Manaless Mage

He hadn't expected that he would have to use his tier two "spells" this early, however, the situation called for it since skills like [Lightning Ball] didn't seem to effective on the mana beast.

When he used [Wind Blade], the H/P went down by ten points, which was quite low but [Wind Needle] chipped out 40 points from its health.

But he knew this wasn't over yet, so he couldn't let his guard down.

Just then, Harry's eyes suddenly squinted as his perception picked up something from the side.

He instinctively turned his head towards that direction in a bid to see whatever was hiding there.

However, that little moment of distraction was more than enough for the mana beast to land an attack.

Its mana swirled violently inside its body, with a loud growl, it suddenly lunged towards Harry with great speed.

Harry's eyes widened when he heard the beast's growl.

He immediately focused his attention back on the pig, however, it seemed like his reaction was too slow as he only saw the mana beast vanish from his vision.

No, it didn't vanish, its speed was just so fast that Harry couldn't follow!

The last thing he saw was the pig swinging its head, upwards with force, what followed afterwards was the sensation of a truck slamming into his abdomen.

"Arrg!" A loud grunt of pain left Harry's lips, his back arched backwards and his body was sent flying by a few meters. His figure bounced on the ground twice before finally stopping.

That was it, that same burst of speed!

He had already scanned the beast's stats and the agility of the beast wasn't so high that he wouldn't be able to follow.

The same thing happened earlier when the pig dashed at him, except this time, its speed seemed even faster.

Harry's face morphed into a deep frown and his eyes squinted in anger.

He could feel blood trailing down his lips, a few bruises were also on his face and arms. Fortunately, they were nothing too serious as they were only light injuries.

He was quite disappointed in himself, to think he got distracted while fighting a mana beast.

The injuries on his body could have been worse if not for his high stats. If the scaled pig had just been a little stronger,

Just then, a messages flashed across his eyes.

[Healing and Regeneration Activated!]

[-10 Energy points]

Immediately, the wounds on his body started healing. The bruises on his face rapidly closed up, and even the pains from his abdomen lessened greatly.

Since [Healing and Regeneration] was an active-passive skill, it could activate on its own as long as Harry had an injury.

It only took a few seconds for all his injuries to heal, and if not for the dirts on his clothes, one couldn't guess that he had been recently injured.

However, Harry focus wasn't on the system notification, his eyes only remained on the mana beast in front of him.

The scaled pig was breathing heavily with smoke coming out of its nostrils, the fact that Harry didn't seem to injured by its last attack frustrated it.

"Lightning Dash." Harry muttered. Immediately, Lightning cackled around his fingers before rapidly spreading to the rest of his body.

A soothing sensation spread all over his body, following the activation of the skill, however, Harry didn't let that break his focus.

The only reason he used [Lightning Dash] was to prevent something like what happened few seconds ago from happening again.

He had already came to the conclusion that the sudden burst of the mana beast wasn't due to his stats, it was more like an ability—the beast's 'trait'.

Mana beasts had special abilities know as 'traits'. Just as the name implied, it was an ability unique to a particular mana beast or a particular beast race.

Since mana beasts were basically evolved animals, some of those special features they had before mutation also evolved, becoming stronger and more powerful.

Some of them gained these traits after mutation, while some already had it before, and it only evolved or mutated.

The scaled pig's trait was definitely to lunge itself at a speed twice… or thrice its normal speed.

But with the few times Harry had witnessed the mana beast use this ability, it seemed like it could only lunge forwards in a straight motion, and couldn't change direction.

'Probe.'

===========

[Name: Scaled Pig]

[Race: Mutated Pig]

[H/P: 40/150]

[Beast Core: 1st Stage]

[Mana: 30/95]

===========

Just as he expected, using that 'trait' greatly consumed the beast's mana.

The scaled pig's H/P had also gone down, ending its life shouldn't be too difficult now.

However, Harry still found it quite weird. He shouldn't have come across a mana beast with such a powerful trait this early.

In the beast forest, the more powerful mana beasts were located in the deeper parts of the forest.

Harry hadn't gone too deep into the forest, so he found this quite strange.

The Lightning on Harry's legs suddenly danced violently as Harry took another huge leap backwards, creating a huge distance between himself and the mana beast.

That move drained some of his energy, but he didn't think too much about it.

His plan was quite simple; bait the beast to lunge towards him.

The mana beast, seeing its meal get further away from it growled angrily.

Mana rapidly swirled within its body and it lunged itself towards Harry once more. Its speed was even slightly faster than before, meaning it was using even more mana than before.

Proof of this was the beast's mana dropping down below the 10-mark.

Seeing this, a slight smile appeared on Harry's face.

With the activation of two speed-boost skills like [Accelerate] and [Lightning Dash], the pig's speed was nothing more than child's play to him.

An Elementalist or a beast with more intelligence might have seen through Harry's plan since it was very obvious, however, the scaled pig's intelligence was only a stage one mana beast, so it hadn't unlocked its intelligence yet.

Seeing that the pig was already closing in on him, Harry immediately moved to the side:

"Lightning Ball." He muttered as he raised his hands. Lightning danced violently above his palm as a medium size Lightning ball appeared above his palm.

Without pausing for a second, Harry launched the ball of lightning towards the pig's neck.

Since he was at the side of the beast, it was quite easy to target its neck.

It flew in the air with astonishing speed, leaving a slight trail of lightning before hitting the pig's neck with full force.

The mana beast groaned in pain as a shock of lightning ran through its body.

Due to the effect of the attack, its body was paralyzed for a second and it couldn't move a single muscle.

This left it defenseless and Harry didn't waste the chance to send another attack.

"Wind Blade." Wind gathered around his hand rapidly forming into a sharp blade.

Harry threw this blade to the mana beast, targeting the same place—its neck.

The blade hit the pig on its neck, leaving a deep cut.

The mana beast grunted and thrashed around in pain as blood dripped out of the wound.

Though the cut from [Wind Blade] wasn't as deep as the one from [Wind Slash], it was still deep enough to put in a world of pain.

Since the pig's health was already low, the cut didn't heal like the former ones.

Its mana was also low and it couldn't use its 'lunge trait' once more.

Its movements slowed and became sluggish, making it a more easier target for Harry.