Out on the streets once more, Kelemen decided to try his new breathing technique. He found a relatively secluded spot under a tree and sat down in the lotus position. He visualized the pathway that the air was supposed to travel and began breathing deeply.
By circulating the air accordingly he felt a part of it split off and turn into a burning sensation as it rushed into his stomach. The burning sensation was neither hot nor cold and if Kelemen couldn't feel a sliver of that same feeling in the pit of his stomach he might have thought he imagined it. Nevertheless, he could feel something beginning to change.
As Kelemen absorbed more of the burning sensation he gradually began to realize it was pure mana. His body seemed starved as it continued greedily absorbing more and more. Mire looked at Kelemen curiously as she could begin to feel some changes in her master's body. It wasn't by much but she could start to feel an instinctual danger rising from him. As time passed Kelemen began feeling saturated as an illusory sphere started to form inside his body. The sphere was made entirely out of mana and after some time a ding sounded as the sphere was completed.
"Congratulations to the host [Kelemen] for achieving [1 Star Mana Core]. Giving the host x1 [Beginner's guide to manipulating Mana]!"
After Kelemen finished forming his core he realized that no matter how much mana he tried to absorb, his body would naturally release it out as he breathed. He frowned as he processed his new memories from the beginner's guide. According to the guide, he was experiencing a bottleneck that could only be overcome through his own understanding or he would risk a shaky foundation that would cripple his growth in the future. Deciding to put it off, for now, he took a closer look at the system's reward.
His new guide injected a few new abilities that Kelemen could use to manipulate his newfound mana. Looking through some of these, Kelemen sorted them into three main categories: attack, defense, and support. Right now he could only make a basic mana arrow for an attack which was decent but still weaker than Mire's corrosive acid. His ability to defend, however, seemed much more useful as he could form a 3-meter sphere to surround him and block attacks of both mana attacks and physical attacks. Finally, however, were the support skills. Using his mana Kelemen could extend his senses to a 20-meter radius and although he couldn't move while doing this, he could notice all the details within his sphere of influence including life and movement.
Taking a look at the signs of life around him, he couldn't help but take in a deep breath at the plethora of life in his surroundings. He didn't notice it before but bugs were scattered everywhere and with a bit of attention, it was possible to see even long chains of critters bustling about. With these new abilities, Kelemen had the confidence to complete requests from the adventurer halls board of commissions.
"We need to earn enough to find a place for the night and somewhere for a bit longer as well.", Kelemen told Mire.
Agreeing, they walked to the board of commissions and found a bundle of requests from the villagers and even some more high profile cases such as bounties. "Master, look, there's a quest to bring back 50 stalks of drooms. The reward is 20 dents but it's not bad." Kelemen took a look and sure enough, there was the request for drooms. Although drooms weren't exactly rare they could be used in conjunction with other materials to form some of the common elixirs adventurers would use from time to time. From his understanding of the basics, this quest actually offered twice the normal amount of dents as it would usually only be 10 dents.
Thinking of his new ability to sense his surroundings, Kelemen smiled. "Alright let's do this one then. Drooms aren't that hard to find if we put in the time and we can use this to pay for a room for the night too!"
They took the request off the board and went to the front to accept it. Some adventurers at the side saw Kelemen and Mire take the quest before snickering. As they tried to register their quest, they couldn't help but remark "ah even new adventurers think they can do anything nowadays huh? Embarrassing, the quality of our guild is really going down, especially when we keep accepting trash like you! You think it's so easy to get drooms? Hah, if that were so, why would the rewards be doubled. How about it Missy, come ditch that loser and join us, you would have a much better future." Mire looked annoyed as a sinister aura began to emanate from Mire.
She took one look at the group and said "Scram" as she directed her killing intent towards the group. She held no mercy for them since they dared insult her master, and before Kelemen could do anything the person who talked froze. His face turned to terror as he stumbled backwards and pointed at Mire. "Mons-monster! D-d-don't think th-th-this is over. You dare to ca-cause trouble in here, j-ju-just wait until my b-b-brother deals with you. Let's see what happens then you filthy b*tch." After their departing words, the group really did scram quickly as they ran away before Kelemen could retaliate.
Helpless, Kelemen could only calm Mire down as they made their way to the front desk again. The clerk could only apologize to the duo once they arrived. "I'm sorry. I saw the entire thing and that group of 'adventurers' doesn't know how to do anything except use their leader's connections to harass others. It's the biggest shame of our guild. However, I really do recommend that you don't provoke them further. Although that group of trash is useless, their leader's brother is one of the pillars of our hall and commands a lot of resources." Kelemen could only helplessly nod his head for now as they didn't have any connections, resources, or momentum on their side yet. However, in his heart, he suppressed a fit of rising anger as he started to think of a way to get revenge on them for daring to insult Mire. "Insult me all you want, I could ignore it. But you dare open your filthy mouth and call her a "filthy b*itch. Just wait until I get through with you."
After getting verified for the quest, the paper was held up to Kelemen's adventurer bracelet which shone a red light and marked the paper before vanishing. "Eh?" Mire looked on curiously at the light, clearly surprised at its abrupt arrival and disappearance.
"The light marked the quest as taken and it's proof that we've accepted the quest. From my adventurer's bracelet, I can also see how much time I have left to turn in the quest and any particular details or updates that may come up." Kelemen replied right away as he knew the answer from the Idiot's Guide to Adventuring. The clerk looked at Kelemen surprised before speaking up, "that's right, this young man here sure knows his stuff despite being a new adventurer." At those words, Kelemen looked over a little surprised himself. "How did you know we were new adventurers?"
The clerk chuckled before showing the paper he took earlier. "I'm registering you for the quest so I can see you haven't taken any quests yet and this is your first one." Kelemen groaned a little inwardly as he felt he had embarrassed himself for asking such an obvious question.
Nonetheless, Kelemen received a small pouch to hold the herbs which was provided courtesy of the guild and sent on his way. Of course, there would be a fee if it was damaged or lost so it could only be temporarily borrowed. As a result, experienced adventurers would rarely use the things lent out by the guild.
Together they set off. Once they reached the outskirts of Spiritwood Kelemen stopped. "Here should work." Kelemen had learned from his beginner's guide to Beast Taming a few interesting techniques and now was the perfect time to test one of them called Shared Senses.
"Mire, I'm gonna try something. If you feel uncomfortable please let me know."
Mire looked strangely at Kelemen before nodding. In the next second, she was stunned. She could sense everything as Kelemen could and it was as if she was an outsider to the world during this time. Whether underground or overground she could sense all forms of life including herself. It was hard to put into words, but the best way she could describe it was that she could simply sense the things in her surroundings as if it was obvious that whatever she found would be there.
"Master, this...this is incredible!" Mire was in awe as she looked around the environment picking up signs of life everywhere. "Yup, as long as it's living there should be slight traces of mana in all things and it's possible to recognize the item through these unique mana signatures." Kelemen smiled as he could understand the feeling Mire was experiencing right now.
"Alright, let's get those drooms." Using this ability Kelemen could find all the drooms within a 20-meter radius and they could rapidly make quick work of the quest. However, by sharing his senses with Mire, the radius actually extended to an entire 50 meters. In only an hour Kelemen had collected over 36 stalks of drooms just by himself while Mire had split off from him to collect an entire 42 stalks. "Wow, impressive.", Kelemen whistled.
"Hehe, it's nothing. I'm already a greater being and you still almost caught up to me Master!" Although Mire said that, her face was red as she tapped her thumbs together. In fact, Kelemen could have sworn he saw a faint smile on her face but he must have imagined it.
"Alright let's head back." They had collected more than enough for the quest and Kelemen could even sell the extras to help deal with their lacking funds. As they made their way back to the adventurer's hall, the clerk who had taken their request earlier looked over as they made their way towards him with an understanding look.
"Do you need help finding drooms? A lot of new adventurers take the quest because they think it's easy to find drooms but it's quite a bit more difficult than they think. Even with a group of 5 or 6 adventurers, it isn't guaranteed they would find 20 or 30 after hours of searching..." Kelemen could only agree inwardly as he felt that if he and Mire didn't have the benefit of using mana to search, it really would have taken a long time. However, he was put off guard that the clerk didn't seem to have heard of mana sense.
Kelemen had clearly only learned of mana sensing recently and couldn't have expected that others wouldn't know if it or have something similar. He cautioned himself to be more careful about revealing his abilities to others to avoid drawing more unwanted attention towards himself. However, what was done was done and he decided to hand in the quest. He wasn't going to play the fool to deceive the ant. With enough time Kelemen had the confidence to overcome any obstacle.
"Actually, I've completed the quest and I'm here to turn it in."
The clerk abruptly froze in the middle of his speech as his eyes widened in response. "... you what?"