-Vol 4: To The North Pole!-

-Fight! Fight! Fight!-

The cloaked lady then muttered some chants in an unknown language. Suddenly the space behind her started to twist and turn before a golden gate phased into existence. Then this golden gate started to expand several times and grew as large as 20 meters in height and 10 meters in width.

Slowly the golden gates opened and a foggy swirling place was revealed. After some time, the fog started to swirl at a very high speed before continuously darkening. A furry hand suddenly came out of the mist, followed by a furry leg.

The cloaked lady watched in silence as a giant shadow cast upon her. Whatever that came out of the gate was by now way a small creature.

XXX

By this time, Kenshin and Vera had found a stairway and were going down. According to Kenshin’s map, the whole place was 30 meters down from the ground level. With each level as big as the large tent made by DCB. He was still not sure what kind of secret government project was going on here.

At that time, suddenly another notification appeared.

[Quest 12: Kill10 Level 79 Snow Apes]

[Rewards]

25487 G X10 EXP 5 SPs A mystery box

“Hmmmm! That’s random!” Kenshin muttered a bit loudly and was heard by Vera.

“What happened?”

“Well, suddenly I sensed the presence of a monster” Kenshin lied through his teeth. After that, just as he was about open the map to check it, a loud explosion heard from the outside, followed by a violent quake.

“What the!!” Vera shouted in surprise. It was truly too sudden, so she wasn’t prepared. As she tumbled on her place and was about to fall, suddenly Kenshin grabbed her by her waist and broke her fall.

“Careful leader!” he said while holding her lithe waist. At the same time, he was in a daze. Vera was very light, and her waist was very thin and squishy, giving off a fantastic feeling. Unfortunately, both his hand and her waist was covered or else he would have checked out the feeling.

“Thank you!” Vera thanked Kenshin and immediately stabilized herself. After turning her back to him, her face was instantly covered in red color. She was very embarrassed by what happened earlier. She always thought of herself as an independent woman and strong enough to not seek help from anyone, especially from a male. As such, she had never been held like that by a man in the past. It was her first time coming in contact with a man outside of combat situation.

It made her panic, and she lost cool for a second. Thankfully she had not shown her blushing face to him, or else she would have died of embarrassment. Fortunately just before the situation becomes more awkward between them, another explosion occurred and the roof of the floor they are standing on broke apart.

“What is it this time?” Vera shouted angrily. Earlier her embarrassment had stemmed from one fo these untimely explosions after all.

Two loud ‘thwaks’ were heard as two big monkeys stood in front of them. Soon another eight followed. These monkeys are around 10 feet height and heavily muscular. They were holding wooden maces in their hands and had a yellow gourd on their waists.

When Kenshin used his system to detect them, he found he found these monkeys were called snow apes, unsurprisingly his recent quest was to kill these monkeys.

[Snow Apes Lv 79]

[HP:790/790][STA: 400/400]

[ATK: 200(+58 Equipment effect); DEF: 200; AGI: 49]

[Skiils]

Stone Skin Lv 12 [+120% DEF][STA: 20/Min] Drunken Mace Skill [Passive skill][+10% ATK] Beast Charge Lv 20[+20% ATK and DEF every 10 seconds][ STA: 50/10 Secs]

[HINT: Weak against Flame and Destruction type attacks]

As expected of a level 79 beast, they are all ridiculously strong.

What's more, they didn’t have MP, rather all their skills use STA or stamina points. And these beasts didn’t seem to have low stamina points. They also had a passive skill that enhances their attacks. The most important fact was that the skills didn’t increase by quantity rather by percentage.

[Ding* you have used Replication skill on Stone Skin.]

[Ding* Replication successful.]

[You have gained skill Stone Skin Lv 0]

He used his replication skill on one of its ability and was successful in it. He had used two SPs and upgraded his Replication skill into level 13, allowing him to replicate the ability. He didn’t even try on the other one as it was way beyond his current replication ability. Instead, he decided to wait until killing one of them before replication their skill.

Kenshin had this confidence that if he goes all out then, he can kill them. And that was what he was intended to do.

“Leave it to me!” Kenshin said and ran forth for one of the nearest monkeys.

The intelligent eyes of the monkey flashed in contempt as it decided to engage with Kenshin. It raised its wooden mace and roared loudly. When Kenshin was near its striking range, it slammed its mace down, intending to blow his head like a watermelon.

But unexpectedly for it, the human took a step to its right and instead took out his red sword.

Kenshin used his Fire skill and ignited the sword. The sword started to burn like a bonfire, with a smooth motion, he slashed the monkey’s waist area, just below its gourd.

KROAR!!!!

The monkey shouted loudly and kneeled down in pain.

[-140]

A considerable amount of damage value floated above its head. Despite its very high defense, it still received this much damage, from this one can think just how much damage causes them.

At the same time, other monkeys that stood near it came to its rescue. They attacked Kenshin in a frenzy, but like a dancer, with minimum steps, he avoided their strikes at the barest movements possible.

Kenshin's skill didn’t allow him to copy only someone's skill after all. He could also replicate other things like their moves or attack and defense patterns. Just right now, he copied Vera’s movements that she had done earlier.

His replication skill had somehow copied them and turned them into a type of muscle memory. Right now he can perform these moves without even consciously aware of it.

He found out about this awesome ability after his Replication skill reached level 10. He could now even copy people’s fighting and movements patterns. But the limitation was that he was needed to see it with his eyes before being copied, unlike his skill, he couldn’t just copy it by using his ability on that person.