Coming Clean

In the study that he was reading, it was concluded that when the Ember Soldier Ants were killed, the nest would offer only two kinds of responses.

One was to let nearby Ember Soldier Ants go for backup, and the second was to send another pair of Ember Soldier Ants to replace the pair that had been killed.

It was noted that no matter how many pairs of Ember Soldier Ants were killed, the nest would only respond according to the two mentioned above.

And this would only change when all of the Ember Soldier Ants they have inside the nest get completely wiped out.

Upon recalling the events earlier, Lucas had only hunted a total of ten pairs of Ember Soldier Ants. Even with the smallest nest, this kind of number was nothing great and was only a drop in a bucket of their total number of Ember Soldier Ants.

Up until now, Lucas thought that he was the cause of the Ember Ant Nest incident.

However, based on the study he was reading, it doesn't seem like he was the one who caused the disturbance in the Ember Ant nest at all.

The guilt he was feeling lessened even further.

Now replaced with curiosity, Lucas read further to freshen up his knowledge about the Ember Ants.

After finishing the study, Lucas concluded that he was indeed not the cause of the disturbance.

In the study, the disturbance was also mentioned, and it can agitate the whole Ember Ant nest.

However, the only method to do so was for someone to go directly to the nest entrance and create chaos there.

Lucas had made sure that he did not go close to the entrance of the nest earlier, so it could not be him who caused the disturbance.

Confirming that, Lucas felt relieved and, at the same time, curious as to who it was that disturbed the Ember Ant's nest.

Based on Lucian's words earlier, the academy seemed to forbid the senior students from hunting the Ember Ants proactively. 

Second-year students like him who only experienced their first dungeon dive today would also not dare to confront the Ember Ants, so it could not be them as well.

Anyway, since this has nothing to do with him, Lucas decided to drop the matter and continue to grow stronger once they were allowed to go back in the dungeon again.

For the time being, he continued to read a lot of information to freshen up his knowledge about the beasts in the school-regulated dungeon.

It was only when he felt hungry that he went to the school cafeteria to eat.

The food and drinks in the school cafeteria were free for the students and the teachers. Although they did not offer luxurious foods and beasts meat that were extremely nutritious and delicious, what they offered was still fresh food that can easily be seen in the market.

Due to the nature of the world, one might think that the cost of living was pretty high and that basic food necessities would become extremely pricey.

However, due to the existence of beasts getting involved in labor and other industries, the cost of goods and services has actually gone cheaper compared to before the dungeons descended.

Of course, as a result of this, the basic salary of laborers had also gone lower, as they did not have to do much with their beasts helping them with their work.

For example, his father's job was a construction laborer. During the pre-descent, the basic salary of such jobs would have given him a minimum salary of 18 Unity Cents per hour, but right now, such jobs only give him 10 Unity Cents per hour.

Unity Cents were a lower denomination of the Unity Coin, where a single Unity Coin had an equal value to 100 Unity Cents. Below the Unity Cent was the Unity Microcent, with a hundred of them equaling 1 Unity Cent.

Due to the risk and dangers of the beast destroying the money, the currency of this world was not printed or made into any physical form. Instead, they exist digitally, protected by the one and only remaining bank in the world, the World Unity Bank.

Just like other industries, the technology of this world has also started to grow rapidly recently due to the scholars owning powerful beasts that could help with their research.

It was said that after humanity stabilized themselves in one corner of the world, the technology industry was one of the major contributors to the stabilization of the situation, as they eased the mass panic and calmed everyone when the internet and communication were revived.

It was just unfortunate for the cars and transportation industry. 

Due to the existence of huge beasts that act as transportation vehicles and can carry more heavy loads compared to normal cars, they had slowly lost their purpose and hence had been slowly abandoned.

The prices of fuel had also gone extremely high due to scarcity, so everyone thought that it was better to use the beasts that do not need the expensive fuel to operate for transportation and some activities.

It was the same case for planes or helicopters, which had now been replaced by huge flying beasts such as the most popular flying transportation beast, the Verdant Eagle.

Arriving at the cafeteria, which doesn't have many people, Lucas immediately went to the counter and ordered the food he wanted to eat. He mainly chose vegetables this time around, as he had meat the other day. 

The waitress was already familiar with Lucas. He has been here countless times already. He was also nicknamed a greedy eater by some of the chefs, as he once tried every food available in the display glass.

Anyway, Lucas quickly finished his meal but did not stand up immediately.

Instead, as he faced a hallway full of people, he pondered about what he should do next.

Getting stronger through obtaining experience points was a given.

At this moment, his only chance to gain experience points was the school-regulated dungeon that was temporarily unavailable to him.

This plan can be postponed for the time being until the second-year students gain the rights to enter the dungeon once more.

Aside from getting stronger, the next thing he should do was earn money so that he could help with the family's expenses.

However, in this world, aside from manual labor, the only source of income one can have was to hunt beasts outside the city. However, it was pretty dangerous, and Iron Star summoners were basically not allowed to go out, unless it was a special case or they really insisted on going out.

Unlike inside the regulated dungeons, the beasts in the wild were mostly random, and one would not be able to know what kind of beast they would encounter. So it was better not to get out of the walls unless you have confidence in surviving such an environment.

The next item on his agenda should be to train his and the Gentle Dog's cooperation. He should also hone the skills of the Gentle Dog in battle, as it still has a very crude way of fighting at the moment and mostly relies on its brute strength during the Hellhound form.

There was also the need to complete a mission for the academy to exchange for contributions.

Realizing that he still has a lot of things that he needs to do, Lucas decided to borrow some pen and paper from the cafeteria staff and write down all the things he should do so that he could organize them easily.

After a while, he arranged them accordingly and finally settled on doing the academy first and then honing his and Gentle Dog's cooperation while doing it.

After that would be the need to train the Gentle Dog's combat capabilities.

The next thing on the list was to wait for the dungeon to reopen for him again, and then the last thing was to earn money through hunting beasts outside once he gained enough abilities.

Lucas looked at the time and realized that there were still two hours left before five. He did not waste any more time and proceeded to the Starlight Academy's Mission Hall.

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A/N: If you want to ask anything, feel free to comment below, and I will do my best to answer your questions as long as there are no spoilers involved.