Ignoring Radnor's scream, Wain walked towards the campfire, looking through the belongings of the bandits.
Unfortunately, he didn't find anything interesting. The bandits' bags were full of some shiny coins, so he just ate the food bandits left behind, since he felt his body crawling for it.
He was about to leave, when he noticed Octader was also done with his job, devouring Radnor from head to toe.
He was about to leave, when he noticed a light blue crystalline sphere, which dropped from Radnor's pocket.
Curious, Wain picked it up and inspected it, he never saw anything like this before, and although he never saw most of the common things, he found himself attracted towards this one.
[Beast's Mana Core] (lower 1st-grade)
Description: A core of a beast filled with mana, accumulated during its life.
Purity 64%
"So it's mana core." Wain observed the fist sized crystalline sphere in his hand. In the meantime, Octader arrived at Wain, its eyes locked on the mana core as if it was something delicious.
"You want this?" Wain realized, however, he wasn't willing to give the mana core to his pet.
After all, he was on the edge on reaching level 9, so if he absorbed the mana from this core, he could level up once, or maybe even twice!
He moved the mana core away from Octader's sight, when he suddenly felt his hand lightening.
"What?" Wain looked at his empty hand confused, before seeing Octader stuffing the mana core into its mouth. He greatly underestimated Octader's new size, and the creature was able to steal the mana core with its tentacle.
"You evil creature!" Wain grabbed Octader realizing he could no longer lift up the Octopus due to its size. Moreover it was continuously growing bigger right under his hands.
When did it grow so big? Wain wondered, when he remembered, that Radnor must have also had a mana core, so Octader ate not one, but two of them.
Unfortunately there was nothing Wain could do as the two mana cores were inevitably lost and his familiar reached level 9 as a result.
Wain observed the changes of his familiar, when he suddenly heard the sound of footsteps.
"Could there be more of them?!" He realized there could be more bandits in the surrounding area and quickly hid into the forest, pushing Octader with him. Although he dealt with these bandits easily, he didn't want to fight unless he knew his opponents.
Hidden from view, Wain covertly observed the scene around the campfire as a group of men arrived, inspecting the terrain, which showed signs of battle.
"There are marks from fire," one of the men declared after seeing scorched ground. "Maybe it's the work of a fire elemental. Those things can be incredibly dangerous." He deduced.
"You think so?" A second man within the group remained skeptical, raising a critical question. "Where are the bodies, then? Burned to ashes?"
"So you think it was a dragon or what?" The first man laughed, clearly not taking the second's skepticism seriously.
"At least dragons eat bodies," the second man felt offended, defending his claim. "How would a fire elemental do that?"
"Enough!" The discussion was put to an end by a third voice, firm and authoritative, clearly the leader of the group. "It doesn't matter which monster killed them. We'll proceed with tomorrow's operation without them."
"That's right. This time, Norward will be transporting some real treasures. Tomorrow will be a great day," the second man remarked with a smile.
The bandits left soon after, not paying too much attention to their missing coworkers. The less there were, the more reward for them!
"Treasures?" Wain, who was listening to their conversation, couldn't help but be tempted.
However this group of bandits was nothing like the previous one. There were a lot more of them and their leader was really strong. Wain definitely didn't stand a chance against them in his current state.
But when a group of people like this talked about a tempting treasure, it was even more so tempting for Wain!
He was nearing level 10 and unless he found sufficient resources to break through, he would get stuck with no further improvements. So he should at least go and take a look in case he could benefit from it somehow.
…
[Four Fingered Dylon] (Human, higher 2st-grade)
Level 72
Hp 1782/1782