The Lupine System-Chapter 148: Lunar Energy
Lunar Energy
Mike opened his eyes, and for a moment, the shape of a full moon was reflected in his irises, but it disappeared as fast as it appeared, causing him to blink a few times in rapid succession.
’... Whoa.’ Mike thought and stared down at his arms. They looked the same, but they, along with the rest of his body, felt different.
He stood up and stretched a few times, trying to get used to the new sensation, but he still didn’t have a word for it.
"... Mike?" A hoarse voice called from behind, and Mike spun to see Kris peaking from the mouth of the cave, only the upper part of his face visible, his eyes puffy.
"Oh, hey...?" Mike scratched his head. "You feeling better?" He asked.
’Did I cause a scene?’ He added in his heart.
Kris didn’t say anything for a moment, just stared at him with those glossy yet sharp eyes.
"... There was a weird energy fluctuation just now..." He mumbled, but Mike still heard it, making him frown.
’Was it related to me?’ Mike wondered, but Kris kept going.
"You seem more..." He lingered. "Stable." Mike blinked, then...
’Ah. That’s right. That’s the word I was looking for.’ He looked down at his hands again.
He never noticed it until now. But there had always been an odd feeling of disconnect, like he’d been at odds with his own body. The feeling lessened whenever he used his Partial Transformation or raised his ferocity. Still, he never really noticed there was a problem until it got fixed.
After a few seconds, he looked up at Kris and smiled.
"Let’s just say I managed to figure something out." Hearing this, Kris just stared at Mike for a bit, nodded slowly, and retreated back into the cave.
’Phew. Alright.’ He looked forward again, and after a few seconds, he decided to pull up his stats panel.
STATS
[Name]: Mike
[Age]: 17
[Race]: Lupine
[Level]: 44
---
STATS
Strength: 251.6
Agility: 230.8
Endurance: 264.9
Vitality: 273.3
Perception: 304.5
Lunar Meter: 100/100
Allocatable Stat Points: 36
Ferocity: 9% (stable)
Mike’s brows jumped.
’Huh. I got two levels from that? Neat.’ He nodded, however, he wasn’t as excited about the levels as he normally would be as his attention was drawn by something else.
’Lunar Meter? That has to be related to the whole moon thing, right?’ Mike wondered as he briefly recalled the celestial body of impossible sizes he’d witnessed just moments ago.
’System, what does it do?’ He asked. But instead of the system answering him, a description just appeared in front of him.
[Lunar Energy: A unique energy source more ancient than even Primal energy. Its uniqueness stems from the fact that, one, not all Lunar Energy is the same, and two, it has the capacity to affect and influence forces of both obscure and conspicuous.
In the case of the Host, his Lunar Energy stems from the Progenitor Moon, which is the first of it’s kind. The abilities of this Lunar Energy include, but are not limited to, reinforcing the natural order of things like natura selection, predator-prey drive, and submission.
Moreover, the usage of Lunar Energy operates under moon phases. Depending on what phase the Host’s Lunar Energy is on, the results differ.]
After Mike finished reading it, he tilted his head.
’Huh. I mean, it’s pretty good, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t really sound... all that?’ He mused. It sounded okay, but he was really seeing the kicker that made the system place so much importance on it.
’Then again, I don’t know anything, so I’m probably just missing the true importance. But... Progenitor Moon, huh?’ He once more recalled the giant moon he’d witnessed during the evolution. ’... Yeah, that’s an appropriate name. Still... what does that mean?’ He sighed.
’System, can you elaborate more on this?’ Mike asked.
[More uses of Lunar Energy will be revealed when Host creates his first Lupine.]
Mike paused at that.
’... What do you mean by that?’ He narrowed his eyes.
[Exactly that.] The system replied frankly.
Mike’s lips twitched, recognizing that the system wasn’t going to elaborate if he pressed.
Resisting the urge to curse it, he looked back at the new tab, then he looked at his stats.
’36 stat points...’ He deliberately for a moment, then he assigned them.
STATS
[Name]: Mike
[Age]: 17
[Race]: Lupine
[Level]: 44
---
STATS
Strength: 255.6
Agility: 235.8
Endurance: 269.9
Vitality: 278.3
Perception: 320.5
Lunar Meter: 100/100
Allocatable Stat Points: 0
Ferocity: 9% (stable)
Once again, Mike let the familiar feeling of his strength increasing, with the most obvious change being in his perception as he added 16 into it and 5 into the rest.
It took him a moment to adjust, then nodded and focused back on the new Lunar Meter.
’What can I do with you...?’ He hummed and thought about using it.
As soon as he did, a feeling washed over him as a familiar energy rose, and it reminded him a lot of the feeling he got when he witnessed the Progenitor Moon for the first time.
It wasn’t forceful or abrupt. Instead, it was quite gentle, almost cradling as it enveloped him.
Outwardly, there wasn’t really a change to his appearance, but around him, numerous milky white particles floated around him silently. Moreover, under his shirt, the moon tattoo from before appeared again. But instead of a full moon, it was a sharp crescent, signifying a new moon.
[Ding. Lunar Energy has been employed. New Moon phase detected. All stealth skills and abilities have been amplified by 50%. The skill Unseen Hunter has been augmented several fold.
As soon as Mike heard the notification, his eyes opened and widened with surprise.
’Wait, what?’ Blinking, he quickly pulled up his stats and looked at the Unseen Hunter skill.
[• Unseen Hunter – Predators aren’t always noisy. Some wait. Some watch. Some learn. With Unseen Hunter, the user can suppress their presence. Every breath, sound, and intent, allowing them to fade out of notice even when standing in the open.
While hidden, the user builds up ’Drive’. A silent pressure born from observation. The longer the user observes a target, the more Drive gathers. Drive fuels the opening strike, amplifying it’s force, speed, and precision. Moreover, the first strike the user initiates while in the Unseen Hunter state is always incredibly difficult to detect, making it so that the first strike always lands. If the user chooses not to engage or loses focus, Drive fades over time.
Due to being augmented by the Lunar Energy of the New Moon phase, the effectiveness of Unseen Hunter has been amplified several fold.]
’... Huh.’ Mike rubbed his chin. Perhaps it’s because he’d been receiving a lot of benefits recently, but he didn’t have the drive to be jumping around in joy. He was still happy, though.
’So the Energy of the New Moon phase augments my stealth abilities? Does that mean different phases augment different things?’ His lips quirked up slightly, but he refrained from immediately trying out a new thing.
Instead, he focused on what was happening right now.
With a breath, he looked into the distance. With his incredible vision, his eyes were no different from state of the art military binoculars, easily focusing on targets incredibly far away.
Soon, he spotted a creature a few miles in the distance. It was camouflaged against a large boulder, its body made up of rocky segments, and Mike quickly realized it was some sort of centipede.
With a thought, he willed his presence to vanish as he made the creature the subject of his scrutiny, and he was pleasantly surprised when he managed to activate the Unseen Hunter state almost instantly, his presence becoming muted to the surrounding world.
’That was much faster than before!’ He exclaimed inwardly with a giddy expression, but he didn’t lose focus.
Instead, he kept observing centipede, noting its characteristics and deducing certain things.
’It’s most likely on the lower half of the food chain and clearly an ambush predator. From that fact, it’s easy to guess that it has something sort of toxin or venom either in its teeth or legs. Paralyzing or petrifying toxins, perhaps?’ As he made his deductions, he was both surprised and amazed to feel that his hunting Drive was accumulating at a rate far faster than before.
Not only was it fast, he was also getting more Drive per observation. While it was difficult to accurately calculate how much Drive he got from observing a target, it was easy to guess that he got more Drive the more he observed, and the more significant the observation, the more Drive got built up in that moment.
Right now, Mike was certain that he was getting a lot more Drive per observation.
’This is great!’ He thought, pleased, then he had a thought and checked his Lunar Meter.
Lunar Meter: 89/100
Mike was a little taken aback by the number, but he didn’t look away until he saw the number go down again.
’I see. So it gets drained at a rate of 1 point every ten seconds. So a little over 16 minutes to fully drain. Then again, my instincts tell me that this is the absolute barebones usage for my Lunar Energy, and the system implied the same as well.’ He hummed.
’System, how do I raise my Lunar Energy?’ He suddenly asked.
[With stat points. One stat points equates to 50 points of Lunar Energy.] The system replied curtly.
’Oh? That’s pretty good actually! Wait... I already used all my points....’ Mike suddenly felt a headache appear.
’It’s fine... I’ll just level up more.’ He grumbled, but he wasn’t really mad. Instead, he just kept on experimenting.
Now that the threat of the full moon had abated, Mike could afford to focus on other things. And once Kris and Theresa fully recovered, he was going to do three things.
Acquire as many points as possible.
Create more measures to defeat the Titanic Corpse Flower.
... And find Namor Vortan.
Because Mike was many things, and vindictive was absolutely one of those things. The Titanic Corpse Flower had made him flee for his life, and Namor had turned pretty much their entire grade against him and his friends.
He was NOT gonna let those slide.
