Chapter 72 - The Trolls Nest III
This rate of increase means I must defeat at least double the number on each side to level the situation. I'm level 28, and my strength is also increasing rapidly. The ones I face so far are not adept with their body and status, making it so easy to deal with… It is time to go all out with them!
That night, Bryn reduced both sides by more than half. All fifteen younger ones were eliminated and removed. His additional strength and mobility allowed the first portion of the job to go swiftly.
He got to the second area in less than two hours of work. It was similar to the previous day, except the amount of prey available for him was a bit bigger. This time, Bryn decided to kill his targets first before disposing of their bodies. Things went perfectly for the most part until a classical sound rang in his head.
– Title Evolution –
It is said that those who break the known race frontier more than once are the ones who define their potential.
Pioneer now evolved into Pathfinder.
– Title Description –
Pathfinder
This individual title is reserved for the pioneer who has leveled up the fastest since birth and since becoming a pioneer.
As a reward for going further than your race had gone, you have extra chances to develop individual skills. For every 30-level barrier, an additional status point will be given if the title remains or evolves.
Status points gained per level will only roll back if the title is reversed.
- Level UP ! -
Level 29 -> Level 30 (13%)
Gained nine status points
Wow, this means I would reach a regular human at level 150, should I level up fast enough! What level Gabriel and Jonas are? This is amazing! Change of plan: I will farm these trolls as much as possible…
Bryn’s eyes shone as he improved his plan and considered different ramifications while removing the corpses. He decided to find Jonas for the first time after his mission had started, heading back at top speed towards their camp.
After evading all the vegetation and carefully choosing a route to avoid trackers, Jonas waited for him in front of the fire. The man sat down on a comfortable-looking chair and sipped some wine from time to time.
“Mr. Jonas, I have a favor to ask!”
Looking at the smiling Bryn, Jonas was happy that the kid was back to his regular self. Their previous exchange had caused Jonas to doubt Bryn’s age more than once.
“Sure.”
“I’ve decided to experiment, but I need a spacial ring for that!”
Jonas choked over his cup of wine when he heard about the item. His body stopped moving instantly and absolutely. He appraised Bryn’s status, but nothing was out of the ordinary; his leveling was faster than expected, but nothing absurd that he should report.
“Why would you need a spacial ring?”
Bryn thought about his answer, but honesty was best whenever possible.
“The thing is, Mr. Gabriel told me I needed at least level 50 to walk safely around the continent. I need it to use the trolls to improve my leveling. Also, I’m only asking for the time while hunting the trolls!”
Bryn knew his plan was risky, but that was enough information for Jonas to decide.
Jonas pondered for a moment but decided to allow it. He emptied one of the smaller ones before throwing it to Bryn.
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“You need a drop of blood and mana to bind it. To use it, send mana into it and focus your mind inside the ring,” Jonas said, wondering what Bryn’s plan was with the ring.
He could count all of someone’s teeth a few times, but Bryn's reaction allowed him to. The faun bit his finger when he grabbed the ring midair and bound the item to himself. Looking mindlessly to the fire, Bryn’s fingers counted in the air as Jonas waited for a response.
“That is even better than expected!! Thank you, Mr. Jonas!” Bryn exclaimed, rushing to the man and embracing him before returning to the troll's nest.
For the next two days, Bryn left the trolls alone, using the time to increase his understanding of their population. Still, the impact from the night before had caused little to no commotion on the nest. The creatures showed signs of poor control over the amount of youngsters.
He used a few logs near the troll's nest to make calculations. The column sequence was the number of baby trolls he saw in the first location; the second column was how many he killed; the third was what he called adolescents, then the number of kills; the last one was simply called others.
The data indicated that even after killing many, the rate of nest growth was still positive, but for some days, he reduced it, even if only for a day. Still, the absolute number of babies was higher even if the rate had decreased.
Leaving the trolls alone for the past 48 hours had allowed their population to skyrocket. The previous fifteen babies a day had reached almost thirty, and the number of adolescents had also risen.
It was time to implement step one. His smile became malevolent as he considered the number of levels he would get.
Killing twenty creatures that night on each location, Bryn’s level rose two times. But the time needed to do it was reduced to one-fourth with the spacial ring. After becoming corpses, he would instantly store them and then dispose far away more than one at a time. They became almost weightless inside the ring, and nothing bothered his mobility on the way. The ring could only store four baby trolls and three adolescents, but it was enough now.
The remaining time was used to train ice spells to help him kill the creatures faster. Having to reach the creatures personally to attack them with Akusashi poses many risks, so he starts with Ice blades.
Using the skill of Bryn's Inferno a few times and cutting the corpses, the flow of elemental mana allowed Bryn to comprehend the difference between his pressure spheres and ice formation. His visualization oriented the mana to force the liquid or gas state inside his spheres. The pressure he achieved was enough to form an ice shard as soon as his mind channeled the image of an Iceberg.
The first few times he formed an ice shard, the process was quick, and he could not measure the amount of mana spent, the size, shape, or resistance. Practice made perfect, and by the end of that night, he could create a few spells with pointy ends and send them like spears. The shape was rough but enough to damage a tree branch.
Resting, controlling the nest's birth rate by killing trolls, and practicing magic became Bryn’s routine. Day by day, he was able to kill a more significant number of trolls, but the birth rate was still positive, even with him reaching forty kills every night in each location. His leveling slowed by the third day, and even increasing the number of trolls daily wasn’t enough to keep up with the exponential experience needed to level up.
His practice with ice magic allowed him to form thin ice blades that cut trolls' skin, but new problems arose with the blade idea. He couldn’t sharpen the blade without making it weak enough not to break when hitting bone. As the spell broke, there would be noise, and it would wake the other trolls. Realizing that improving the ice blades would take more time and research than he was willing to do, he decided to work on drills.
With form and a strong spin, I could cut the skin deep enough and evade most bones from the trolls, Bryn thought as he used his imagination to create a form similar to a modern drill: a conic shape, a spiral from the tip around the body.
The technique demanded a refined use of mana that Bryn wasn’t used to, but he had thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and grind ever since coming to this world and passing the ritual.
He chose to dissect the flesh around the troll's chest and abdomen to measure the space between their ribs. I found that the measurement was about four of his fingers, and the maximum diameter of his ice drill's bade was now. The second evolution was length. It is too lengthy, and the strength of the drill might succumb to the pressure of impact, especially if he wanted to control mana expenditure. After a long time of tests, he realized that as long as he didn't cross the twenty centimeters limit, the amount of concentration for the conical shape and mana for the ice resistance was manageable to create and control a large number of spells at the same time.
What caused Bryn's headache was the following portion of his training, adding the spin to all of the skills he had conjured. He had training in the multicasting ever since the water spheres, but the difficulty increased exponentially with each added step on the spell. First was the form, then the amount of mana, then the spin, and last but not least, shooting them with acceptable precision.
Bryn spent two whole nights spinning one of his ice drills fast enough so that they perforated a trunk about his size with the added speed from throwing. With practice made perfect, as he understood the relationship between spinning and pushing the spike with pure mana, scaling it to a few more units wasn't as hard. Also, with every int point he added, the strain on his mind reduced a bit.
On the seventh night from the beginning of the process, Bryn waited for the trolls to fall asleep so his training would finally come to fruition. As the creatures started their snoring symphony, Bryn prepared to strike his first three targets. He positioned himself at the edge of the baby troll's location; he looked at his targets from a tree, providing himself cover. The three ice strikes found their mark using the spell, entering the troll's chests near the heart and sending ice shards around them at impact. The creatures died almost instantly, and the ice spike had frozen the entirety of the areas it passed by, allowing Bryn not to care about the blood. The result caused Bryn's blood to boil; his mind started to think about the speed increase on his leveling, that the smile on his face only increased. Amid his excitement, he decided to expand his use of the spell from three to ten.
Ice drills appeared in front of another ten baby trolls, formed about a meter from their chests. The moment they formed, all of them started to spin faster and faster until they were released at high speeds toward their targets. A second had passed since Bryn had stored the previous prey in his spatial ring, but his smile was gone the moment he released the spell. One of the baby trolls rolled to the side that very moment.
F**!!
His eyes constricted on the spell aimed at that troll, concentrating on the speed at which it moved, correcting the projection of the spell and aiming it properly. Unfortunately for him, it was too late. The distance from the shard of ice to its target was so close that his reaction speed could not correct it enough.
The next scream sent a shock to Bryn's spine that froze him. All his instincts told him to run as fast as possible. The hair on his arms rose as he instantly started running in an opposite line from his targets.
The scream from the baby troll created a domino effect. One became three, then five, and then fifteen, and in less than a second, more than a hundred baby trolls screamed and got up, looking around to find the threat. In haste, Bryn should have remembered to conceal the noise of his movements. His lack of experience caused him to give his position away instantly; the baby trolls started to chase in a horde of creatures focused on the path Bryn had taken.
As the sound of their screams echoed through the nest, a few trolls trobled their ears, rising to their feet and running toward the same direction. They crossed the nest faster than any of the babies or adolescents, reaching the front of the back before Bryn could conceal himself.
Looking back, Bryn's eyes saw them. Each of them had a different color scheme. Three of them had red hair, a beard, darker skin, and robust muscles. Two of them had yellow hair, pale white skin, and thin bodies. The last one, arriving a bit later than the other five, had vivid green hair and a bluer skin tone.
When he appraised the newcomers, his pale skin became as white as the trolls. He could feel his legs pumping with the blood evading other potions of his body as a portion of his mind screamed for him to freeze from fear.