That dark-robed man was only five or six meters away from Renji, but he had thought the dark Umbramouse was beneath his notice. Seeing Echo's amazing speed, his cold face revealed a look of astonishment. "What is this speed?!" That dark-robed man hastened to wave his dagger to block. Evidently, this dark-robed man was somewhat stronger than the original assassin. At least facing Echo, he had the presence of mind and speed to wield his dagger.
"Swish!" Echo swung his sharp claws with force.
"Clang!" The black dagger exploded into fragments as Echo's claws slammed into the assassin's dagger. Meanwhile, Echo's claws remained undamaged and immediately attacked the head of the dark-robed man. His head was directly smashed. Instantly, the man died on the spot.
The difference between the sixth rank and the seventh rank is really too great." At the sight of this, Renji couldn't help but sigh. Echo was a terrifying Umbramouse that even forced the mighty Dragon King, a magical beast of the seventh rank, to flee. From the power of Echo's sharp claws and razor-sharp fangs, killing a warrior of the sixth rank was as easy as eating rice.
"Rip!" Renji ran to the corpse and tore the dark-garbed man's clothes apart, immediately grasping the hidden backpack. He did nothing else but turned and fled northward immediately. The wind began to rise around his legs, and he started running with such agility that he left behind almost no trace.
The second group of black-clad men finally arrived after a while. When they saw #2's head, everybody furrowed their brows.
"A magical beast? " Many different magical beasts suddenly flashed through the mind of one black-clad man. "A Blue Umbramouse of the sixth rank? A Violet Umbramouse of the seventh rank? A Gold Terran Rodent of the seventh rank? This mark is a fierce but small, a claw mark that must have been left by a rodent-type magical beast. On the Mountain of Magical Monsters, some people felt the most terrifying possibility was encountering an eighth or ninth ranks magical beast. Some others' most terrified encounter was with a terrifying swarm of pack-type magical beasts. But deep in the heart of the black-clad man, the scariest possibility was running into a Terran Rodent swarm or an Umbramouse swarm. The Terran Rodent possessed strong defense, pointed teeth, and pointed claws.
The Umbramouse possessed high speed, pointed teeth, and pointed claws.
If an Umbramouse or Terran Rodent swarm, consisting of thousands or tens of thousands of them, attacked, then even an army could be totally swallowed up, let alone just the ten of them.
"We're returning now!" Without the slightest hesitation, his order was given by the dark-garbed leader.
Among tall mountains and mountain ridges, Renji continued to run and wind atop a mountain peak. Having run more than over a hundred kilometers at once, Renji believed that his pursuers wouldn't catch him anymore.
"Boss, quickly open the backpack and see what is inside of it!" Echo immediately said. Renji's heart was filled with anticipation as well. The stronger an opponent is, the more magicite cores he should have in his backpack. That original assassin had left behind 15,000 gold coins' worth of magicite cores and magicite gems. How much would this second assassin, addressed as #2, have on him? He opened the backpack. "Two more sets of clean clothes." Renji looked at the clothes within the backpack before drawing out two bulging pouches from within the backpack. This "#2" had been in the Mountain of Magical Monsters for a month more and was a bit stronger than the original assassin, so logically speaking… Seeing how many magicite cores these pouches contained, Renji couldn't help but suck in a cold breath. "So many? And most of them are magicite cores of the fifth rank. There's plenty of magicite cores of the sixth rank as well." After having seen so many magicite cores, Renji was now capable of recognizing the general rank of a magicite core at a glance. Renji immediately began to do an accurate accounting of the cores. "9 magicite cores of the sixth rank. 56 fifth rank magicite cores, 12 fourth rank magicite cores, seven magicite gems.
Putting that all together would put the total value at approximately 20 000 gold coins. Adding that to the value of 50 000 gold coins I already have, that means I should at least now be holding 70 000 gold coins' worth of magicite on me." After tabulating his total wealth, Renji couldn't help but take a deep breath. The sum of 70,000 gold coins! If he were to place this huge sum of money before his father, his father would likely be dumbfounded.
In the 51 days he had spent in the Mountain of Magical Monsters alone, that assassin's organization had 'donated' 35,000 gold coins to him.
The rest of the attempted killers he had run into had 'donated' a further 30,000 gold coins while he himself had killed enough magical beasts to receive cores worth 5,000 gold coins as well.
Kaiya Tanaka emerged within the Celestial Dragon Ring and laughed at the expression on Renji's face. "I finally understood why so many people in the Mountain of Magical Monsters like to try and kill other humans. After I worked hard for a full month, I only earned a few thousand gold coins, but when I killed someone else, I gained the fruits of their two months of labor."
Renji placed both pouches into his own backback, then tossed the extra backpack into the grass. "Of these 70,000 gold coins worth of magicite, only 5,000 came from me killing magical beasts. The rest all came from assassins and killers." Renji shook his head and let out a sigh.
Kaiya Tanaka stroked his white beard as he chuckled. "Looks like your youth actually helped you. If you looked just a bit more mature and experienced, there probably wouldn't have been so many killers trying their luck against you."
"Hehe." Renji couldn't help but laugh. "Grandpa Kaiya, just now, based on the words being exchanged by the people in that squad, it seems like they were on a training mission here in the Mountain of Magical Monsters?" Renji was rather curious.
Kaiya Tanaka smiled faintly. "Renji, every single one of the major powers of the the Arethos continent has to have its own base of martial power in order to maintain its strength. But martial power has to be trained and cultivated. Many of the larger powers will often send groups of its subordinates out to the Mountain of Magical Monsters to train. Renji nodded. "Renji, there are so many powerful organizations on this continent. To be honest… even I don't know about them." Kaiya Tanaka said, her voice laced with self-deprecation. Renji didn't ask too much. At this moment, Renji felt heavy in his heart. The situation on the Aerthos continent was much more complicated than he had thought. Having organized his things, Renji slipped on a shirt and then continued on his way. Agilely skipping over the fallen rocks in mountain forests and sometimes crawling over the fallen trees, Renji pressed onwards. But after Renji crossed a peculiarly large mountain. He saw this mountain was hundreds of kilometers in length.
There were lots of trees present here.
On top of the mountain, Renji instinctively knew there were hundreds of kilometers from here across to the opposite peak over the chasm if he wanted to fly directly over.
"What a weird canyon." Renji noticed that the canyon walls of these two mountain cliffs drew closer and closer to each other at the edges. Renji immediately began to jog down from the mountain peak. The farther down he jogged, the closer the canyon walls appeared to be. After jogging for five or six kilometers, the gap between the two mountains was only a meter across. One could cross it with a single step. "It's like this on this side. What is it like on the other side? The same?" With one foot on each cliff, Renji peered across. Off in the distance, he seemed to see the two cliffs draw even closer, then become one. "Bizarre. Bizarre." Having been in these mountains for some time, Renji had seen many things, but he had never encountered such a weird canyon. Looking down into the canyon gap, Renji saw only a white fog, so blurry that he couldn't see anything at all. "Immeasurably deep." Renji felt extremely curious but was also rather wary of what lay within the belly of this mountain gulch. Making his way along the edges of the canyon, Renji continued peering down, almost as if he wished to see through what was hidden by the white fog. Besides how close the canyon walls were to each other, there was another oddity about this ravine.
It would seem that the further the ravine went down, the further the canyon walls drew back apart. For example, towards the top of the ravine, the distance between the canyon walls was perhaps a hundred meters or so, but from what Renji could tell, towards the bottom, the distance was perhaps a few thousand meters, or even tens of kilometers. "Hrm? That's…" Renji looked as though he had been struck by lightning. He carefully stared at the small patch of grass that was hidden beneath the fog beneath him. The small patch of grass growing alongside the cliffside was dark green, but the patch of grass emanated a faint blue aura. "Azure Soulgrass. It's Azure Soulgrass! " Renji had once seen a picture of Azure Soulgrass in Keito Institute's library, and he remembered it clearly well. His eyes shone. The extremely rare, priceless grass growing from the cliff could neutralize the harmful effects that would come from live dragon's blood inside the body. Azure Soulgrass!