There was no third thought. Robert simply moved. Whether it was anger, pain, or some basic survival instinct, he suddenly smashed every stat point he had been saving into Strength. He did not think about whether it was the right choice or whether he would regret it later.
His other hand moved before the monster could react. Robert drove his fist into its chest with everything he had, and the impact buried his hand into the creature’s body far enough to knock the air out of its lungs. The monster staggered backward, clearly caught off guard by the sudden increase in Robert’s strength.
Robert knew the attack had not seriously injured it. Monsters had higher stats than humans at the same level, which was exactly why he had stopped investing stat points into Strength earlier and decided to save them for when he gained a skill that required better Strength or Agility
The monster was choking now. It was agitated, and the pain from the attack had left it struggling to breathe.
That was enough for Robert. His feet moved forward, although he could barely control them, and he half stumbled and half ran toward the monster before throwing his body against it. Using whatever strength remained in him, he moved around its side and reached its back.
Robert wrapped one arm around its neck and pulled as hard as he could. His Strength stat helped a lot. His legs wrapped around the monster’s waist, locking himself in place so that it would have difficulty throwing him off.
The monster immediately went berserk, trying to grab Robert. When that failed, it slammed its back, and Robert on it, into the wall repeatedly, trying to force him to release his grip. His bones cracked under the impacts, and every hit sent another wave of pain through his body, but Robert refused to let go because the monster was already struggling for air from his earlier punch.
The creature became more frantic as its breathing weakened. Robert tightened his grip and held on, even though his body was reaching its limit and he could barely feel his arms anymore.
He could not think about anything else. His mind had become strangely empty, much like the way it sometimes became clear during gym when all he could focus on was the pain and counting the set.
This time, he was counting seconds.
The monster slammed him into the wall again, and Robert’s vision blurred further. He continued holding on, forcing his arm to stay around its neck even as more bones cracked under the repeated impacts.
Two minutes later, the monster stopped moving. Its body slowly went limp before falling to the ground, and Robert fell with it, landing beside the monster without having enough strength left to protect himself from the impact.
He could not move anymore. His entire body was broken in several places, and although he had killed the monster, he was dying along with it.
Several notifications appeared in his fading vision. Robert forced himself to read them and learned that the monster had been the same level as him, and he had received no level up.
He had also used every stat point he possessed. Robert realized that he should have left at least one stat point for Constitution instead of putting everything into Strength, but he had not been thinking that far ahead when he made the decision.
His body was growing colder.
He no longer felt the suffocation caused by the blood clogging his throat. His vision continued darkening.
He felt like he could feel his phone vibrating in his pocket. Tina must be calling, asking why he had not reached the next point yet. But he had no strength to respond.
...
Alex and Roan were waiting, their eyes moving between the ruined street ahead and the clock displayed on Alex’s phone. They had agreed to wait fifteen minutes while the two groups lured the Wild Orcs away from the suspected defense line. Time passed strangely, feeling slow whenever Alex looked at the clock and fast whenever he focused on something else.
Alex did not waste those fifteen minutes and continued training his spells instead. He deliberately avoided using Mana Sense Spell because they were already quite close to the suspected location of the Wild Orcs’ defense line, and whatever had sensed Roan earlier might also be able to sense the expanding mana rings produced by the spell. If that happened, their entire plan could fail before they lured even one Wild Orc away.
Instead, Alex focused on Mana Bullet Spell and Mana Blade Spell. Now that he could completely form mana swords, he had started working on their weaknesses, particularly the sides of the blade, which were still not strong enough to withstand attacks from monsters. The entire sword was difficult to maintain, but its hardness was roughly comparable to concrete, perhaps slightly higher depending on how much mana Alex put into it.
The blade itself was different because he concentrated more mana into that part and deliberately made it harder, while the rest of the sword received less attention. If a monster struck the side of the blade with enough force, the sword would break, not because the sides were particularly weak, but because the monsters they fought possessed strength far beyond what ordinary materials could withstand.
Alex kept experimenting with the Mana Blade Spell and changed its structure whenever he discovered something that could be improved. Whenever he gained some useful understanding from those experiments, he immediately applied it to Mana Bullet Spell by creating a harder casing with the mana.
In this way, he was training two spells at the same time without wasting the knowledge gained from either one.
Fifteen minutes passed before Alex finally checked the time again. He opened his messages and sent Tina a quick instruction to take care of the group, especially Robert, because Robert was a Rogue and still did not have a skill. His combat ability was better than before because he had leveled up, but it was still not enough for him to fight monsters directly.
..
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