On the way back, Verum decided to not go flying, but instead, to walk on the ground and take in the surroundings, as well as his earnings from the battle.
'The coins, I let them take them, as well as the one piece of equipment that dropped, those boots, but the rest, I have them here.' He thought, and one by one brought them out.
'First, this scroll.'
[Silver Claw]
[The claws of the wolf are ferocious, and mighty]
[When active, +30% damage, +20% Attack speed]
[Cost: 20 KI to activate, -2 Ki per second]
[Duration: 10 seconds on activation]
The scroll was normal, except for the silver colored wolf head drawn in the middle of it. Without hesitation, Verum tore the scroll, and learned the skill. 'Now this necklace.' He thought, as he brought out a necklace made completely out of wolf teeth.
[Wolf-man's might] [Gold]
[Transforms the user into a wolf-man, +20% AGI, +10% CON, -10% DEX]
[Duration: 10 minutes]
[Cooldown: 24 hours]
[Uses: 10/10]
'Not bad, this will be quite useful.' He put the necklace on.
'And finally, this.' He summoned fifteen bracelets from thin air, and all of them fell to the ground. Each of the bracelets were made from a thin rope, and each of them had three wolf teeth on them.
[Alpha's fate]
[The spirit of a defeated alpha wolf lies within, you can now summon it's spirit to battle]
[Duration: 15 seconds]
[Uses: 3/3]
'There is no way that this was not multiplied, maybe the multiplication only affects certain drops of mobs then? I'll look into it.' He thought, before putting one on him, and the rest into the inventory.
'I also lost the shield, as well as the helm, but that shouldn't be a problem.' Aside from Verum, Jason had also been taking some people to go dungeon diving, and as a result, most of them had been equipped with armor and weapons, with some spares as well. 'So far, there has not been any real loss to me, I got injured, yes, but nothing that can't be recovered within a day, I lost equipment, but got something better in return. I also found a place to get good equipment, saw the stance of a nearby castle lord and evaluated her combat strength. She seems like she would be quite willing to enter an alliance with us.'
He walked slowly, the injuries were getting healed, yes, but the alpha wolf was not an alpha for no reason it seems, it's fangs and teeth cut to the bone, and Verum had been unfortunate enough to get hit by it on his left leg.
[You have received a message]
"Hmm? From who?" He wondered, after all, he had only met two people, and had only received two messages so far.
"Open it."
[From: Hino Yama]
[Tell me, how did your levels shoot up so fast? I checked your level, like, three hours ago, and now look at it! It shot up from 17 to 23 so fast! What did do? Message and tell me about it]
'Okay, I guess?' He started writing a message detailing his experience with the wolves.
The levels that Yama was talking about were gained by killing the wolves, but mostly, they came from the Alpha, like 90% of the EXP came from it.
After writing for a bit, Verum looked at the message he was going to send.
[Big Bad Wolf and small bad wolves got angry, so went and killed them, got EXP from killing]
'Perfection' Verum thought, and hit send.
'Wonder if he knows that old story, but again, doesn't matter, that message was perfect.' Verum immersed himself in his happy thoughts and continued walking his path through the forest.
He journey went mostly peacefully, except for the two times he came across hostile animals, once a bear, and the other time a salamander.
[Salamander] [Lv: 12]
[HP: 210/210]
[MP: 110/110]
[Fire Breath]
[Higher Regeneration]
The lizard annoyed Verum for a bit, it's ability to regain it's health was quite powerful, but in the end, it could not withstand Verum's onslaught, and quietly succumbed to his spear which impaled it's skull and pierced it's brain. It was not all bad though, because by observing the flow of mana in the lizard, Verum was able to obtain a regeneration skill, albeit quite weaker than the one it possessed.
He walked, and on the way discovered some more herbs, which he picked up. All in all, it took Verum a long time to get back to his castle, he had set out in the morning, and now, the sun was midway to sunset.
The first thing that Verum did when he got back, was give each of his men one of the 'Alpha's Fate', he took off his own to make them enough for everyone, and then made them train in magic till sunset, then gave them a break, them made them targets to practice his new spells on.
He would go back to fulfill his promise, but not now, he did not have men to spare, even the mages played an important role in his training, not to mention that they were researching how to use magic more efficiently, their combat power was not all that low as compared to the Scientia warriors at all!
So, they would have to wait till more troops could be spawned, because only at that time would Verum be willing to send his men to teach any one magic.
*****
Meanwhile, in a different location.
[You have received a message]
"Oh! Did he reply to me?" Was the thought of a certain individual. However he was dumbfounded when he saw the contents.
[Big Bad Wolf and small bad wolves got angry, so went and killed them, got EXP from killing]
"Eh? What does this mean? Did he fight wolves or something? Why type it so weirdly? Is it really true that powerful people have their own methods of conversation?"