Ch 18

.

.

.

______________________________________________

[Host Has Reached The Daily Cultivation Limit

[+10 All Stats, +50,000 Exp

______________________________________________

Doing the usual, Adrian woke up, ate a little bit of food to feel 'normal' washed, and set out to Melami Woods right afterward. Since he knew where he was going this time, it took a little less time to get there. Arriving at Melaimi Woods, Adrian immediately used his mini map to find the strongest species he could find in the outer layer.

After an hour of searching, Adrian found a pack of mantis that radiated an aura on another level. It also aroused Adrian's sense of battle, but he quickly controlled it, knowing that the stronger the monsters were the more sensitive they were to the surrounding auras as well as their instincts and intelligence.

Adrian waited for about 5 minutes before the pack separated for some reason, so he chose this time to attack one of the weaker ones since in the rules of the wild, the weak die, so this certain mantis would be the one abandoned the quickest.

The teen mantis sensed a strong pressure, but its instinct was strong enough to overpower the fact it was scared, dodging Adrian's attack. Adrian didn't seem to mind that it dodged, confusing the mantis since someone so powerful not being able to kill something weaker than them should infuriate him...right?

As soon as its thoughts finished, its vision began to become blurry before it collapsed. This was Adrian's doing and as soon as he saw the mantis fall down, he knew he had to get to work before the mantis really died. He quickly and skillfully made a magic core, cutting open a small part of the mantis's body and placing the core inside its torso.

The mantis then began to shake and twitch before its body slowly decayed. Seeing this, Adrian wanted to see why this happened, then looked at the amount of mana he used to kill the mantis and then looked at the amount of mana he used to make a core. He realized that he overpowered the body, making it explode, but because of its delicate features, it instead absorbed its body, trying to survive with what little mana it had been provided with.

No system notification appeared either, meaning that this didn't count as his kill either, so he began to go find some other species to test it out with since he would rather find the mantis pack and kill them than to experiment and fail while also not getting experience from them.

Adrian found a small pack of wolves, and even though they were technically his ancestors, he felt nothing killing all of them. He had killed about 20 of them and only experimented on about 10 of them before the other 10 died before he could use them in any way. Since they were too weak, he didn't get any exp from the other half either.

After hunting down multiple species and even trying to sync their mana and aura to understand which core could be integrated in a more efficient way, meaning that it wasn't the element nor his technique, but merely the monsters were too weak.

Getting a bit frustrated, Adrian began creating a smaller core with less mana in it, and pouring it even slower than usual, trying to test its minimal conditions before breaking, it still took quite a bit of mana from him, making him tired for a few seconds.

'Tch...this is taking a long time, better kill the mantis pack before someone else does.' Adrian thought as he began to track the mantis pack that he marked a few hours ago.

Because the mantis core had one of their members so easily killed without having the chance to even call for reinforcements, they were on alert. So when Adrian tried taking them by surprise, they reacted quickly and dodged, thus beginning a violent fight between Adrian and the mantis pack.

In the beginning, the mantis pack was able to stalemate with Adrian as their numbers and above average stats kept them alive, however, as their regeneration isn't as good as Adrian's, he began to overpower them. They slowly realized that as well, but they were getting too exhausted to escape, so Adrian easily killed the rest of the mantis by merely outlasting them.

Adrian was able to take out 1 medium magic core out of the 17 he killed. Becoming more efficient with the first few dozen experiments he had, he decided to put them into use and had already used 6 bodies before finally learning how much was needed for the minimal amount to not break, making a weaker magic core, pulling it out of the already dead 7th mantis corpse.

Not wanting to waste the other 10 corpses, he decided to practice his dismantling skills as well before earning 100,000 Exp, only because they were weaker than him already, which was why they didn't give much exp.

Adrian looked at the sky and looked at the time in his system. There should be around 3 more hours before he goes back, so he went on a decent hunt, killing multiple species of fanged rabbits, horned/venomous snakes, giant bears, horned wolves, and wild boars. From all the hunting and dismantling he did, he began to instead have the effects out, but only have the system tell him at the end of the day instead unless it's important subjects like quests, levels, and such.

After those two and a half hours of hunting, Adrian resting for a couple of minutes before heading back to Feldheim, gaining a total of 1 medium magic core, and 8 weaker magic cores, making a decent amount of progress towards the quest, but because of his onslaught, he would need to wait a few days for his new specimens would respawn.

When he returned to the guild all bloody, the people there were scared for a bit before seeing Adrian's mask and calming down. He gave only a portion of the weaker monsters he killed and dismantled today, though he still got a hefty surprise and 4 whole large silver coins!

He was surprised, and to avoid the stares of admiration, envy, amazement, and disdain, he went to the library to buy some books to research more on cores and how they work.

As Adrian finished picking out his books, he went back to the inn, greeted everyone before going to his room to start experimenting more on his creation of magic cores that would take a toll on him, even with his regenerative abilities.

He slowly got used to that feeling, also hoping that getting used to feeling a bit would help him with a breakthrough of knowledge. It was starting to get late in the afternoon, so he began taking out his books to see what corrections he could make.

He began to do the basics over again, memorizing the postures, breathing, mana flow, entryways of the cores, timing, and concentration.

He was able to experiment and comprehend the basics and was able to master them in around a couple of hours. Now he's just reading through the theory books to widen his foundation more before going onto the more advanced techniques.

Going through the four books he bought for 28 silver coins, he started to understand his mistakes, although the books weren't 100% correct, it gave him a pathway to understanding cores.

After pulling out a monster corpse on the floor and using his magic so the room wouldn't stink, he slowly started to make small cuts every on the body, referencing the books, saying that there were a few places where you could put the core at.

Testing this out and getting a few small reactions since the corpse couldn't be used, Adrian still learned a decent amount of core manipulation and monster anatomy, he was satisfied.

After reading through his books about cores and his experiments, he began reading the basics about alchemy and forging, so he won't be as lost going to Orutorth Academy. Reading these books for a bit, he begins to feel like he's learning even faster than before.

For the rest of the bodies he summoned, he began to dismantle the rest of the bodies he missed due to a slight miss count. After dismantling the rest of the corpses he used his natural magic to clean the inn's room and clear it of the stench of corpses, did he hear Alice knocking on his door.

"Come in Alice!" Adrian said somewhat loudly.

"Hey Adrian, what were you doing these last few hours? I didn't see you leave the room or even hunt when you came back here…" Alice said, a bit worried that he started to give up on his evolution for now.

Adrian caught this little expression and wanted to cheer her up so he replied, "Don't worry! I was just doing some experiments to test out if I could make artificial cores! It was also a success too!"

"A-art...ti...fi..c...ial?" Alice asked, confused since she didn't know what the word meant.

"Ah, artificial, it means man made/produced of something natural." Adrian replied.

"Alright, wait...does this mean you could…" Alice asked.

"Yep! I can make my own magical beasts! Evolution would be much easier with this!" Adrian cut her off.

"T-that's great, I'll work harder to catch up to you!" Alice said, full of determination.

"Mn. Alright, it's getting late now, you should go back to your room and rest so you can get up early…" Adrian said.

"I know! I'm not that much of a kid alright!? Hmph." Alice said harrumphing out of the room.

After Alice left his room, Adrian went to meditate, though he was interrupted by his daily gains that were reported by his system.

______________________________________________

[Daily Report...

[Quest Progress Updated…

[Quest: (2/5) Medium Cores Gathered…

[Skills:

[M. Core Creation Leveled Up x4!

[Dismantle Leveled Up x2!

[Enlightened Learning Leveled Up!

[Magic Pressure Leveled Up x4!

[Dual Wielding Master Leveled Up x2!

[Alchemy Leveled Up!

[Forging Leveled Up!

______________________________________________

Reading what he was able to do, he was satisfied and began to cultivate throughout the night again.