Kevin and his group successfully defeated three more demon wolves in the outskirts of the town. Their storage bags were now nearly full after collecting the valuable parts of six demon wolves, including their fur, teeth, and claws. Considering safety and time concerns, they decided to return to Gael Town.
After sorting through their loot at the Adventurer's Hall, it was determined by Howard's appraisal skills that except for the wolf fur that Alex had initially cut into several pieces out of frustration, all the other items were in good condition.
Wolf fur can be made into warm clothing for winter or mixed with other monster hides to make leather armor. However, wolf fur's durability among monsters is not particularly high, so its value among these loot items is relatively low.
Wolf teeth and claws, when ground into powder, have some effect on enhancing one's physical constitution. When Kevin was growing up, Tang added some of this powder to his meals, which is one of the reasons for Kevin's good physical condition. Furthermore, Howard and other alchemists in the town have a demand for wolf teeth and claw powder as ingredients for some potions, making them more valuable than wolf fur.
Each piece of wolf fur is worth about two days' worth of food expenses for an adult, and a wolf tooth is worth about the same. A wolf claw is only worth half the value of a wolf tooth. With the harvest from this outing, each of them gained enough money to sustain their food expenses for about a week.
After spending several days continuously hunting monsters, Kevin, Alex, and Melissa, who had only awakened their professions less than two weeks ago, have become skilled at their work. Their faces have also gradually matured, a change that can only be brought about by experiencing many real battles.
In their current four-person team, although Owen, the team leader, had only advanced to the second level as a warrior, he was much stronger than an average second-level warrior. Furthermore, advancing in strength is not an easy task. According to Owen, Alex's uncle, Frank, who was the team leader of their previous team, took three years to advance from the second level to the third level. During that time, Frank even participated in a defense against a beast tide invasion, and only advanced after that battle.
In comparison, Owen's aptitude is slightly worse than Frank's, so he will likely need both accumulated time and a victory in a thrilling battle to advance to the third level.
On the other hand, Kevin's rapid advancement is a rare occurrence. It took him only five days to advance from awakening his profession to advancing in strength to the second level, which is unheard of in Gael Town and Green Town. Even the most talented individuals usually take about two to three months to reach the second level.
The reason why there wasn't a particularly big uproar may of course be because Tang had told everyone stories from his hometown in the Hua Country region. In his stories, there were also many people with extraordinary talents, and Tang himself was a very powerful supernatural ability user, which made people speculate that he might possess some strange ancient Eastern skills.
However, in Tang's own view, his son Kevin's advancement was also a very special thing, and he speculated that it might be related to Kevin being born as part of the generation of people who emerged with extraordinary powers in the world, and to the fact that he had been training him since he was young.
As a second-order supernatural ability user, Kevin's magical power was probably twice as strong as before, but he could feel that it was not his limit yet, just because he had only just become a second-order user. With his continued practice and meditation, he was sure that his magical power would increase. After becoming a second-order user, Kevin also acquired four skills: healing, blood circulation, dispelling, and the newly added activation. At the same time, the effects of his skills increased when he used them compared to when he was a first-order user.
Alex and Melissa were both still first-order users, especially Melissa. As a mage, although she had powerful firepower, mages were a backline profession that needed protection from others, and had few opportunities to confront monsters head-on. Moreover, although meditation could increase the attack power of fire element mages, casting fireball spells also consumed a lot of magical power, and they could usually not cast it more than ten times on one outing. If they also had to cast other magic, then the number of times they could cast them would be even less. Therefore, the experience that mages gained, to use the language of the game, was relatively small.
Alex, on the other hand, was quite talented as a knight. The awakening condition for the knight profession was that one must have the determination to protect and guard someone or something, or to uphold a certain belief. After these days of team cooperation, Alex could fulfill the duties of a knight very well, which was to protect his companions. In so many battles, Melissa was hardly injured, and Kevin's injuries were often consciously borne by himself when he voluntarily joined the front-line combat.
If it were asked who in the team was most likely to advance next, it would probably be Alex.
After leaving the adventurers' hall, Owen made an appointment with the other three to meet at the Brave Tavern that night.
That night, Kevin walked to the door of the tavern. Although he had passed by this Brave Tavern many times before, he had not gone in, after all, he was not yet of age. This tavern was crowded with many people at noon and in the evening, most of whom were members of various teams who went out to hunt monsters during the day.
Due to the scarcity of resources, prices for drinks and food in the tavern are relatively high, so most of the customers are wealthy adventurers. Tang, Kevin's father, often comes here to relax after a successful day of selling weapons and armor.
As Kevin enters the tavern, he sees several lamps hanging from the ceiling, creating a dim and cozy atmosphere in the spacious establishment. Although not a particularly large building, the Brave Tavern is still much larger than the average residence, with seating available on both the first and second floors, including an outdoor balcony with a view of the night sky. The establishment also has a third of its space reserved for the staff work area, which is not open to customers.
The tavern is already crowded, with about two-thirds of the seats already occupied. There are around sixty to seventy people inside, and the sounds of chatting, laughter, and occasional cursing can be heard from all corners. The friendly and welcoming voice of the servers is frequently heard, occasionally accompanied by the firm scolding of experienced staff dealing with unruly patrons.
As Kevin walks through the crowd, searching for his companions, he hears a familiar, rough voice coming from near the counter. "Kevin, over here! Come on in!" It is Owen, one of his companions. Kevin looks over and spots Owen, Alex, and Melissa sitting at a table beside the counter. Upon seeing him, Owen raises his beer glass, while Alex waves excitedly and Melissa shakes her head disapprovingly at Alex's behavior, covering her face with one hand and sighing.
Kevin walks over and sits down beside Owen. "Server, another beer please," Owen calls out.
"Um, I think I--" "Don't be a party pooper, Kevin. How can you come to a tavern and not try the beer? Have a drink first and then decide," Alex said excitedly, holding a half-empty beer in his hand. But the beer has a low alcohol content, right? Is he already drunk? Kevin thought to himself.
He took the beer the server brought over and took a sip. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either. However, it wasn't very intoxicating. Could it be that Alex unexpectedly has a low alcohol tolerance? The four of them drank beer and ate meat while discussing their day and some interesting things that happened to each of them after they disbanded. Kevin also paid attention to some news and intelligence discussed by others around him.
Suddenly, a topic being discussed by a nearby group caught Kevin's attention. This news seemed to have been mentioned repeatedly by others, and it was about a dungeon where the monsters inside had become increasingly active lately. The type of monster in the dungeon was undead.