Life Stone Extraction

"Finally."

Pushing his hand into the open heart, Damian delightfully pulled out a small stone. Although it was gray, it somehow shone in white.

'jackpot.'

Damian couldn't tell the identity of the heart at first glance. However, he could more or less guess its use.

Besides, there was no reason to grasp at straws when he had a convenient tool within his reach.

[ Life Stone: The crystallization of an otherworldly being's life energy. Can be used as an energy nurturing resource. ]

'I knew it!'

Some special monsters might drop materials specific to a certain quest, but the majority of normal monsters dropped ability boosters!

In Iris' case, this was definitely something that could help her advance her Aura ability!

"Hey, Iris. Do you know what this is?"

{Oh? They even have Magic Stones?! Wait… No. This looks like a Magic Stone, but the color is different. The ones I saw from afar were blue.}

Iris alternated between shock, and confusion before finally settling on curiosity.

While she was personally never granted a single Magic Stone, Iris had studied quite a bit when she was little. So, she was somewhat knowledgeable about Magical Beasts and the resources contained in their hearts.

Nonetheless, she never expected that these strange green creatures would have something similar!

"And what is the use of a Magic Stone?"

{Knights like me can use it to assist their Aura Nurturing process, Mages have other uses for them…}

Iris was trying her best to provide as much information as possible, but Damian only seemed to pay her half his mind. His eyes were completely focused on the stone in his hands.

{D-don't tell me you actually plan on using it? I'm sure you know best, but it would be a waste to use something like that with a body like mine…}

It didn't matter that this stone looked different, Damian could just go back if something was wrong with it. However, Iris didn't want to waste the fruit of his efforts for nothing.

Since she could barely accumulate any Aura over the years, Iris wasn't allowed even a single Magical Stone.

She might have dreamed of using it once and achieving the impossible, but Iris eventually understood everyone's perspective as she grew up.

Dreams were nothing in front of hard cold reality! Iris believed that Damian could find many better uses for the stone than utilizing it with her body!

"Don't sell yourself too short. There might be more to you than meets the eye. Besides, the information you relayed to me was quite helpful, so you can just consider it your reward."

Of course, from Damian's perspective, there was nothing better than strengthening the only body at his disposal. The words of a Chosen One's family were always meant to be used in reverse.

{No! I really didn't do anything useful, just-}

"Alright, I get it. If you didn't do anything useful, then you have less to say in this matter. Since I earned this stone all on my own, I'm the one who gets to decide on its use."

{But-}

"No buts, now get back to your position."

Using a slightly harsher tone, Damian beckoned Iris to go back on watch duty. This Possession Subject was extremely lacking in self-confidence, and while Damian had thoughts about fixing that, now wasn't the time.

'Silly girl.'

Despite being so against it, Iris kept taking a peek every few seconds. She was obviously anticipating what would happen. Unfortunately, Damian had no plan to immediately use the Life Stone.

'I need to test 'that' at the same time.'

He had to scratch the rest of his tickets first before moving on to the next step!

Moving on to the next Goblin, Damian used his last… Or what should have been his last Aura charge to open the corpse up.

'Oh, so it doesn't take forever.'

Another Aura charge had regenerated during the time Damian cut up the first Goblin!

Not only was Damian getting a better grasp on Aura usage, but he also started considering how he could finish his task even more efficiently.

This time, instead of targeting the chest, he went for the abdomen.

'As expected.'

Retracing his steps, Damian counted how many mistakes he made due to his quick decisions. He tried to consider everything, but his mind couldn't react that precisely just yet.

His first dissection was extremely clumsy, not only wasting all of his Aura but also learning little to nothing.

If he had bothered to check the softness of the Goblins' abdominal muscles compared to their chest ones, he would have been able to poison the Hobgoblin faster by aiming there!

The same could be said about the additional Aura charge that was wasted to open up the bones, he could have just gone under them if he had cut the corpse a little lower.

'Well… As long as I'm learning.'

Damian's inner perfectionist wasn't satisfied by the mistakes, but he had to constantly remind himself that this wasn't a game. It was already a miracle that he got this far using an actual body…

Without further ado, Damian used the opening he made to cut further into the stomach. He then forced his hand in to fish for the heart.

'Disgusting.'

The mess that came along with it was probably another reason why Damian's mind didn't try to think of another dissection option until he forced it to do so.

"Gotcha."

As for the result of this lootbox…

'Another one!'

It was another winning ticket!

Damian was still tired, but the constant jackpots motivated him to directly go for the third Goblin. Since the time consumed was reduced to about 5 minutes, it felt like it was all going to be over soon!

'Bummer…'

Unfortunately, the third Goblin was a dud. However, since another Aura charge had regenerated in the meantime, Damian went for the fourth and he was happy to have done so.

Only one was empty so far, but Damian was forced to wait for the next ticket scratching.

'So it takes about ten minutes for each recharge?'

After waiting for roughly 5 more minutes, Damian was able to wield one more Aura charge. That meant he would need a whole hour for a full regeneration.

'Let's hope this will change soon.'

Thankfully, the wait was worth it, the fifth and sixth Goblin were both winners!

'God, please don't let it be a dud!'

Dropping back to the ground to rest some more, Damian looked at the Hobgoblin's corpse with dread. This was obviously going to take more than one Aura scalp to open it up.

As much as Damian was happy to get 5 winners out of six, he couldn't help feeling that this diminished his chance of getting something out of the Hobgoblin…

'...Optimistic thoughts only!'

Once he got one more charge to work with, Damian stood up with determination. There was no use wallowing in fear.

At the very least, what awaited him after was still going to be exciting whether he got something out of the Hobgoblin or not!