energy that is stored in the blue gem at the moment."

He restrained the instinct to absorb it and immediately put it inside his backpack.

.....

Ten minutes later trying to look for something else from the carcass and finding nothing he started heading back again trying to pick any fruits along the way.