Before moving forward, Caleb decided to absorb the mana from the cores he had collected.
He didn't have any spells yet, but simply having mana coursing through his system came with its own advantages.
"System, are all the cores cleansed?"
[Affirmative]
"Good," he muttered, retrieving all of them. Caleb had amassed a total of 267 cores, most of which were from the beetle monsters.
Despite his efforts, the mana in his core hadn't shown much growth since absorbing his first monster core.
[0.067% → 0.069%]
"Just a 0.002% increase," he noted with mild disappointment. He wasn't too surprised, though, knowing that normal mana recovery only returned the core to its previous state after depletion.
Picking up a core, Caleb began the absorption process. Like before, it only took seconds to drain it completely.
