Reaching the city in the south of Iteno, Logan was happy as the drastic reduction of Odriacian’s here meant far fewer problems. Naturally there could be some from Tosmana but their population is unusually low though they are strong, magically.
As they land, he also felt the gentle vibrancy of the mana in the air which is very different from the prickling sensation in western Eshen and what remains of Odriacia. This was due to the strong mana from the forests connecting Iteno and Shiarus.
What makes such a rich magical land, naturally it is because at the very center of the forest is a dungeon and in no way is it a small one. Sitting at the roots of a massive tree that grew on top feeding off the dungeon’s mana directly, it grew to tower over the forest. It is situated at the exact center of the forest where the three nations with the forest territory meet.
This was a decision between them to share the dungeon and there are 3 cities each about 20 km from the dungeon in each territory. It is also the first line of defense in case the dungeon erupts and monsters burst forth.
This vibrancy is the main reason the Eshen government had thoughts for dungeons as the main problem solving solution. Mana, despite being a life giving force, was extremely dangerous in high quantities.
Of course this depended on two main things. The first is the stability of the mana, even at the edge of what was once the forest before part was chopped, he could feel as much mana as in the edge of thunder forest. That said, the feeling wasn’t overbearing and harsh to deal with.
This is stability, stable mana is very safe even in high quantities and the general result is fertility but also danger as monsters of much higher strength live in these places.
The second thing is purity. The mana here is pure, it is not a blended mess of different types of mana, on the other hand, thunder forest and most of the other anomaly zones consist of basically all types of mana in a poorly blended mess.
Now dungeons, despite being called the den of monsters, have a very integral part of nature and humans naturally knew of this because dungeons are a sentient breed of crystalline beings. The natural purpose of dungeons is to gather surface mana and pump it into the ground to reduce the quantity of mana to stable levels. In cases of war and problems like in Eshen, this is even more important as the dungeons would help purify mana as they pump it because by forcing it into the ley lines of the world, the land itself filters and reaches a stability and purity required for normal life.
This actually helps to improve the ley line size in the areas.
The only problem that arises from dungeons is that without control of the dungeon population, monsters born from it might migrate out despite the dungeon’s desire for controlling them and this triggers monster waves, a very dangerous phenomenon.
However, the forest’s dungeon is very under control as proven by the fact that there are three cities so close to it.
Logan felt very relaxed in this place and remembered the words from Ulias about properly learning to train his mana pool and channels.
Curious about this, he went to the city’s main mage tower.
Mage towers are like magic book libraries but they contain much more than just magic spell books. They contain many studies.
Of course, different nations have different development levels of magic. Nations like the industrious Oblistan don’t even have magic.
Iteno naturally did thanks to the abundance of mana from the forest promoting the appearance of mages.
Arriving inside, he presented his ID.
“Hm… Foreigners pay 3 times the general price depending on the type of magic tome. What are you looking for?” the receptionist said.
"I heard that there are ways to meditate properly to develop the mana pool and mana channels.” He said.
“You have a strong magical presence? Did you not train that already?” She asked.
“No, I was born with a strong affinity for lightning mana and have been trained only to use mana by my father but never how to train these parts.” He said.
“Oh, so your presence is purely grown through usage, makes sense but you really have a great deal of talent. It is a shame to waste that potential as a magic swordsman.” She said.
He smiled weakly, “My talent for the sword surpasses my talent for magic. My father has special eye magic meant to check the body’s conditions and he specifically picked me and my sister when adopting children to learn his sword arts.” He said.
She sighed, “Well, for any of those specific types of magic tomes, the lowest price is 60,000 tips and the best can go for several million.” She said.
“Seriously!?” He said, shocked.
"I did say foreigners pay 3 times the price.” She said smiling weakly, “Eshen should have these as well, although it is not as magically inclined, they have a good magical foundation.” she said.
“Yeah but I just got here from it.” He said and sighed. “Thank you for the help.” He said and left.
Although he had money from his father and from the missions he took, he couldn’t complete every single one and even if he did, it was still difficult to pay so much. Most of his armor was also destroyed when fighting the wolves, he didn’t even go after the other ones after dealing with a single pack of wolves.
As such, he actually needed armor with materials of at least a D rank monster. Forging that isn’t cheap because monster material needs to be infused into metal or use the hide for leather armor.
With a sigh, he headed to the adventurers guild to get some jobs. At the very least, he is fast so depending on the targets he hunts, he won’t have much trouble despite lacking armor.
At the guild, he put the ID into one of the nexus ports and began to learn about the forest and the countless breeds. Among them were humanoid monsters which sometimes formed villages that needed to be dealt with. Goblins and Orcs were some of the most annoying monster breeds if they obtained leaders.
There were actually a few small camps forming within an area suggesting some stronger members starting to form groups.
“There really aren’t many…” He complained.
That said, as soon as he said that, the globe turned bright red and an alarm suddenly sounded.
“Warning! An emergency signal has been sent for several villages. A large wave of Ironhide Humpback Rhinos have invaded from the forest and have begun to trample farmlands in a stampede. Highest registered members are D rank in strength and several villages have already been severely damaged. This is a D rank emergency mission for all C, D and E ranks adventurers available to quickly deal with the wave and stop the spread of damage unless the entire southern farmlands will be destroyed, losing the entire harvest this year.”
Instantly the mission was accepted to every ID within the guild and it appeared in front of Logan already accepted.
“Ironhide humpback rhinos?” he thought, confused.
Although he was confused, instantly all the people from Iteno dropped what they were doing and pulled out weapons before rushing out.
Those still left were from other nations but it wasn’t because they weren’t going to go. Being an adventurer meant being like a mercenary but the jobs didn’t come from hired parties but from the guild. That said, foriegn adventurers were cautious and those sitting down all headed to the nexus and everyone pulled up information.
No one was stupid enough to rush at an unknown monster without at least knowing the weak points and strengths of the creature.
Many people groaned when they saw.
Ironhide Humpback Rhinos were massive, four meters of height from back to leg and 9 meters of length. This was the D rank members, C rank ones were much scarier with twice those dimensions. E rank were adolescent and ranged between 2 and 3 meters of height and 5 to 7 of length.
The weak points were few. Their hide was very resistant to both magic and physical damage and needed a lot of force to break the skin. That is why the guild asked for C ranks to help in case the D ranks couldn’t piece it.
The race is vegetarian but they are known to smash rocks and rock walls to eat stone and iron minerals are absorbed into their bodies. Their hide and bones are known to make very strong armor.
That said, although not clearly stated, Logan smiled because he realized a weak point not stated. Of course, the weak points that were stated are their poor eyesight, lack of turning ability and their short but stout legs.
When alone, the suggested method to deal with them is to aim for the leg and cripple it.
However, as soon as he heard their eating habits he knew. These rhinos likely had a weakness to lightning magic with the iron in their skin drawing it like a lightning rod.
He closed up and went after the Iteno adventurers and got on board the transport. Soon after the others arrived and they filled them up to go.
***
You can’t underestimate what it means when an alert from several villages comes in. as the adventurers reached the stampede area, they were slackjaw by the numbers. It was like a monster wave with how many there were or better yet, like a buffalo herd migrating. That said, the size of the creatures were more akin to an elephant herd running without end crushing anything in its path.
The adventures felt their lips dry upon seeing that and even Logan was frowning. He looked at Arashi and hoped that it possessed the power to chop through them. He breathed in and out and instead of hoping, he decided to believe in himself that it would. It was forged with C rank wind monster materials at the end and the dragon bone was restoring its power each time Arashi absorbed thunder.
He extended her to the length of a katana and began to cycle his mana along the channels but never releasing the clad.
“To all adventurers, the current situation is serious, there is an estimate of nearly 10,000 members in the pack. The Iteno army is already moving and the most important thing to accomplish is to break the rush so it loses momentum.” a voice came throughout all ships.
As soon as it did, they actually saw some army airships open weapon slots and fire cannons at the very front.
Hundreds of cannons fired from all the airships causing explosions or directly hitting the rhinos at the front making pile ups.
The many rhinos began to rear up and be trampled by their fellows behind them.
This broke the single stampede into smaller groups and many at the back saw the danger and stopped before breaking up into a mess.
The airships all began to fly lower until it reached a safe height that even E ranks could survive the jump.
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“Stampede is broken, all army and adventurers proceed to reduce the number of individuals as much as possible!”
As soon as the order came, the strongest openly jumped off the side of the ship already with eyes on the strongest D ranks which stood out from the crowd.
Logan looked at them and followed after and jumped off the ship.
He drew Arashi and at his command, the winds rushed out and he coated his feet before infusing the wind. It was in the sense of defensive but he needed to be creative with his skills so as he reached half way and was gaining speed, he caused the coated wind mana to burst down releasing as wind forcing him to slow down and land safely on the back of an E rank Rhino.
It felt him and roared but the flowing mana in Arashi instantly released lightning and pumping a lot of mana to not break the flow, the glowing lightning edge formed and he simply stabbed down.
What was amazing was that it pierced right through and the balance that had formed instantly broke and lightning erupted through the massive rhino.
The bones and hide instantly transmitted the lightning throughout the body and despite not injuring those areas directly, other parts weren’t as lucky.
To not lose his chance, he instantly activated the inventory and the massive body was sucked in and he dropped to the ground, Arashi free of the body.
That said, he knew he couldn’t fight like this, it was too difficult to constantly remake the clad like this so instead, he buffed his own body and just ran mana purely over Arashi instead of within and like a bolt of lightning, rushed into the pack of stomping rhinos.
On the closest one, he slashed and grinned as he saw that, although not as deeply or cleanly, he could still damage the hard hide with Arashi’s natural sharpness.
With blinding speed to not be caught, he rapidly went at the legs and cut at the inner side of the legs at the knees.
He didn’t go for the front because that was stupid, the inner side has dozens of arteries and veins so he cut through that after rushing twice in and out of the range before the rhinos could rear up in pain. Thanks to the kinetic vision, he was able to aim properly on the same wound that cut the skin and finally pierce on every second slash.
These became dangerous wounds and even when others were fighting he would appear as support.
This was a far less taxing method of fighting for him. It also greatly reduced the pressure on those who weren’t as well equipped to fight them. Still, a lot of E ranks were all around and Logan got a sense for the true power of more veteran ones.
Skillful archers aiming and hitting the pinpoint eyes of the rhinos despite the moving, heavy knights that could tank a slow rush that hadn’t gathered momentum and the mage.
Sadly, large scale magic wasn’t possible after allies entered the field of battle but most that remained on the ships used support magic such as spawning vines, freezing and even a few curses to weaken some of the rhinos momentarily.
The biggest explosions came from the C and D ranks fighting the D rank alpha Rhinos.
The defensive abilities of those black skinned rhinos were scary. The current C ranks weren’t warriors with swords, there was a mage and a few archers meaning that despite being able to pierce, they couldn’t cause extensive damage.
D ranks had to work hard against those to bring them down and this was a taxing thing and very dangerous.
Logan didn’t just attack though. His instant burst speed was unusual in this battle field and was hard to follow by many and thanks to this, he could actually swoop in and get people out of dangerous situations by carrying them quickly away and dropping them.
This saved a lot of casualties but he wasn’t some god. His speed was fast but eventually, even the low output he put himself through taxed at his body. The buff was almost like adrenaline and the body can’t last long using so much force so eventually he had to rush out and land near the army lines huffing.
He carried some people who were alive but seriously injured however as the last thing to do.
The medics quickly took the man and Logan was pulled to the back of the line and given an energy drink and a pill that stimulated the body to gather mana. He wasn’t injured so he knew he would need to go back out there.
That didn’t stop him from relaxing quite a bit and asking for Arashi to send the healing energies into his body. He drank a healing pill and stamina pill to supply extra energy to regain his energy.
He just laid there until a voice shouted to him, “Hey, what are you doing just laid down there. Start meditating to gather mana.”
Logan looked and saw some tired soldiers.
"I don’t know direct mana absorption meditation.” He said.
“Huh!? How are you even trained to use mana if you don’t know absorption!? That is the most basic thing!” the soldier said in shock.
When he said it, Logan turned red but it is true. Because of his sword constantly affecting him, his magic talent was easy to awaken when Maxwell made a small bit flow through his body and he became aware of the feeling of mana. His sister took the more common route but Logan hasn’t actually done that and Maxwell forgot to actually teach him.
If he was there at the moment, he would also feel ashamed at forgetting such a vital skill. It is almost the same as a person raised in the wilderness to be powerful but their teacher never took the time to teach them common sense of human society.
“You’re not joking, are you?!” he said.
Logan shook his head, he explained what it took to awaken his ability to use it and the man face palmed, “So you also lack developed mana pool and mana channels and you're still that fast and strong.” the soldier said in disbelief.
Logan didn’t know how to reply and the man just sighed. “Fine, sit down cross legged and run what you have left of your mana in the most natural flow it has. Don’t contain it and just learn the flow. When you find it, find the strongest moving channels and focus mana through only the thickest channels. Ignore the small ones and just flow through the big ones. Like blood, mana will move out and enter return veins which will be captured in the returning channels. This is the most simple method of absorption.” He explained.
“O-okay.” Logan said and pushed himself up and let go of the collected mana in his mana pool and just followed the feeling. Soon he found ten flowing channels so he just picked one going through his arm and back and from it he felt mana that was not his own and instead from outside entered his arm.
He did the same going through all flows, the ten flows were the exit and return channels similar to how the heart works, so two each channels each extremity.
When the last flow reached the end and started in the first again, he felt amazing as new mana was coming in from all over his body gathering into the main veins and depositing into the mana pool.
After ten minutes upon reaching the full flow, his mana pool was filled with as much as he originally had but it wasn’t the maximum as if it had much more space.
He kept absorbing until the flow slowed down and space finally diminished.
“Wow, my body feels so energetic now!” He said and laughed as he got up refreshed by the feeling.
The others nearby just shook their heads but when Logan’s body surged with lightning and he jumped over the entire line of soldiers several meters from a Rhino that had just been stopped and shot at it like a bullet, they were shocked. The next second they saw the flash stop and flash back to the other side and the rhino was roaring in pain as the back of the knees were chopped and bleeding and Logan smiled before rushing off to continue.
The soldiers in the back were looking at him, “Is his rank actually E rank?” one of them asked.
"I think he might have a sudden burst speed skill. So he can achieve a fast speed within a short time and short distance that makes it look really fast but can’t sustain it.” one soldier said and began to examine a magic tool with information on the active adventurers in the surroundings.
They found his name but there wasn’t a lot of information because it is like revealing the kind of adventurers each nation has, only the nation of origin can access a more expansive archive of known knowledge on each person.
He continued as before, saving people, killing through the cut wounds and helping where he could. Several times he would stop to store corpses left around. That said, in the time he wasn’t around, the number of human casualties was massive but so were the rhino numbers.
Finally an order to retreat came and the humans began to gather and attack while moving away.
Those who could move freely helped support them by distracting the rhinos. Logan did this several times by appearing suddenly and stabbing the eyes of several dangerous rhinos that had begun to build momentum so the stab caused them to roar and smashed into the of others and stab them with the horns.
He sadly couldn’t extend Arashi and shrink it fast or he would have forced her to her longest length to reach the brain.
When most of the adventurers joined the army line, an order for the distractors to quickly withdraw was called and with support fire they cleared out just as the air ships took aim and began blasting their cannons at large groupings.
Finally the herd felt the danger as so many had died and several D ranks had been killed. A very loud roar came from one of the remaining D rank Rhinos and it instantly turned tail towards the forest and hundreds to thousands of rhinos instantly ran away after it.
That said, the army wasn’t going to just let it off and half the fleet ran after it in case they gathered up for another rush.
Even far away, everyone watched as the cannons were fired as the rhinos formed large clusters and were blown away.
Logan was sweating buckets by then for running so long but he knew that he finally got a big windfall.
“Thank you all for your service to the safety of Iteno. Every adventurer who aided in the subjection will be rewarded with 40,000 tip and you may harvest or gather as many corpses as you can transport.” an announcement from one of the airships said.
Instantly there were roars and cheers from the tired adventurers.
Logan smiled weakly and sat down to start regaining mana right after drinking a healing and stamina pill and regain the lost power.
When he was done, he still felt tired unlike the first time which felt like he was reinvigorated. This time he didn’t fill up and instead went enough to get enough to walk around.
He joined the many adventures while taking tools out and getting specific information on Ironhide Humpback Rhinos, specifically the element affinity.
“Hmm… they are earth but lean more to metal mana affinity. So they favor advanced earth magic huh. I don’t think Olivia’s sword has any advanced elements from what I remember what dad said. He did say he got the basic elements for material.
He took out some barrels and stabbed Arashi completely through a point in a chosen rhino, he asked it to pull the blood.
As he pulled out, blood poured out like a fountain and into the barrel. He prepared several and filled them all and stored it until the corpse was bled and he stored the rest perfectly bled.
He continued to do this a few dozen times before stopping at just before the limit to a normal magic bag’s upper limit. He also had to account for those he stored in the inventory and needed to be bled.
Sadly, he had no funds for another magic bag despite having much more space in the box.
He walked around until he was much further away from the first spot until he didn’t find people he recognized and got only one or two from those areas and moved.
A sad thing that was also seen was fallen adventurers and their weapons that were plundered. No one knew when they would die and those who weren’t prepared were more often than not the ones who went first. Those he saved might have died the next second from another attack and he wouldn’t know since he didn’t look back after saving them the first time.
He sighed and helped clean the bodies that were intact enough to be identified or find id cards.
He didn’t like it but he did pick up two other magic bags and after checking it and delivering the items inside, he kept them because they were still useful.
The damage to the farms was immense, this was the harshness of living next to the forest with such high quantities of mana, it is a breeding ground for monsters. Those who lived there had to have insurance in case of things like this and it should be enough to restart.
As for the cause, that would have to be the army that investigated and it wasn’t Logan’s place to actually explore that. He returned to the city he had been in on the transports and rented a house for a few days so he could properly butcher all the corpses and finally sell this. He needed to make up at least 100,000 tips and obtain knowledge on mana development.
The fact that he didn’t know basic absorption was extremely embarrassing and he cursed his father for never teaching him.
The rented house was small with a big yard so bleeding what needed to be bled wasn’t hard and Arashi could control when to stop and pull like a valve so he never dropped outside the barrels and even if he did, he could still have it control for him.
Then with Arashi as a Tanto, he used it to butcher dozens of rhinos and strip the hide completely before chopping the meat into different pieces depending on the part. Only the organs were left and he knew that some of them had medical usage. The most valuable was the horn which could be used for medicine and for weapons.
When he was done, the box had freed up a lot of space but he swapped it over to the magic bags and finally stored the horns and blood into the box since he was keeping that for Olivia in case she needed that. If not, he would just sell it. Mana rich blood was always a requirement as magic spell scrolls, scrolls which could activate a spell just by adding mana, required a lot of it to make special ink.
Going to the meat market, he went to the butcher and showed him the many different bled cuts. They did question his method of bleeding but he just explained that he used his lightning to force the heart to pump while making the openings and bled it from that. He had left some and just taken the bulk of the blood making it look like a high quality bleeding using a unique method.
Thanks to the high quality bleeding the price was good but many pieces were bruised as a result of the fighting so he just kept those for himself since he needed meat and the bones left over could be added to Olivia’s materials.
When he finished with the meat, he had gained nearly 40,000 tip because he had sold dozens of tons of meat.
Then he went to an armor smith and talked about how to process the hide.
“Hm, ironhide rhino hide. This needs to be processed before it can be tailored. Both are done at tailors to make leather armor.” He said.
“Do you know if it is expensive?” Logan asked.
“Should be around 8,000 tip each hide and custom tailoring it is another 6,000.” He said.
Logan groaned at the numbers, “Do you have a gauge on the price for these?” he asked.
“Sure, a single quality hide without many holes in it can go for nearly 2,000 tip. The treatment process reveals bruising as well so be aware. Both cut and bruising means loss material.” he said.
Logan nodded and asked if there were any trustworthy tailors who would buy a few dozen hides.
“Dozen? Well, it is unlikely because of the Rhino crisis that just happened since it had several thousand ones. If you take it up north you can find any smith or tailor who would buy it. You can also go to other cities a little further away. If you want to give a short there are a few tailors nearby.” the smith said.
Logan nodded and got directions and headed to try and sell it first before others could finish processing all the corpses.