Leveling up (1)

As Ramie initiated a conversation with the girl, she appeared to be a bit nervous when talking to him. The timidity evident in her face was hard to conceal.

Through this short interaction, Ramie though of her to be the type of person who acts reserved with those they're not familiar with and only open up to those they knew. Thus, to lighten the atmosphere between them, he threw in few jokes, to break the ice.

Unfortunately, this approach of his was still considered too forced to her, as it backfired, making the girl even more nervous.

It was only when he showed his artifact to the girl, did he manage to find a common ground to converse about. And it worked, as afterward, the girl's attitude toward him turned 180 degree. Only then did he get to chat a bit with her to lighten the mood before proceeding to ask her what he really wanted to learn.

"What…! Your 23 years old!" As he chatted with her a bit, he came to learn a startling fact, a one that really caught him by surprise.

At first, he judged Reem by her appearance to be around 17 to 19 years old. But now… turns out that she was actually 23 years old! An entire year older than him!

He was very surprise at this particularity, and couldn't help but to cast another assessing glance at her.

The brown hair that was cut in a long pixie styled haircut, the large, bright and watery eyes that brimmed with high spirit, and the small nose, not to mention the heart shaped face… all of these features together had given her a younger appearance. Not to mention her shorter than average, petite physical structure that coupled with her adorable features; made her look exceedingly cute.

Although her outstandingly refined features were more than enough to earn her the title of pretty woman, but the radiating cuteness that she exuded had completely dominated that beauty, overshadowing it to a large extent, and making her look cuter at the expense of appearing beautiful.

Actually, now that he took a careful look at her, while knowing her true age; he felt that it wasn't highly unlikely for her to be 23. After all, some people would just have ageless features that would make it very hard to judge their age by outer looks alone.

Seeing that she was talking to him freely, with her previous nervousness melting away, he steered the conversation toward the crux of the matter – the artifact!'

"So, Reem, Can you tell me how did you level up…?"

Finally, he asked the question that he was dying to hear the answer to right from the moment he saw the Lv.3 term in her stats.

The voice had clearly stated that the life energy and the artifacts could be used to fight the creatures and to survive. Besides, even if there was no voice at all… the fact that he was still alive till far was only thanks to his artifact, not to mention Lance's life energy.

Simply put, the importance of his artifact to stay alive in these exceedingly dark times… was more than just priority… it was a lifeline, a one that he'd die in no time without!

As such, he eagerly wanted to know on how these artifacts could be leveled? And also, what kind of effects would the leveling brings about?

In the earlier battle with the survivors group, the bold man had a life energy ignition of higher percent than Lance, which in turn, had made him stronger. In the end, Lance had won solely because of his fighting experience, as he had served in the elites, while that bold man fought using the gangsters, crude style of fighting.

So, Ramie couldn't help but to wonder about the type of improvement that he'd get when leveling up his artifact?!

Luckily, with Reem around, there was no need to wonder any more.

"Oh, leveling up…. That's easy! All you have to do is to… um… absorb magic cores." She answered in a soft voice. More ever, she answered with certainty, as if stating common sense.

"Magic cores…?" Ramie was confused by her answer for a moment. Then, his eyes widened in realization, as if recalling something.

He had remembered the people telling him about the words spoken by the voice; which mentioned these two words 'magic cores!' he also remembered the voice saying something about using these magic cores to level up the artifacts.

Although these words were already engraved in his memory, but so far, he had spent this entire period running from one perilous situation to another, he didn't have enough time or safe environment to ponder on these words, and on where to acquire these magic cores. But now that he had heard it from someone who had already leveled up twice, he immediately made the connection in his mind.

But… there was one problem… where to find these cores?

"Since you leveled up… you must have obtained those cores, right?! Then, can you tell me what do these cores look like, and where to find them?"

"Magic cores look like small, colorless, oval shaped and shiny gemstones. As where to get them…"

Having heard the first segment of her answer, Ramie was shocked for a moment, before his eyes lights up in realization. Opening his mouth, he finished her sentence for her: "… From the creatures!"

Saying so, he put his hand at his pocket to feel the ruby that had flown toward him from the head of the creature they had confronted in the third floor apartment back in the building.

"En?... yes, yes… exactly… you can get them from magical beasts corpses! If you deliver the finishing blow yourself, then the artifact will extract the core remotely and brings it to your hand. But if the magical beast dies by non-artifact holder, or by other reasons, then you have to extract the magical core on your own!" she said everything in one breath.

"Wait! You said magical beasts? Do you mean that we can find these magic cores in all the creatures outside?"

Reem had said a lot of critical information in one go. He needed to take his time in inquiring about everything she just said, one information at a time. But for now, the term magical beast was news to him. Beside, from her words, these creatures had magic cores in them, which was what he needed now. Also, if all of these creatures had these magic cores, then obtaining some of these cores wouldn't be impossible, as then, they'd just have to find some weak ones, and kill them for their cores.

"Hm… Well… not all of the creatures outside are magical beasts! Only small numbers of them are considered magical beasts! As for the rest… they are called vicious beasts."

Ramie was disappointed at this answer, because if these magical beasts were in low numbers, then finding those magic cores and leveling up wouldn't be an easy job.

"Oh! What's the difference?" Having seen that Reem knows some critical information that was directly associated to this situation, he kept inquiring.

"Only magical beasts have magical cores in their heads! The rest of them, have normal cores!"

Ramie was taken by this reveal, and couldn't help but to ask the obvious: "How do you know all of that?"

"When you level up, this knowledge will come naturally to you. About the artifact, the life energy, and even about the beasts… basically, the moment you level up, a lot of information will flow to your mind from your artifact, including the basic knowledge of using the artifacts… just like a tutorial!"

"Oh…!" Ramie was stunned by this answer for a moment. Then, his freighting yellow irises lit up intensely under the hood. This was the thing that he wanted to know about the most.

After all, the drastic physiological and morphological changes that his artifact brought about were weighting extremely heavy on his heart, burdening him to no end.

To have green skin that makes him look like an alien…! To have an ominous looking, dark flower atop his head…! To not have nose in his face…! To have freighting eyes that made him looks scarier than even ghosts…!

Who would feel comfortable looking this freakishly?!

It had caused him indescribably unrest. And even though the merits to this change had saved his life, and would probably increase his chances in surviving throughout this catastrophe… but he still wanted to know if this change was reversible, if there was another way to return to normal. And if there was away, then he'd opt to reverse this change once he finds a safe environment, where he would no longer need the advantages brought about by this morphing spell.

After all, not to mention the massive inconvenience he felt to have a look that was even more terrifying than the creatures, if the military or any other survivor with firearms, life energy, or artifacts sees him and kill him thinking that he was a creature, then there would be no end to his aggravation and grieve.

This though kept boggling him constantly. However, considering the severity of his current situation, he had pushed this thought to the back of his mind.

However, he knew ignoring this issue didn't mean that it was going to disappear on its own.

Even right now, as he is conversing with Reem, her curiosity was pushing her from time to time to try and take glance at his face that was concealed under the shadow of the hood. Most of the time, he wasn't even directly looking at her face, so as she couldn't see his yellow eyes.

Because, if she saw his monstrous eyes, and screamed in horror as any normal individual would, and that lead to the creatures attacking and eating them… then how ridiculous would that kind of fate be.

"So, every artifact can level up?" he asked Reem.

"Mn..." She nodded her head in response.

"Then, one core can get you up to level 3? Right…?"

"Um… No! One core from mid tier-1 magical beast can get you up to level two! To advance to level three, you'd need another five magic cores from the same quality or one magic core from a higher quality."

"…"

Hearing that, Ramie was startled. He couldn't help but to ask: "How many magic cores have you used… I mean absorbed?"

"Two…! One from mid tier-1 magical beast, and another from high tier-1 magical beast."

With a hint of pride on her heart-shaped cute face, she answered, while scratching her small nose, and trying her best not to smile.

Gulp!

With twitching facial muscles, Ramie gulped down his saliva, and couldn't help but to look at her under new light.

It was beyond difficult to imagine such a petite Shorty killing a savage tier-1 creature! Although he had no notion of what was the exact level of creature they had fought in the third floor? Was it mid, or high, or another distinction, but still, 'This girl' killing two 'savage creatures' was beyond his imagination.

Most likely, her killing these creatures was probably related to her artifact spells.

Right now, the questions he had in mind were endless. But before asking anything else, he reached out to his pocket, and pulled out the piece of the clothes. Starting to unwrap it, he reveled the grape-sized, translucent gemstone and held up his hand in front of the girl.

Gasp!

Covering her small mouth with her hands after a slight gasp, she looked at the gemstone in his hand with clear, shining eyes.

"This indeed is a magical core! How did you get it…?"

Ramie didn't answer, but instead ask: "Can you tell me how to level up now…?!"

…