Chapter 8 - Devour those stats

His face now plastered with a look even more incredulous than when he had defeated the two Avankhs, Cantorn read the text again. He had absorbed strength? How? And what was this all about in general? Never before had he heard about the ability to grow apart from leveling and one or the other status point gained during hellish training. So why was he getting some by eating other beings? Not only did that sound like a cheat, it also made him appear like some kind of bloodthirsty monster. One that killed and ate solely to get stronger. Welp, not a great look if he wanted to rejoin society ever again.

Now deeply interested in how exactly this came to be, he took a look at the updated version of the description of his skill.

Well, Cantorn had guessed the 'stealing stats' part already but the ability to gain skills from his defeated enemies was new. Not only did this raise the usefulness of the skill by heaps and bounds, it also made him question just what other 'uniqe benefits to the users growth' it would grant.

The concept of gaining a skill from his opponents wasn't totally foreign to him, although he didn't know much either. He had distantly heard of some potion brewers or magical scholars that were able to somehow extract a skill out of beast remains, this however seemed to be a rather costly process that would only be used on higher leveled beasts with special abilities. Basic beasts like the little Avankhs would probably be far from worthwhile to use for this as they had few skills, and the ones they had were probably not that hard to learn, especially in a slightly altered version.

With this skill however his growth was sure to be accelerated. Even though most would not bother to extract skills from monsters as weak as the ones he encountered, this did not mean their skills were not useful. It was quite the contrary to be exact. Most animals, be it ravenous beasts or more docile herbivores, had skills centered around practicality. While their applications usually had fewer variances, that was something he would easily be able to fix through adaptation.

Laying the base for a more complicated skill was valuable enough already, so Cantorn would not complain about this skill, however beastly it might seem. The time had come where he would change from prey to predator, actively seeking conflicts with animals. Well, calling himself a predator maybe was a little too ambitious but he surely had the spirit.

Now even further encouraged to turn his life around, Cantorn took a metaphorical step forward towards his new self. Still with a hint of disgust in his face, he choked down the rest of the meat. Losing a small part of his dignity as a civilized being was a small price to pay for the pleasant feeling of his stats increasing, however minor it may be. As he had this time eaten the slightly higher leveled Avankh, the reward got greater as well. A total of 0.6 stat points had been added to his overall power, this time 0.5 in AGI and, same as the other, 0.1 in STR.

His guess was that he would mostly gain part of his opponents highest stats, although the distribution in between the highest stats seemed to be fairly random. Cantorn didn't believe that the bigger Avankh had not increased its strength at all and only raised its agility without any or only very little regard for its other stats. If it truly were to be like this he probably would've not survived the fight with both of them, especially when considering just how narrowly he had dodged their attacks. To be exact, partly dodged.

After finishing his food, the young dark elf finally had the time to sleep. He doubted that any other small creature akin to the Avankh would dare to ambush him after the example he had set. Still, to be completely safe he climbed up the tree he rested under, exhaustedly slumping down on one of the few larger branches. 

Completely spent by the events that had transpired, it didn't take long for the male figure to only alert its surroundings by the occasional sound of snoring in its sleep.

*****

As the first sunbeams shone down on his face, Cantorn awoke from his deep slumber. Judging by the fact that he was still alive and in one piece his more or less intimidating fight last night seemed to have scared off any other predators for now. This would probably not last for long, so he should strike while the iron was still hot.

His first goal should be to find a safe place to stay the coming nights, preferably near the lake. Although he now knew that its soothing capabilities weren't magically turning the beasts pacifistic they still seemed to drastically reduce the risk of unwanted conflicts. Not only that, during the day he was also able to see quite a few clusters of Healroot. Though some animals had noticed the healing effects of the shimmering leaves as well it seemed like nothing could deplete the current stock. 

Those two factors turned the surroundings of the lake not only into a perfect habitat for almost all beasts, making it as populated as is, but created a near perfect environment for Cantorn's own growth as well. Right now it did not seem like any of the animals possessed a noticeable level of intelligence and therefore gave him a large edge over them in combat. What he could not make up in strength, he would make up in intelligence two times over.

With those encouraging thoughts and a desperate need for a proper dwelling, the, at least physically, small dark elf began his search.