Chapter 230: Warrior Badger [POWER STONE BONUS]

Alex immediately swung his sword and met the badger’s claw with his Mana Sword. The moment the claw, which was coated in Origin Energy, touched his Mana Sword, another astonishing scene occurred as the Mana Sword suddenly began to disintegrate.

The badger’s claw cleaved through the Mana Sword and continued toward Alex. Even the mana he had infused into his side to strengthen his body began to disintegrate when the claw touched it, leaving that part of his body completely unprotected.

The claw tore through his abdomen with terrifying ease. Alex’s body was almost sliced in two.

Alex’s hand moved calmly, yet with swift speed. He let go of his disintegrating sword and grabbed the badger’s wrist before its claw could move any farther. The attack had already torn through his abdomen, but if he allowed the claw to continue, his body would be cleaved in half.

Alex was surprised by what had happened. The badger was not absorbing his Will, so how was it able to disintegrate his mana constructs so easily? He could clearly feel that the monster was vibrating his mana using its Origin Energy, but he still could not understand how simply vibrating his mana could cause a construct that he had compressed so carefully to collapse.

Alex poured more mana into his brain and pushed those questions to the back of his mind. His thoughts became clear again, and the things around him gradually stopped mattering as he focused entirely on the battle.

The badger swung its other hand toward him, but Alex reacted faster and moved inward instead of retreating. He grabbed the badger’s head with his other hand and smashed his knee into its face, stunning the monster for a moment.

Alex pulled the claws out of his abdomen and quickly sealed the injuries with hardened clumps of mana. He then twisted his waist and smashed the badger into the ground while still holding its hand, and before it could recover, he slammed it into the ground again.

The badger was still trying to move, so Alex smashed it into the ground once more. By the sixth impact, the monster was in no condition to fight back, allowing Alex to create a Mana Bullet and fire it directly into its head.

The Mana Bullet punched cleanly through the badger’s skull, killing it instantly.

[Level 17 Warrior Badger (Mid-rank Species) killed.]

[Level 8 Badger (Mid-rank...]

[Level 7...]

[...]

[Superior Body Reinforcement Spell has leveled up. Level 3 → Level 4.]

[Blood Vitalization Spell has leveled up. Level 7 → Level 8.]

[Mana Blade Spell has leveled up. Level 8 → Level 9.]

The notifications made Alex look to the side. The other four badgers were already dead, and Frank had also managed to kill the two Mid-rank Species that had attacked him.

Alex knew that Frank had reached the Adept rank back on Earth, so after returning to the Land of Origin, his strength had increased considerably. Even with the help of the others, killing two Mid-rank Species was still quite impressive, especially considering how exhausted everyone had been before entering the dungeon.

The others were already healing from their injuries and exhaustion, thanks to levelling up. It made sense because even though the badgers had been relatively low level, they were still Mid-rank Species and therefore gave quite a lot of EXP, while the group had also been hunting monsters continuously on the raft and was likely already close to leveling up.

Alex glanced at his own spells’ level-up notifications before faintly hearing Petra running toward him. She seemed to be worriedly asking him to lower the concentration of mana flowing through his body so that she could heal him, but Alex did not properly hear her words.

His attention was already elsewhere. He continued running his Advanced Battle Instinct Spell and repeatedly powered it with mana, slowly shutting out everything around him until only the battle remained in his mind.

The battle had ended, but Alex was not satisfied with the growth he had went through during it. He wanted more.

Alex replayed the fight over and over. He focused on the exact moment when the badger’s claw had touched his Mana Sword and remembered the strange sensation he had felt when his mana construct suddenly began to break apart.

He wanted to copy it. First, he created a mana sword and observed it closely. He was checking for something.

’Found it.’

The badger had not erased his mana. Instead, it had injected its vibrating Origin Energy into his mana construct, causing his mana to vibrate from within.

There were always tiny weak points inside a mana construct, even when the mana had been carefully compressed and stabilized. After all, no matter how much Alex tried, the compression could not be uniform in all places. Some places had dense and stable compression while others had weak compression. The badger’s vibrating Origin Energy had reached those weak points and amplified the instability until the entire construct could no longer maintain its form.

Alex’s eyes narrowed slightly as he understood the principle. The monster did not possess some mysterious ability that could instantly destroy mana; it had simply found a way to interfere with the structure of mana itself.

That was useful.

Alex looked at the Mana Sword in his hand for a moment. He was already capable of vibrating the mana at the blade of his Mana Sword, so he wondered whether he could use the same principle to make his vibrating mana enter another person’s energy and disrupt it from within.

He needed to test it.

Alex faintly heard Petra’s worried voice again as he sensed her Faith flowing through his body. She was desperately trying to heal his wounds, but Alex barely noticed it earlier because his mind was completely focused on his experiment.

He created a tiny Mana Sword inside his body and carefully applied the principle he had just learned. The small blade moved through the Faith flowing inside him, and the moment it touched the energy, the Faith was cleaved apart.

The affected Faith then rapidly began to disintegrate.

Alex faintly heard a shocked gasp from someone, but he did not pay attention to it. He was already thinking about what he had just did, and how to improve it, and whether he could use it against other forms of energy.

Then, several notifications appeared before his eyes.

[Mana Blade Spell has leveled up. Level 9 → Level 10.]

[Mana Blade Spell has reached Max Level.]

[Mana Blade Spell can now be evolved. Choose an evolution...]

..

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