CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 26

The battle was intense, but the group finally managed to defeat the iron claw.

"It was more challenging than I thought," Reily thought as he sighed, wondering how to deal with beasts with high defense.

The beast was strong and very resistant, but not unbeatable.

Reily was sure he could have defeated it alone, although it would have taken more time.

His agility was already good enough for his current rank, so he thought of focusing more on his Attack and defense.

While Reily was lost in his thoughts, Jenna and Clarisse, seeing that the battle was over, took some time to catch their breath.

Clarisse was low on mana and didn't want to use her only magic potion now, letting her mana recover naturally over time.

She wanted to preserve it for the next battles, as she might need it then.

Now that they were out of danger, it was better to recover naturally.

On the other hand, Jenna began to gather her arrows, to see which ones could still be used.

Many of them had been destroyed by the iron claw, and others not.

A good portion of the arrows were embedded in the beast's body, so she approached it and began to remove them and examine their condition.

As she did, she turned to Reily,

"The smell of the corpse might attract other beasts to this area.

We don't have enough space to carry all the beast's materials, so I would suggest taking only the mana core and some other parts of the beast."

she said as she finished storing the still usable arrows in her quiver.

Having examined the corpse, and seeing all the signs of burns, cuts, and more, she could tell that its fur was almost entirely useless.

Reily nodded upon hearing her and proceeded to take his dagger from his waist and approach the beast's large belly.

The mana core, for the most part, is always found towards the abdomen area of creatures, with few exceptions.

So, he began to cut the beast's skin from there and dig until the end.

While Reily and Jenna began to take all the useful materials from the beast, Clarisse, who was a short distance from them, couldn't help but feel a bit nauseous at this sight.

She had been an adventurer for a few months now, and although she had seen many such situations, she had not yet entirely accustomed to it.

She almost always left this task to her companions, and the few times she had to do it herself, she risked vomiting.

Even though she could avoid looking at them, she knew she had to get used to this sight, so she tried not to vomit as she continued to watch.

After a few minutes, Jenna and Reily finished retrieving what little they could, and prepared to leave.

Even Clarisse, who had fully recovered her mana, got up and left with them.

They had taken only the beast's articles, which were good material for building weapons, and the beast's mana core.

The mana core was a dark red sphere, about the size of a tennis ball.

Initially, it was used to absorb pure mana inside and improve one's own mana core, but over time it was not limited to just that.

From magical weapons to artifacts, mages found various uses for it, so it could be sold for quite high prices.

Just think that an F-rank mana core could be sold for a minimum price of 10 silver coins.

Reily, Jenna, and Clarisse had decided to split the loot equally at the end of the hunt, so for now, they put everything aside and focused on their mission.

As they moved towards another location, still near this area of the forest, Reily took this time to examine the messages from the system that had arrived after defeating the iron claw.

Opening the screen, he saw a series of notifications appear one after the other in front of him.

DING!

[Congratulations. You have killed an F-rank iron claw]

[You gained 100 EXP]

[Having killed an F-rank beast for the first time, you will receive 50% more EXP]

[You gained another 50 EXP]

Reily was amazed to see the amount of experience he had received from the monster.

He expected to receive a lot of EXP from an awakened beast, but the amount was still higher than he imagined.

To earn this amount of EXP, he would have to hunt down at least 20 Horned Rabbits; that's how vast the difference in EXP was between an F-rank and a non-evolved beast.

He could see his EXP percentage increasing rapidly, stopping only after reaching 96%.

An increase of almost 30%.

Reily knew that by the end of the day, he would reach the next level.

However, the series of notifications did not end here.

[Congratulations, you have completed the special mission.]

[---------------------------------

[Mission]

- Hunt down an awakened beast.

Mission State (1/1) [COMPLETED!]

Rewards:

- Skill: Appraisal [click here to redeem]

Time limit: none

---------------------------------]

Reily raised his hand to press on the screen in front of him to receive the ability.

Another status window appeared in front of him, showing the description of the ability.

[---------------------------------

[Appraisal]:

Level: 1

Description: It's an ability that allows the user to examine basic information about everything around them. The higher level the subject on which the ability is used compared to the user, the less effective the ability will be on it.

For the ability to provide more information, it must be leveled up.

To use it, the target must be within the user's visual area.

---------------------------------]

Reading the information about the ability, Reily was not very surprised.

He had already read about similar abilities in novels, so he had a basic understanding of how to use it.

Reily wondered if he would have to wait for a specific daily mission to increase the ability level, or if he would have to find other ways to do it.

After some time, the group arrived near the course of a river.

Just as they approached it, they stopped their steps.

In front of them, just a few meters away, there was a creature peacefully drinking water from the river.

The creature seemed unaware of their presence as it continued to drink.

It was one and a half meters tall and nearly two meters wide.

It had green skin, a feline face with pairs of hairy pointed ears turned upwards, and a long, flat green tail, like a leaf, sticking out from behind.

'we finally found it,' they all thought as they looked at the creature a short distance away, which closely resembled the one in the portrait on the mission leaflet they had taken.

It was a Greenleaf Stalker.