‘Alright, let’s go,’ Leo said as he stood up and headed to a small lake he noticed before. However, he just took some steps before stopping and looking at the clearing, his expression indicating that he just remembered something important.
‘Oh, look at this, I almost forgot to collect the rank D wolf’s cores,’ Leo mumbled as he remembered all the rank D wolves he killed yesterday. Since nobody touched their corpses, their cores should still be there and all he needed to do was to collect them.
[I thought I would have to remind you. You get distracted quite easily,]Luxia said.
‘Sigh, I know, and this is all but the time to make such a dumb mistake,’ Leo scolded himself as he knew that he couldn’t afford this kind of wasteful behavior given his current situation.
‘Well, it’s already good that I remembered this time. I should be cautious from now on,’ he thought as he started to look for the corpses of the rank D wolves.
While there were many corpses in the clearing, it was quite easy to find the corpses of those rank D wolves as they were bigger and in a relatively better state than those of their rank E peers. So, after walking through the clearing for five or so minutes, Leo was able to find most of them and happily collected the cores.
‘Hum, with this one, I have collected 26 cores,’ he thought as he dug a core out of the last rank D wolf he was able to find.
‘Shouldn’t there be more than this,’ he thought as he tried to remember how many rank D wolves he killed last night. He was sure that he killed at least twenty. As for Celia, he wasn’t sure how many she had killed.
‘Forget it, this is already a good haul. Even if some are missing, they shouldn’t be that many. As for where they are, maybe they were thrown somewhere by the shockwaves created during the fight with Blake,’ he said as he remembered that many trees were uprooted during that fight. So, it wouldn’t be surprising if some of the corpses were thrown a little too far.
It was already good that the large part stayed in the vicinity, and he didn’t have to wander too much before finding them. Anyways, with those 26 cores, he already collected more than half of the required rank D cores he needed.
‘Now, how did I bring all those with me,’ Leo said as he could already feel a headache coming when he looked at the glittering pile of bloody cores in front of him. Most of those cores were more or less the size of a fist. Put together, the 26 cores almost looked like a little mountain.
‘Hum, maybe I can try to use my wind magic to take them with me,’ Leo muttered and decided to try moving the cores with the help of his wind magic.
As soon as he had that idea, he activated his basic wind manipulation and tried to gather a small amount of wind around one of the cores.
His goal was to make the core float. However, Leo underestimated the difficulty of the task. On his first try, he didn’t summon enough wind and the core didn’t move. On the second try, the wind he summoned was too much and the core was sent flying like a bullet. Still, he didn’t give up and struggled for ten good minutes before he finally managed to make the core float.
‘Yes, I did it,’ Leo cheered happily, ‘I didn’t notice it until now but it is quite complicated to control an element,’ Leo muttered as for the first time, he experienced how difficult it was to be a mage. Before each time he used a skill, he didn't have to do much. Everything was quite easy with the help of the system and he could summon the rain and the wind with a single thought.
Even when he used the elemental manipulation skill, he merely summoned a massive number of elemental particles and shoved them in his opponent’s face. Besides, he was sure that even then, the system helped him otherwise the massive quantity of elemental particles would just blow up in his face.
It was now that he needed to control a small amount of elemental to do a delicate task, he noticed how hard it could be.
If there was enough wind, the core wouldn’t move. If the wind was too strong, the core would fly away. Then he needed to clearly visualize the effect he wanted the wind to have. Should the wind make the core spin? Should it throw it away? Or should it just make it float? That step wasn’t hard due to his strong spirit. But, he had to struggle a lot to find a good balance between the result he wanted and the energy he provided. Even with his overwhelming stats, he was unable to get it on the first try.
Or maybe it was those stats that hindered him as he was more suited to using massive and destructive amounts of energy.
Anyway, this experience didn’t discourage Leo as now more than ever he wanted to wield the power of the elements by himself. Without the system's help. It was hard but it was a gratifying feeling and he didn't have enough of it.
‘Alright, I should stop daydreaming and continue what I was doing,’ he muttered as he looked at the core that had already fallen on the ground while he was lost in his thoughts.
Without hesitation, he once again tried to make it float. This time, he managed to succeed on his first try, directly making the core float a meter above the ground.
‘Hehe, I was sure that I was a genius,’ he said with a smug smile, ‘Now, let’s try to move it.’
Unfortunately, he once again hit a wall when he tried to move the core. No matter what he did, he couldn’t make the core move an inch. It just said there floating until his spell wore off and it fell on the ground.
‘Damn,’ he muttered, annoyed by the situation.
‘Wait, didn’t Leila say something about elemental gathering and manipulation stage before,’ he said as he remembered the quick magic lecture Leila gave him before the fight with Blake. Those below rank B are unable to influence a spell once it is launched. Only someone of rank B or higher can freely control their spells.
In his case, the only thing his spell was supposed to do was to make the core float. So, it was normal that he was unable to move it afterward.
‘So, if I want the core to move, I have to add that instruction before I launch the spell,’ he thought and immediately put that idea into action. This time, he didn’t just visualize the wind he summoned making the core float, he also imagined it moving the core a meter away from its current position.
‘Great, it works,’ he smiled as the core floated and moved a meter forward before stopping.
‘Well, I learned a lot, but I don’t think I can use it to move those things toward the settlement,’ Leo said with a bitter smile.
If it was already such a hassle to move a single core a meter forward, he didn’t want to imagine how complicated it would be to move the little mountain of cores. He already noticed it a while ago. He only continued to try because he was absorbed in playing with his magic. Anyway, it wasn’t like what he did wasn’t useful.
‘Hum, I can use the wolf king’s skin to wrap them and drag them with me,’ he muttered and settled with the simplest option. His other choices would be to buy a storage ring in the system shop or return to the settlement and borrow the one they found yesterday.
He was too poor for the former and too lazy to do the latter.
So, without hesitation, he started busying himself and with a lot of difficulties stripped the wolf king skin from its carcass, reducing the former overlord to a bunch of white bones and innards. Then with even more difficulty he stuffed the cores inside the skin and wrapped them.
‘Tsk, it is in that kind of moment that I miss my human body,’ Leo complained as he drank from the lake before cleaning himself a little.
‘And the hairdryer,’ he muttered as he summoned some wind to dry his wet fur.
'Now, I understand why cats hate water so much,' he thought as the wet and heavy sensation was more than annoying.
‘Good, let’s go,’ he muttered and turned into his Lion form. He then grabbed the package of cores in his mouth and took off toward the Redwater settlement.
I thought he had an inventory
thank you for the chapter.