[Grove Hivemind (Main Body)]
[Level: 10]
[Talent: Botanical Control]
[Strength: 30]
[Agility: 0]
[Vitality: 50]
[Stamina: 50]
[Mana: 30]
[Aptitude: 30]
[Skill/s: Regeneration(passive), Leaf Blades, Detection]
Looking at the stats of the opponent in front of him, Azrael had a mix of emotions: joy at the fact that this thing is even stronger than the old guard he previously wanted to defeat, annoyance, and concern at the fact that this thing might be stronger than what he can currently handle.
'No time to think, I won't be able to escape here anyway,' he thought to himself as he started charging towards the giant rubber tree, nimbly moving his tall body around effortlessly, dodging all the attacks that the tree was sending towards him.
'It seems like he can't control the leaves the moment they leave its branches,' observing the leaf attacks not curving or moving in any sort of peculiar way, Azrael deduced one of the fatal flaws and limitations of the tree's skill, something that he can capitalize on in order to slay the tree.
Approaching near the tree, he refuses to attack at all as he knew that there would be no point in using the weapons he currently has to attack the tree, especially when there is a regeneration skill attached to it. Instead, he surveys the entire tree in search of a weak spot he can take advantage of, something that will easily take a chunk out of the tree's life.
"There should be some weak spot of sort that will help me beat this tree, these things are powerful but have immense limitations imposed upon them after all" speaking to himself, Azrael steps into the branches of other trees surrounding the rubber tree, leveraging his movement speed to dodge and move around, effectively providing him with enough time to scout the entire tree while covering him from most of the attacks.
"Fuck!! That was dangerous…" he complained as he dodged another wave of leaf blades that came dangerously close towards him, leaving behind some tears to the long coat he was wearing, signifying the danger of getting cut by one of those leaves.
The only good thing that he never fails to take advantage of is that while the tree got sentience, it is fairly dumb enough to fall for the most basic tricks in the book, even going as far as making it attack parts of the trees connected to it using its Leaf Blades, making his job a bit easier as he no longer need to deal with the trees cut using this trick.
As he continues weaving around, the tree surrounding the main body starts thinning, only leaving behind a bit more than a dozen compared to the original near hundred trees, dozens of trees that eventually fall around with just a few more minutes of him dodging and moving around to trick the enemy's main body.
"Finally, we can face each other one-on-one." Looking at the near bald main body of his enemy, Azrael decided to taunt it even more to make it spend the last few Leaf Blades remaining on its body. After all the tiring things he had to do, the tree is finally without any means to attack or defend, but it doesn't mean the end of their battle.
Given the resilience of the tree, partnered with the regeneration skill it possesses, Azrael is also quite troubled about how he should deal with the tree. Thinking for a bit, he decided to move away from the tree and run towards a specific direction, making the tree believe that the human who just humiliated it had given up on trying to kill it.
Out of the tree's knowledge, though, Azrael is currently breaking into one of the stores nearby, grabbing as much alcohol as he can before he pockets a lighter, then proceeding to rush towards the now bald tree again.
Carrying more than three baskets of alcohol in his hands, he started throwing the glass containers, holding them towards the tree, bathing the tree with a sweet smell as it started getting more and more drenched by the alcohol, wondering what the human was trying to do, until he saw something he was holding, a lighter.
Seeing the fire ignited from what the human is holding, the tree's branches started to sway as if to express its terror; unfortunately for it, the young man in front of it doesn't even know what it's saying, nor would the young man care even if he knew.
"Die." Throwing the lighter across, Azrael just spoke one word as he watched the tree instantly catch fire, watching calmly as he stood straight in front of the surging flames, the flame reflected perfectly in his eyes, giving a cold feel to him.
After half an hour of watching the tree burn, the thing he had been waiting for finally arrived, the floating screen in front of him displaying something that brought a pleasant surprise to him.
[Congratulations on your first kill. As a reward, two skill points will be granted, which can be allocated later. In addition, the comprehensive strength of the creature you killed will be taken into account when deciding the amount of True energy to be infused during talent awakening.]
[Referencing Life Records… Complete. Now awakening talent…]
[Congratulations on awakening the talent: Cellular Hypertrophy]
[Cellular Hypertrophy (Supreme Grade)]
[Level 1 (0/100)]
[Ability to continuously improve the body through intensive activities that push it to the limit. There are no limits to the improvements]
[Current effect: Doubles the stats permanently. Can increase the multiplier up to 10 times temporarily. After ten minutes of maintaining this state, the user will enter a fatigue period, with all their stats being halved. The permanent and temporary multipliers will increase as the level of the talent increases. The additional permanent multipliers from subsequent level-ups will be calculated after the majority of attribute increasing effects were calculated; the multipliers from each level up are retroactive.]
"Supreme grade… growth type…" reading the description of the talent he acquired, Azrael is quite disappointed as he doesn't acquire the previous talent he had in his previous life. However, the disappointment doesn't last too long since he was baffled by the information of his new talent, the reason being the absurdity of its description.
Recalling his previous life, he is completely sure that there are only seven grades of talent, ranking from lowest to highest being Entry, Intermediate, Advance, Celestial, Divine, Heavenly, and Supreme. Not to mention his talent sitting at the exalted Supreme grade, even the most talented human from before he regressed only possesses a pseudo-divine grade talent, and it's already capable of dominating all other talent across the planet.
In addition to that, the talent he awakened is also a growth type one, something that is well known to be able to break through its current grade and proceed to a higher talent grade as well, with only a few people in the previous timeline that managed to awaken such talent, and each one of them became legends, heroes of humanity.
'Just what is it that goes beyond the supreme grade?' Azrael wonders to himself as he couldn't even begin to imagine just what kind of absurd level he will reach once his talent progresses enough.
The rewards just start coming for him, though, as the next second, another flash from the system screen appears in front of his eyes.