When Rufus said that he was going to take on the bear on his own, he was not joking.
His partner was just standing by the side now as he clashed with the beast in the middle with his axe.
The bear let out a growl before clutching onto the axe's blade with the idea of pulling it away from him but that was a bad idea.
The axe quickly took on a red glow just before it could pull on it for the second time.
The scorching heat from the axe's blade was just too much for the beast to handle as it let out a wincing grunt before staggering a few feet back.
Rufus quickly used that opportunity to his advantage and sent two fireballs flying toward the beast.
The first one ended up smashing straight into its face forcing out a growl from it and just before the other fireball could get to it, it disappeared
"Rufus behind you!"
He sensed the bear just a second before his partner yelled that but the beast was already sending both of its hands down on him.
The impact hit the ground causing a mini earthquake as the dust from the floor quickly covered the area blocking everyone's sight but the bear still had its nose.
There was no way of telling if Rufus survived that because of all the dust but just as the dust slowly began to clear up, his axe came swinging from nowhere and ended up latching onto the bear's throat.
The beast let out a growl in anguish as it tried to raise both of its hands and do something about the situation it was in right now but just before it could do that, the axe's blade took on a red glow as he dragged it down tearing through the beast's skin from its throat down to the right side of its body.
A stream of blood quickly shot out from there to spray all over the adventurer's body but he had almost no reaction to that as he kept that calm expression on his face with his breathing getting louder.
The beast was still hanging in there, it let out a growl with its now hoarse voice but just before it could do anything, Rufus' fist suddenly lit up in flames and he did not hesitate in sending it down just where he had wounded the beast.
That punch was from his right fist and just after delivering it, his second fist lit and followed suit.
Those two blows were the final hits as the bear took a step backward before it came crashing to the floor.
The impact of the beast crashing to the floor shook the ground and the trees close by and that was the last time they were going to feel those heavy impacts caused by the bear, at least for today.
Rufus remained standing with the bear's blood all over him.
"Well, well, well, looks like you finally took it out." The blonde-haired adventurer commented as he walked closer to the lifeless beast.
"What? You didn't think I would be able to do it alone?" Rufus retorted before quickly shooting him a gaze that caused him to quickly flinch back a little.
"No, no, no, it's just that you took longer than I anticipated, I knew this was going to be a piece of cake for you." He sputtered with a mix of awkwardness and nervousness.
"Hmph, just get the crystal, Vick," Rufus said with a nonchalant voice before slowly turning away from him.
"On it!" Vick responded abruptly before closing up on the bear's carcass.
The crystals in the body of these special beasts acted like some sort of other heart.
Well, it was what people believed because it was always found on the right side inside the body opposite the heart but a little below, that was the case for the mammals at least.
Rufus had already dug in a bit on the right part of the bear's body and that made it easier for Vick to drill in deeper with his wind ability and retrieve the crystal.
A green crystal almost the size of his palm, it was spherical but its edges seemed to be a bit rough and unlike the basic tier crystals they had been extracting from the jackals in the open field, it had a brighter glow that made it easy for anyone to be able to spot it from a good distance away.
"On a serious note, if this thing was able to just teleport, this fight could have been way harder for you and I'm still clueless about why it didn't teleport away after getting injured like that," Vick remarked before turning to his partner with the crystal in his hand.
"Yeah, but I would have still won," Rufus replied with his gaze on his axe.
"I know." His partner sighed before turning his gaze to the tree on their right, the tree Devon crashed into earlier before they arrived. "Hey, do you see those footprints?"
"Huh?" Rufus responded before turning his gaze to him.
"There were people here before us and that makes sense because there's no way the bear would just start roaring on its own." Vick dictated before putting his hand on his chin. "But where did they go?"
[ +50 normal Energy transferred to energy level ]
[ Energy level: 60/100 ]
"Now we just have to wait for them to leave," Aurora whispered before letting out a sigh of relief.
However, she was unaware that Devon had other things in mind and didn't even hear what she just said.
With the energy conversion process now completed, he picked up a twig before crawling closer to the area where the adventurers were standing.
"What are you doing?" Aurora whispered with a confused expression on his face before moving closer to him.
"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing." He replied before stopping in front of the bush.
One more step forward and he would be out in the open.
'This should be enough.'
"What do you mean you know what you're doing? We're supposed to wait for them to leave."
"Yeah, but there's no way we would be able to steal those crystals in the condition we are in now and we can't go back empty-handed." He replied before sticking his hand through with the twig he was holding.
"Huh?" Aurora gasped.
'What are you doing Devon?'
[ Target locked ]
[ -10 Energy points ]
[ Swap initiated ]
Vick was just about to put the crystal in his bag when it suddenly turned into a twig.
"What the heck?"
With the crystal now in his hands, Devon quickly turned to Aurora and placed his hand on her shoulder.
[ Location acquired ]
[ -40 Energy Points ]
"Who's there?!" The adventurer called out before quickly shooting out a wind blast toward the area where he saw the bush move a bit.
The wind ended up taking out everything covering that area but there was nothing there.
"What the heck just happened?" He muttered afterward before raising the twig that was now in his hand.
The confusion he felt now was just on another level and while he had that expression on his face, Rufus kept that expressionless look on his face even after witnessing what just happened.
It took mere seconds for Devon to get to his room with Aurora and just as soon as he got there, he dropped the crystal on the floor before crashing down on his bed.
[ 10/100 Energy ]
He was breathing heavily now even though none of what he just did really looked that tiring.
Aurora was just too stunned to say anything at the moment, she had her gaze on the crystal on the floor with a lot of thoughts running through her mind.
'He got that crystal without even moving and then we just appeared here in his room.'
Her thoughts were going wild now as she slowly turned her gaze to him.
"Just who are you?" She stuttered.
"The same Devon you grew up with, I know what you're thinking and I'll explain everything but you have to pick that crystal and head over to the meeting room with it so that they'll know we're back." He replied with a little grunt. "I'll explain everything later, I promise."
After hearing him say that, she slowly bent down to pick the crystal and after getting up with it, she turned her gaze back to him.
"And you don't even have any mark on your neck." She muttered.
"Yeah, that's why I said I'll explain later, now go and make sure no one sees you when you leave." He retorted.
"Okay, but what about you? You need Erina to take a look at your arm." She said just after getting to the door.
"Yeah, I know, I'll be out in a few minutes." He replied before letting out a little groan.
She kept her gaze on him for a few seconds before responding to that.
"Okay." She muttered before leaving through the door and slowly shutting it after.
With her gone now, Devon let out a sigh before turning his gaze to the ceiling.
[ You have successfully acquired a master tier crystal ]
[ Crystal's worth: 550 mystic points ]
"Wow, you seem to be in really bad shape."
He was just about to look through the rest of the message when he heard that voice come from the side forcing him to quickly spring up on his bed despite how exhausted he was.
The person in his room now turned out to be Elena and she was sitting on the cupboard beside his bed now.
"What the heck? How did you get in here?"
"I never knew anything could startle you, this is a surprise." She remarked before crossing her legs.