Max returned to the make-shift Hut made by Angakok covered in cuts and bruises from head to toe as he looked like a homeless beggar having undergone a ruthless street fight rather than a dignified lord of a territory.

Angakok spared a glance at him and then outside the tent as he said ” Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy, you rely on your skill-set too much and not enough on your basic stats.

The skills are just supplementary, the most important part of a fighters skill-set is his basic abilities.

You should be able to kill a flame lion with nothing but your bare hands if the situation demands it.

And you are a primordial vampire for my sake boy, you have absolute control over your own blood flow, stop bleeding like a girl on periods”

Max was speechless after this speech by Angakok, he did not quite understand what the old shaman god expected from him to be able to kill a flame lion with his bare hands or to waste his energy by maintaining his [ Blood Manipulation ] ability to stop a few small cuts from bleeding small trickles of blood.

Nonetheless, he did close his wounds and half expectantly looked around to see if Angakok had cooked him a delicious and nutritious meal just like Kremeth would do after an intense training session, but was disappointed to find out that Angakok did nothing of the sort.

The shaman god was not a master, he was not even a teacher, he was just someone tagging along with Max overseeing his progress for reasons unknown.

There was no dinner waiting for him after a long day of fighting and there seemed to be no intentions of there ever being dinner in the future either, which meant that Max had to learn to drink the blood of the local creatures here to survive.

Thankfully he always carried 3 days worth of emergency blood rations in his inventory for unexpected surprises, because of which he was able to drink relatively delicious human blood today as he went to sleep after a day of intense hunting.

*********

( The next day )

Early next day, Most of Max’s skills were still on a short cooldown with a day not being completed since he last used them, but since starting early never hurt one, Max resumed his routine of searching for prey and stalking them around to look for a suitable opportunity to ambush.

Today, Max was more paranoid than yesterday, looking around from time to time for enemies even though his [ Way Of The Wind ] was active, since his past experience taught him that the ambush predators of this pit of fire were able to bypass it’s detection and manage to sneak up on him.

To his credit, his paranoia was not misplaced at all as he did not detect a massive lava hound flying towards him at all, but saw it visibly approaching him from the sky, dripping small amounts of sizzling lava drops from its skin every time it flapped its wings.

One of the great mysteries that Max did not quite understand was how the slugs and these flying hounds were able to tolerate the boiling hot lava as if it were a sauna bath.

Their skins, while rock hard, were not completely impenetrable, yet they were able to take a dip in flowing lava and leave it while being unharmed.

‘ Oh I’m not your snack, you disgusting looking flying beast ‘ Max thought as he clutched his sword and began fleeing in the direction away from the Magma hound.

One of the bigger problems that Max faced on this planet was that his stamina reserves depleted much faster than usual as tasks like running and hunting took much more energy than usual.

The warm air of the planet made his lungs feel like they were on fire whenever he performed strenuous activities and while he had acclimatised to the environment after puking his guts out yesterday, he was still not very comfortable inside it, becoming a ball of sweat moments after starting his sprint.

[ Flying Lava Hound ( Tier4 ) ( Lv 490 ) – A beast notorious for its incredibly resilient defence and slow mobility.

Just flee if you encounter one, as killing them is next to impossible ]

A quick scan of the beast told Max exactly what he already knew about the beast, but what it did not say was that the most effective technique to kill a lava hound was to attack it’s insides when it opened its mouth to eat it’s prey or pant after a long flight.

Not keen on letting it get close enough to open its mouth to swallow Max whole, Max took the second approach of making it chase him for a few minutes until it began panting heavily from the laborious hunt.

Slowing down intentionally, Max allowed the beast to get closer and closer to himself, until it was in-range for Max to launch a counter-attack.

Changing directions suddenly, Max turned and leapt in the direction of the Hound, catching it off-guard as he launched an [ Energy Blast ] straight inside it’s open mouth.

-250,000 CRITICAL HIT!

The energy blast destroyed the Lava hounds throat and other vitals as it’s monstrous HP bar dipped by a whopping 60% by a single attack.

*CRASH*

Black smoke came out of its mouth as it crashed unsightly into the ground, as Max did not let go of this opportunity at all as he put a finger right on the beast’s belly and used [ Blood Explosion ] ability to exploit it’s internal bleeding situation and give the beast a swift death.

” HOT! HOT! HOT! ” Max complained as he pulled his burnt finger away from the beasts belly, cursing his luck to have touched it’s surface directly and not realising that the lava hound itself was like a large cooking vessel of high temperature.

Nonetheless, despite his personal pain, his killing technique was effective and the poor massive beast died from its internal injuries.

[ System Notification – You have Killed a tier4 Lava Hound inside a neutral Battle-Zone.

You have received

+300,000 EXP! ]

Max was pleasantly surprised by this notification, it appeared as if one of this massive flying beast was worth 4 times the exp of its lion counterpart.