CHAPTER 54: LEVELING UP: UNSEALING THE GHOST PATH (4)

Walking over to his team, ramie intended to watch how they go about digging out the core from the corpses, to get an idea on how to do it himself when he and the rest leave for the capital.

However, the moment he approached, one of the warriors saw him, and secretly pinched the other one, while saying something in a low voice.

Before the battle begins, ramie had pulled the hood backward, revealing his head that was covered with the hat-like flower. He also pulled down the scarf, thus revealing his frightening eyes, and his nose-less, dark-green, wood-patterned face.

He did so because he didn't want anything to obstruct his vision in this critical battle.

The people in this team had just fought in a life and death struggle against terrifying beasts alongside him. So, none of them had the time to display any intense reaction toward his appearance.

Throughout this week, the people here had either avoided him like plague and showed him a cold attitude, or acted cautious near him. Only small number acted normally around him.

Walking to the group, one of the two warriors faced him with a still pale face, due to the intense battle he just went through, and spoke in a very humble tone:"Mr. Ramie! On behalf of everyone, thank you! If it wasn't for you, a lot of us would have been taken as food by now!"

The other warrior nodded to ramie in gratitude.

It wasn't only them, but the others in the team too shared this sentiment toward ramie. Thanks to his vines, their team was the only team that didn't lose any member at all throughout this tragic night. Not even when the beasts ran rampant at the last few seconds of the battle.

The frenzied octopus-like attacks of the vines had kept the beasts away from the team to the very end.

Facing such gratitude, ramie started feeling a bit of guilt inwardly. Truth be told, he had decided during the battle that when his magic energy expenditure reaches a certain point, he would utilize the last of it to run away and hide in one of the nearby houses.

'Luckily, the beasts retreated before I reach that point…'

Ramie comforted himself inwardly.

Anyhow, in this battle, most of Ramie's kills were magical beasts. He was only willing to waste his magic energy to kill magical beasts and not normal ones, as the magical beasts had magical cores critical for his level up, and also, the magical beasts usually had weaker physical constitution than the normal beasts, hence, he'd spend less magic energy to kill them.

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Over all, his team killed 16 beasts. Ramie killed five magical beasts alone, and assisted in the killing other 8.

According to the rules set by the compound leader, whoever kills a beast by an individual effort gets his core. As such, the five magical cores undisputedly belonged to Ramie.

"Mr. Ramie, This is your share..." The 40 year old warrior, extended his hand, and handed Ramie 4 cores, two of which belonged to low tire-1 beasts, one belonged to mid tier-1 beast, and one actually belonged to high tier-1 beast!

"…!"

Ramie was a bit surprise. He didn't expect them to actually give him 4 cores out of the 11.

However, upon further consideration, this division didn't seem weird at all.

His supportive role not only made this team the only group to not lose anyone throughout the battle, but also, him restricting the beasts and sealing their movements was the only reason why the team managed to kill these 8 beast in the first place.

This battle showed the value of having ranged attacks. As such, and with the falling of three magicians in one go, it was inevitable that the importance of the surviving magicians rise in the compound. As such, it was only natural for them to want to leave a good impression on him.

Holding the four cores in his hand, Ramie wasn't sure what to do with them for now. However, and considering that these cores could be used to produce four warriors, their importance was self evident.

Saying some words of encouragement to the group, Ramie excused himself, as he wanted to go back and start the level up process. The event today left him feeling an even stronger urge to rise up his level as fast as possible.

Also, the battle tonight brought to his attention another disturbing reminder… which was – he should not completely depend on others for his safety, as he had seen the consequences of the complete reliant on others with his own eyes.

The compound's leader brief retreat amidst the battle to save his own son had led to his team, which completely depended on him, to face the full brunt of the tier-2 beast wrath, leading to their complete annihilation.

If possible, Ramie wanted to avoid falling into a situation where his life rests in the hands of others that do not consider him top priority. He wanted to have the strength to protect himself.

As ramie walked back home, he could see the others that were hiding during the fight being called out to clean the area, to extract the cores and to wrap thing up.

On the way, he saw Reem and Etta walking ahead of him while supporting each other. The azure gazelle king was alongside them, as protective of Reem as always.

Returning back to the house, someone came after him, holding a small basin of water for him.

The water was very precious commodity here in the compound, so, washing up was a luxury that only the warriors, magicians and other few got to enjoy 2 or 3 times a week. Of course washing up in these days was using wet piece of cloth to scrub and rub the body clean, and not the usual water pouring.

As for the rest, they could wash up only once a week, with even less portions of water.

But now, a basin that contained a water enough to wash up 8 times was brought to him, to clean himself and even his clothes!

This special treatment was given to all of those that had taken part in tonight's battle, to show appreciation for their efforts.

For the first time in what felt like forever, ramie got to clean himself and his clothes properly.

Afterward, he went to his room that lance had assigned to him.

Closing the door, and sitting on his bed that was basically a mattress on the ground with a blanket and billow, Ramie took out the five magical cores.

'Finally…! Am going to level up…!'

Right now, he had 5 magical cores. 4 came from low tier-1 beast, and 1 came from high tier-1 beast.

Given his level, the 4 cores from the low tier-1 beast weren't very useful to him now. As to level up his artifact, he'd need 5 cores from mid tier-1 beast or 1 core from high tier-1 beast.

Luckily, the last beast he killed was exactly high tier-1 beast.

Anyway, if he used the high tier-1 core to level up, then, the other 4 cores would become utterly useless to him. Hence, he decided to use these cores first.

'I wonder… what kind of spell I will get after this advancement…'

…