The crocodilian; one of those species of lizardmen that wasn't technically a 'lizard', but was still sometimes found in their tribes. They were powerful, intelligent combatants that were often the strongest individual in whatever tribe they resided.

  As was the case with this one. Until now, all the lizardmen attacked Ashton the moment he was spotted, but this one was taking its time. It was looking Ashton up and down, trying to figure out everything it could with just a few glances.

  Corpses were strewn about around him, yet he was alone. He was covered in injures, but didn't show a moment of weakness or hesitation even in front of this monster. Plus, the clothes that Ashton was wearing were clearly made of lizardman leather.

  The crocodilian warrior realised that Ashton was a strong opponent. Stronger than any other of the measly humans that resided in this damned place.

  That fact made this monster more excited than it had been since being brought to life in this world.

  It pulled back its head and let out a loud scream that had multiple purposes. One, letting everyone in the camp know that it had encountered the intruder. And two, it was a scream of a warrior preparing themself for battle. The scream hyped the monster up, and was supposed to frighten the opponent. That latter part had worked perfectly well this time, too.

  By the time the crocodilian looked down, that tiny human had already run away and was nowhere to be seen. The crocodilian grinned broadly, taking a step forward.

  'What, do you think this is going to be some kind of hunt?' Ashton thought to himself from within the shadows, taking that brief moment where the crocodilian wasn't looking to hide between some nearby boxes. The remaining lizardmen that Ashton hadn't killed yet were the only ones that were stunned or had fear inflicted in them by that scream, so they hadn't been paying attention either.

  If this guy was like the crocodilians that Ashton had encountered before, then he knew their weaknesses relatively well. Just that he never actually had to make use of that knowledge before. Crocodilians were never a match for him back in Lumia, since he was already far stronger than anything the system could really throw at them by the time it came around.

  The crocodilian kept looking around, trying to find a trace of Ashton. But he still wasn't revealing himself. He had to wait for the right moment and opportunity.

  Just a few more moments... the crocodilian stared at the ground, looking at the puddle of blood. It sniffed the air, and grinned broadly as it looked into the shadows, exactly where Ashton was hiding.

  From its point of view, it had gotten the upper hand. It had found that cowardly little intruder that hid the first moment he could. Surely, he would be too scared to move now. There was nowhere for him to go. He had trapped himself.

  The monster pulled its weapon up, that massive bone cleaver, and swung it down at the boxes Ashton was hiding between. And right then, the moment the downward motion began, Ashton pushed himself out of hiding with a force spell from the wisp.

  He shot out, low on the ground, and slid between the elite monster's legs. The moment he passed by under its tail, Ashton pushed himself back up with his staff, vaulting over the appendage as the crocodilian tried to instinctively swing the tail at Ashton.

  But instead of letting himself be hit, Ashton landed on the tail, digging his feet into it. The crocodile shivered in response and tried to twist its body around, continuing to whip its tail around.

  Despite having extremely tough skin, these guys were also sensitive as hell. They had sensory organs all over their bodies that helped them keep track of even the slightest changes in the air. But if someone went and overwhelmed those senses, they often didn't quite know what to do.

  Ashton wasn't just squatting there while hiding in the shadows, no, he had swapped out his cigarette. This one, instead of having healing effects, made the parts touched by the smoke hypersensitive to cold. It was essentially a magical menthol cigarette. It was extremely uncomfortable to Ashton already, but he would be fine. He could deal with the cold well enough, and the oversensitivity and pain was focused just on the inside of his mouth, since he didn't inhale it fully.

  But for a cold-blooded lizardman that was already trying to fend off the frost that Ashton put here, this smoke was, to put it lightly, extremely fucking annoying. Ashton blew the smoke onto the crocodilian's back and jumped off the base of its tail before it could swing the cleaver at him. Since there were still some other lizardmen to take care of, Ashton rushed toward those and started smashing their skulls in.

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  The elite monster fully turned around and took big, heavy steps toward Ashton. It was visibly and thoroughly pissed off. If he were dealing with a berserker or something, that might have been bad for Ashton, but he knew the traits of tribes following Shimia.

  The way they usually fought was simple. They weakened their enemies with poison, attacked them with overwhelming force to wipe them out as fast as they could, and then used healing to immediately recover any injuries. Tribes that followed Shimia were generally known as war-tribes that could easily take over a whole region, because they could essentially keep fighting again and again.

  They were well-balanced as a tribe, but they were focused on full-scale attacks. Wars. When they didn't have the ability to prepare, or fully underestimated the enemies they were faced with, they could be overturned well enough.

  And since Ashton had already taken out the most powerful poison and healing units respectively. Sure, they still had powerful poisons lying around and probably something akin to healing potions. But if Ashton was able to resist the poisons and left none of the monsters alive to get healed in the first place, both of that was pretty useless.

  Of course, they were individually stronger than other lizardmen, and worked together well, but by now, Ashton was stronger than they were. He already killed opponents that were physically much stronger than him over the past week, not to mention the past century that he spent in Lumia.

  That didn't mean he could take his opponents lightly. The knife of a goblin would cut his skin perfectly fine. And what he was dealing with here was a monster with physical strength comparable to a boss.

  Every swing of that massive cleaver was dodged or deflected, though the rather was already a bit risky. No matter how sturdy, at the end of the day, Ashton's weapon was just a mundane staff. If only Ashton had properly awakened his mana already.

  Awakening your mana was basically the stage that was needed to use combat techniques. It was essentially the equivalent to spellcasting for physical combatants. The system's combat skills took over and simulated such an awakening, but since Ashton didn't have any such skills, he would have to do it manually, just like he was used to. And of course, he knew exactly what he had to do for this. The knowledge was ingrained in his soul. But knowledge wasn't the issue here.

  To 'awaken' your mana, you had to refine it. Mages had the concept of 'circles', a way to strengthen your mana for spellcasting and the general use of magic, though the form the circle took was different for each discipline, region, school, and often even the individual. But the concept of the circle was the same, anyway.

  Fighters, on the other hands, had 'cores'. A specialised centre for your mana that was used to refine it into something that was usable for proper physical attacks. Once again, the system took that step over and created that refined mana on its own to be used in skills.

  While Ashton had a core in the past, when he came back to earth, it had disappeared. All of Ashton's accumulated mana had disappeared, too, after all. And you needed quite a lot of it to even start forming a core. Ashton should be able to start once he reached around 40 spirit at the absolute, barest minimum. But even then, it would take a few days to get through the initial stage of refinement. The more mana he had access to within him, the more he could accelerate the process.

  However, as Ashton fought, as he felt the mana within him and the veil flow around his every moment, another thought came to him. He could shift his mana to allow for spellcasting without a circle, so why couldn't he refine his mana without a core?

  It didn't even need to be a lot. Just a few drops of it.

  By now, Ashton had gotten rid of the straggling lizardmen. More were approaching, but least for a little while, he was able to concentrate fully on the crocodilian.

  But this monster was strong. Crocodilians were already some of the toughest guys under the lizardman umbrella, but one packed with muscles like this one was even tougher. Ashton could only whittle down on it slowly, strike after strike.

  And as he did, he gathered his mana. It flowed through his vessel and into his staff. The veil reacted as if the fabric of the world was stretched thin. Now that Ashton knew how to shift mana in a different way than just changing its pattern, which he did to cast spells, he tried to force it closer to the way that it was when he used combat techniques in the past.

  Ashton stabbed his staff forward, hitting the centre of the crocodilian's chest. A pulse of mana was let out. The veil shook like the string of an instrument vibrating rapidly.

  Just a moment later, the crocodilian fell to its knees, and collapsed forward. It quivered, as if trying to resist the death that was about to come, but what Ashton did just now was simple enough. Well, it was simple enough for a being with this level of strength.

  He destroyed the crocodilian's magic stone. It was a precise, yet simple technique, using a minimal amount of mana. Well, it was also pretty wasteful. The magic stone of a monster this strong was useful, but Ashton didn't have the leisure to just waste more time than he already had. At the very least, its life was still accepted by the Daughter's quest.

  Ashton turned around and tried to step away, to take just a single moment of a break. His whole body was screaming out in pain. No, it came from somewhere 'deeper' than his body. It was his vessel that was in pain. Like touching an exposed nerve, using this sort of technique without a core was not something that this body and soul were made for.

  Even the wisp, undine, and sylph could tell that something was going on. They were shaking, too. Not because they were in pain, but because they were scared about what just happened. Ashton couldn't even imagine what everyone that was currently within Ashton's vessel felt like.

  As Ashton felt a metallic taste creep up onto his tongue, he took a deep breath.

  "Alright. That was enough of a break. Let's keep at it."