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You have received 20% Exp from being attacked by <Lvl 1> Ghoul.

You’ll level up once your Exp reaches 100%. You’ll grow stronger as you level up.

Current Exp: 20%

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“What the heck is this?” Ashton blurted out after patching his open wound with the help of leaves, “I can get stronger by being hit?”

Ashton had forgotten that Lucifer wasn’t with him to answer his queries. Thus he had to find his own answers from whatever information he was presented with. And according to the information flashing in front of his eyes… it was clear he could earn Exp by being attacked by monsters.

‘If that’s the case why didn’t I get any Exp when Donovan slammed me on top of those glass shards? That was helluva pain.’ He thought to himself, ‘Is there some criterion which needed to be filled for me to gain Exp? Or is it something else?’

It was indeed weird. He did not gain anything except the pain tolerance skill when Donovan attacked him. A few theories popped up in his head that could have explained why it was so. One of the theories he came up with was that Donovan didn’t ‘directly’ harm him.

After all, unlike the ghoul who sunk its teeth in his flesh, Donovan didn’t physically cause him any harm. The pain Ashton felt was due to the glass shards burying themselves inside his flesh and not by Donovan stepping on him.

Another theory Ashton had was pretty simple. It could be possible that Donovan wasn’t a monster in the system’s vision like the ghoul was. So maybe that’s why his attack didn’t reward him with Exp. Although, personally he believed this theory to be false, as werewolves were just as much of a monster as the ghoul was.

That brought Ashton to his third theory. The intention behind the creature’s attack. It was a bit far-fetched but this theory could explain why he didn’t receive exp when Donovan attacked him, better than anything he could come up with. It was possible that while Donovan wanted to hurt him, but not kill him thus Ashton didn’t get any Exp. This was true because the Mistress would have never allowed him to be killed after personally converting him into a werewolf.

The ghoul, on the other hand, was definitely out to kill him and hence his attack gave him Exp. Still, there was a high probability that the actual reason behind it was something completely different from what he was thinking.

‘I can always figure it out later. But for now, I have to think of a way to get rid of the Ghoul.’

Ashton slowly got up and carefully looked around himself to see if there was something usable there or not. There were only two ways to kill a ghoul as the system informed him. Either by using fire or by using bludgeoning them to death.

Thus the sword he had was completely useless as neither it was an enchanted weapon, nor could it do any severe damage to the ghoul. This forced Ashton to look for alternatives, like a broken branch or something that he could use as a club to fight against the ghoul.

However, it didn’t look like the Ghoul was going to give him any chance to come up with a strategy. The ghoul was prowling around Ashton like a sly wolf preying on its dinner. The taste of Ashton’s blood was still fresh in its mouth and it wanted more.

The ghoul jumped at him while Ashton’s back was turned at him. But this time, Ashton was prepared. Even though the Ghoul had a higher level than him, Ashton was stronger than the ghoul in terms of everything except Agility. Still, Ashton had formed a plan to use the creature’s agility against it to kill it.

He was already aware that the ghoul was prowling around him as his ears could pick up the slightest of noises. That’s why he used the time he had to slowly move and stand in front of a tree. As soon as the Ghoul tried to jump him, Ashton dodged the attack at lightning speed.

‘If I can’t use blunt weapons to kill you, then I’ll force you to kill yourself.’ Ashton smiled as the ghoul hit its head right into the tree stump.

His plan was simple. The ghoul was more agile than him, but not as intelligent. If he stood in front of trees and huge boulders, then he could easily defeat the ghoul. It was in the ghoul’s nature to attack an injured prey from behind. By attacking them from behind, not only will the ghoul be able to attack their nape and kill humans immediately it would also be difficult for the prey to defend its back. Ashton was only exploiting that simple fact.

Ashton got the idea to do this from one of the tales he had heard. The old folks from the enclosure often talked about the tales their parents told them, and one of the tales Ashton had heard as a youngster was about a sport that existed long before the Virus spread across the world. It was called Bullfighting.

Ashton had never seen what a bull looked like as they went extinct after the virus spread, just like a lot of other creatures. But from what he could imagine from the stories, they were these big herbivorous creatures that had the strength to take on any number of humans.

Thus these creatures were used in some kind of strange sports where they would charge at humans while both of them were locked inside an arena. The game was simple, the bull would attack the humans and the humans would dodge the attack. What Ashton was doing was exactly that. Only in his case, the bull had been replaced by a ghoul instead.

[You have obtained a new skill: Battle Tactics (Lvl 1).]

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>> Battle Tactics (Lvl 1): A Rare ability generally found in humanoid creatures. This skill allows the user to enter a state of extreme focus. The attacks of enemies look slower allowing the user to easily dodge the attacks.

New perks will unlock when the skill level increases.

Grade: Low

Condition to upgrade the skill: Defeat 3 creatures having a higher level than yours.

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“Keep giving me more skills…. The more the merrier, right?”