If anyone leave a review I'll add another chapter for today. Thank you
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The mage was filled with greed and fear and he decided to finish this fight as soon as possible. "[Wind Magic: Wind Step!]" this spell covered the mage's feet with wind that highly enhanced his speed. He jumps around and dodged the sword strike of the skeletons who managed to come close enough to him
"[Wind Magic: Wind Cut!]" The mage pointed his wand on other skeletons and just like before, two arcs of wind accurately hit the neck of two skeletons, severing their heads. The head of the skeletons dropped down on the ground and the black fire on their eye sockets vanished before they dissipated into black specks of light
The skeletons were unbothered by their comrades' death and didn't stopped charging at the mage. With the help of the still active Wind Step Spell, it was easy for the mage to not let the skeletons harm him. He can easily kill two skeletons in a single spell while moving away and dodge the other skeletons' attacks
The mage was too focused on the skeletons and didn't realized that Calter was slowly controlling the Cloud Stepping Horse to get close to him. "[Dark Magic: Darkness Balls!]" Calter seized the chance that the mage just finished activating a spell to attack
From his wand mana gathered and formed five acidic balls. Each of these dark balls has the power of a level 3 Spell. This was the normal state of Calter's spell and with his control he can either lower or amplify its power
The mage sensed the danger but it was already too late, as he just activated a spell, he can't activate another one in a short period of time. The mage's face darkened and used the remaining power behind the wind step spell to dodge. With his speed, he can easily dodge those black balls
Too bad, Calter was a former Rank 3 Magician. Unlike other mages that can only shot their spell in a single straight line, Calter can control the trajectory of his spell
Calter waved his wand in the direction where the mage dodged and the five black balls curved and change its direction. The mage can't believe this. Not only Calter still has mana to activate other spells despite summoning ten skeletons at a time but he can also change the path of his spells!
'Is this something a Level 3 Magician can do? How can this be?!' This was the last thought the mage had before the balls that will harvest his life landed on his body. Dark type magics are sinister, it does not reap the mage's life easily but the acid slowly corroded his poor body
Normal magicians might have stronger bodies than normal people but the difference wasn't that high. Unless one was a mage that focuses on body magic, even a level 1 spell if hit them would already make them injured. Much less a spell that has the power of level 3 spells
The mage's body landed on the ground as his flesh was dissolving, he was screaming in pain and rolling on the ground. The smell of burnt flesh adds up to the smell of blood in the air. Even if he wants to activate a spell, the pain will distract him and not let him be able to cast even the easiest one
Soon, the flesh of the mage was fully corroded leaving only the bones. The spell doesn't have the power to fully corrode one's body yet
Even though he just killed someone, Calter was unbothered. In this world, all the mages have blood on their hands. Whether it be conflict of ideas or treasures, one will compete that will sometimes lead to death
Calter walked to the mage's body and saw a small pouch on it. It may be a small pouch but when Calter took it the weight was at least a few kilograms. The pouch was a spatial pouch, a lower quality of spatial rings. Spatial rings are worn on one's finger and even if you fill it with items you won't feel any weight at all
Spatial pouch is different. It was many times cheaper than spatial rings but if you put an item inside, you will feel the weight on it. That's why, only those broke magicians will buy a spatial pouch. Those with money will buy a spatial ring
Calter inspected the items inside and saw several body parts of level 4 and 5 Magic beasts with some level 6 on it. As one can feel the weight inside the spatial pouch, the magicians that went on a hunt will only take the most valuable part of the beast. The price would be lower as it wasn't a full corpse but they would be able to gather the most important parts that has the highest price
It was troublesome to always head back to the city once your storage reached its full capacity. This was the reason why Calter has a few spatial rings on him. He will only hunt for a day and planned on putting whole bodies on his ring
As of now, Calter's rings are all above normal quality with 100 meters of storage and has 3 of it. Calter put the corpses of the beast he killed in his spatial ring and went to the deeper parts of the forest with the remaining six skeletons
Along the way he put some powder on his injured shoulder. It became numb and started to slowly heal, he just ignored it as it was not enough to affect his battle skills
He sacrificed four skeletons so that the mage will lower his guard, he can't summon more for now as he will have lower amount of mana that he planned on using in case of emergencies. But since even level 3 beasts didn't pose a threat on him, he planned to fight groups of level 3 beasts. Level 1 and 2 beasts are all too cheap to sell.
Level 3 beasts would sell around 50 Magic Crystals, depending on their condition. The more damaged the body was, the lower the price will be. It may sound a lot but one must have a storage that can store a lot of beasts if they want to have a profit of a thousand crystals. Higher levelled beast would have a greater price but it was harder to kill them. Most of the time the body would be so damaged that you can only sell it for only a little more than lower levelled beast
The group of skeletons, human, and a horse continued on their way. Occasionally, meeting some hunters along the way. Thankfully those mages are not as strong as the mage who tried to assassinate him and didn't try to rob him
"I should have prepared a mask" Calter was having a hard time hunting as he wants to hunt beasts when there is no one looking. It's troublesome if people recognize him and saw his abnormal power
"Whatever, this is my first hunt. I'll just get one next time"
After an hour, Calter didn't earned that much. There were a lot of beasts but there were also a lot of people. The outskirts don't have much people but the place where there are more level 3 beasts were occupied by a lot of people
Thousand Beasts Forest was after all famous for its number of beasts and lower danger. As long as you formed an alliance, it was easy to kill groups if beasts
As Calter didn't want to reveal too much of his power, he can't act on places that has a lot of people
Calter continued exploring the forest for more than an hour and found a rather secluded place where there weren't any people around.
"Slimy Snakes?" Calter saw three snakes covered with sticky slime and he frowned. Slimy snakes aren't that powerful but his main force today was his group of skeletons. These skeletons have low intellect and doesn't know any sword skills. With their low-quality swords even though these snakes doesn't have high defense it would he hard to kill them
Swords will find it hard piercing their body because of the slimes. The snakes also saw Calter and his group and they shot out like an arrow biting on the bodies of the skeletons. They managed to cracked some bones but it didn't do much damage. The snakes are all level 3 beasts, they didn't pose much threat to the skeletons. But killing them would be troublesome
The skeletons didn't flinch and slashed their swords on the snake's body but the force was negated because of the slime. The snakes wrapped around the bodies of the skeletons and went to bite them on several areas
"[Dark Magic: Dark Sparks!]" Three little sparks of black flames were formed in front of Calter's magic wand and he controlled it to attack the slimy snakes
The sparks accurately hit the snakes' and slowly burned them. Calter can use more destructive magic but he doesn't want to damage his skeletons, he still needs them to fight
It took several minutes before the snakes were killed. Calter sighed as the snakes were burnt too much and he won't be able to sell it. This was the hard part of being a hunter, most of the time you can't have your enemies' corpse intact. You can only resort to killing low levelled beast because it was easier to kill them without damaging much of their body
Calter just ignored the snakes and explored more areas. Too bad, on his past life he didn't ventured much in the forest as most of his time was spent on comprehending magic theories and absorbing mana. He has the skills of a Rank 3 Magician but in terms of combat experience he's a bit weaker than others rank 3s. But of course, against Rank 2 and lower mages he was superior
After a few minutes Calter encountered a group of fifteen savage rats. These rats were extremely aggressive and will attack and eat anything they saw. Among the magic beasts they were one of the weakest and has the lowest intelligence. But one can't underestimate them. The pack of wolves were already troublesome to deal with. Savage rats are even more troublesome!
These rats mostly formed a common group of fifteen up to thousands of them. Thankfully, they don't have the ability of wolves to ask for their comrades' help. If they want help, these rats need to go back first on their nest. With that, the hunters won't necessarily be afraid of these rats as long as the numbers were not too high
Calter sent a mental command on the skeletons and they brandished their swords to hack on these rats. They are cheap but they made up for their numbers!
As the skeletons were outnumbered, there would at least be two rats attacking them at the same time. The rats are only the size of the human head and they are nimble. The skeletons had a hard time fighting them as more of their bones were destroyed
The skeletons were at disadvantage but they easily killed all of the rats by trading more broken bones. Thankfully, as long as the rats wasn't able to dodge the sword strikes it was almost a certain death sentence for them and their bodies are mostly intact
Calter went to the corpses and stored it on his spatial ring but he's not happy at all. "These would only sell for a few hundreds. I might not earn more than a thousand Magic Crystals in this way"
Calter's face was not looking good as it seems like the plan of earning money through hunting magic beasts failed. For normal people a thousand Magic Crystals can already support them for some time. But to Calter, it was far from enough
Just the Dungeon Cores he needs every day will cost 600 Magic Crystals
"Is there no thing I can do?" Calter was in a deep thought as he tried on thinking of a way to either maximize his hunts or another way to make money
He can't go to the part of the forest where there was mostly mid-level beast that has that power of level 4 to 6 Magic Apprentice. If he met a group of level 6 beasts he can only flee. Although fleeing was easy because of the Cloud Stepping Horse but he will need to abandon his skeleton group
It will take some time before his mana was replenished to summon another group
"Is there really no way? .... wait!" Calter thought of the savage rats. These rats won't sell much but they have high quantity and he don't need to worry about damaging their bodies too much
The only problem that mages face with them was their numbers. But! Calter can easily summon ten skeletons and each skeleton can kill few rats each. If he became a level 4 Magic Apprentice then he can summon twenty skeletons as his mana would be twice the number
No wonder, the path of Core Magician was suitable for Summoners. With high amounts of mana, one can summon many creatures or some that is above their level!