One second the boar was staring down its prey. The next - reality glitched.
In the boar's eyes, Ethan in his wolf transformation simply... vanished. No blur of movement. No warning. Just empty space where a wolf had been.
The boar's enhanced might as well have been running on dial-up internet trying to track him.
'This is insane,' Ethan thought, his consciousness flowing through his new form like he'd unlocked a secret character in a fighting game. Everything felt lighter, faster, more responsive. His previous wolf form was like playing on normal difficulty - this was hard mode.
The air cracked.
WHAM.
The impact sent the boar ragdolling through a massive tree.
Not into it - through it. The trunk, thick as two men, snapped like someone had deleted its middle section from existence. Wooden shrapnel exploded outward in a perfect cone of destruction.
Thud.
'Shit,' Ethan thought, as he glanced at his claws.
'That was supposed to be a test hit.'
The boar lay embedded in splintered wood and disturbed earth. One casual swipe had nearly ended the fight.
No achievement notification was needed to tell him he'd just broken the game's balance. The gap between Mid-Iron and High-Iron wasn't just a tier difference - it was quite large, like comparing a wooden sword to a metal sword.
The boar twitched, trying to process what had just deleted half its HP bar in one hit. Ethan didn't give it time for a comeback episode.
His claws, now sharp enough to tear through trees like they are basic tutorial material, plunged into the boar's chest.
Clean. Clinical.
Ethan pulled his claws from the boar's chest, a familiar blue glow pulsing in his grip. The core sat in his palm like a crown.
<Mid Iron-rank Core> <Devour>
His first instinct was to spam the devour button like always. But something clicked - a meta-strategy he'd overlooked.
'Wait a second...'
The city's core economy worked on a simple rarity system. Higher ranks meant exponentially higher prices. One High Iron-rank core could fetch triple the value of a Low Iron core on the market.
Meanwhile, one Mid Iron-rank core could fetch twice the value of a Low-Iron core.
But his devouring ability? It didn't care about rarity tiers.
'I've been playing this all wrong,' Ethan thought. 'The city's system places heavy importance on the rank of the core. I could use that to my advantage,'
The math was beautiful in its simplicity. Trade one Mid Iron core for two Low Iron cores.
Devour both and get double the stats he would have achieved by simply devouring a mid iron rank core.
<You have killed 'Razorback Boar (Mid-Iron)'>
<Ferocious Beast: Razorback Boar> <Devour>
<Rank: Mid-Iron>
<Iron Enhancement Talent: F+ Grade>
The status window popped up like an end-of-match summary, but Ethan barely noticed it. He was too busy processing how completely he'd just broken the power scaling.
In a world where rank meant everything, he'd just jumped several months' worth of power-ups in one morning.
After calming down, Ethan devoured the razorback boar.
<You have devoured the Razorback Boar>
<Ding! You have gained +3 Vitality>
"It seems like I was right. I need to devour a corpse three times before I can upgrade it to the next rank and talent grade."
After devouring the boar, Ethan moved deeper into the forest.
Not too deep - he wasn't looking to trigger a fight with the big bosses, he couldn't handle that, at least not yet.
He went just far enough to farm some extra resources before returning to base.
'I got a perfect excuse lined up,' he strategized. 'Got separated from the boar, and was followed by it until I eventually escaped.'
His real goal had nothing to do with the mission parameters. Each core could be converted to attribute points, and he needed enough to level his stats into at least mid-iron territory. High-iron if god blessed him.
After three hours of careful hunting, Ethan had only encountered three beasts.
Two mid-iron Shadowfang Wolves, After devouring them, only his stats increased with no visible change to his rank or talent.
Then everything changed when the beetle appeared.
The status window popped up like a rare encounter notification:
<Ferocious Beast: Black Beetle>
<Rank: Mid-Iron>
<Protective Shield Talent: E Grade>
Ethan's predator instincts screamed 'jackpot.' The beetle was massive compared to the ones from his previous life, sure, but something was off about its movement patterns. The way it wandered aimlessly, like it was lost.
'Wait a second...' Ethan's intuition kicked in. 'An E Grade talent, but its rank is only mid-iron? This has to be a lost youngling.'
One problem though - where there's a baby mob, there's usually a very angry parent mob nearby.
No time to overthink the encounter.
"This is a limited-time even, if I had ever seen one."
Ethan's body blurred into motion. His claws, already proven capable of almost one-shotting mid-iron targets, aimed at the young beetle.
The beetle's defensive instincts triggered at the last possible second.
The beetle was about to activate its talent, but it was too late.
One clean hit. That's all it took for the beetle to drop dead.
The beetle's massive body crashed to the floor. No dramatic death animation, and no special effects. Just another successful farming run.
But this one came with an unexpected talent unlock.
<You have killed Mid-Iron Black Beetle>
<Ferocious Beast: Black Beetle> <Devour>
<Rank: Mid-Iron>
<Protective Shield Talent: E Grade>