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Chapter 0029

"Aster?" I mumble as I start processing things upon waking up, and the pup just gives me a low rumble. "If you're going to get yourself sticky, please clean off before getting in my bed. No getting into my bed while sticky, alright?"

He must have left again while I was asleep because he was not sticky when we went to bed. Considering that it's not just his snout this time but probably his entire body based on me feeling it on what's pressed against me and under my arm, he probably dove snout-first into whatever it is he decided to eat during the night.

"Awwwww."

"Come on," I pull my blanket off of us. "Go to the shower, and I'll get these in the wash."

Aster vanishes and I strip my bed and put everything in the washer, then head to the bathroom. The pup's turned on the shower and is shifting his body in a slight dance while having just his head under the water.

"Cute," I chuckle. "But you're not off the hook. You get into my bed while sticky again, and you're sleeping on the floor from now on."

Aster gives me a disappointed look, then I wash us both up, dry us off, and bring him to the kitchen for breakfast. He's served some varyihn beef while I heat up a portion of a strawberry danish, which I wash down with a glass of milk.

"You ready for another day of work?" I ask Aster after getting dressed and ready to return to the Mythic Forest.

The pup vanishes and I chuckle a little. That was definitely him escaping "work". If he'd come, I'd probably have more work wrangling him than he'd actually do.

I access my gate and head straight to where I left off in the river. A few more goblins have shown up and just as I start to aim a spell at one, I realize something and quickly set an alarm on my phone.

Just in case I lose track of time. This should make it easier for me to eat lunch at an appropriate time rather than forgetting.

Today's monster-clearing session begins and I face little difficulty in it. [Magic Missile] can fly up to 66' now thanks to its flight range being 1' per 1 Magic, and [Flamethrower] now takes out the trolls in about fifteen seconds. Even though my Magic didn't go up quite by half when I reached Level 5, the difference between its power and the monsters' Constitution makes it easier for the flames to burn them.

Even with all of that, reaching the EXP threshold for Level 6 still takes me more than an hour. I make sure I put my things into my bracelets and those into my [Dimensional Storage] before accepting this time. When I appear in the Level 6 Awakening Zone, I find Aster chasing a herd of boars across the several-thousand-feet stretch of dead dirt.

That's confirmation Aster's able to be in the Awakening Quest zones, though I'm not sure if it's more that he's allowed or if it's that the System couldn't evict him or change the location. The King of the Celestials might have also simply allowed him to remain here regardless of the normal rules since the pup can't kill anything.

The horde itself consists of about thirty boars, so I won't be able to take them all on using just [Magic Missile], and boar monsters are naturally-resilient to fire magics' more potent effect. Piercing power is the best way to go for boar-type beasts, especially ones with earth- or metal-based affinities. The brown and grey coats of these ones indicates they're stonehide boars and so would need piercing-type attacks for the most efficient work.

I know the spell formula for [Magic Spear], except that unless I maintained control over it, I'd only be able to take out one at a time as well. Manipulating it around to pierce into the different boars would take practice I don't currently have and I'm not sure how well I'd learn it in live combat against roughly thirty boars.

I'd probably be fine against two or three, but not two and a half dozen or so.

Lightning magics wouldn't be a bad idea and I do know the spell formula for a few of those. Depending on how well they work, I could probably take out the entire horde with less than 1,000 MP spent.

I'll go with something bigger, though. It's a more assured victory even if the school of magic is far more complex.

The runes for the spell form in my mind as I weave together the spell, which has a fairly lengthy casting time. As I feel it nearing completion, I speak calmly, without raising my voice.

"Aster," I say. "Please chase them towards me now."

Throughout my casting session, the pup has been chasing the boars back and forth across the strip. It's around four three thousand feet in length and only around a hundred and fifty in width, so he just teleports to the other side of the herd once they're about three-quarters of the way through. He appears close enough for them to see him but far enough away that they have time to stop their charge. Once they stop, he resumes barking and running to make them turn around and run again.

Him treating them like this has given me more than enough protection, allowing me to cast the spell without risk of me getting harmed.

The boars are only halfway across the field right now but Aster vanishes from my sight and likely reappears on the other side of the herd. I can hear his barking and yapping almost immediately and the boars finish their charge, turn around, and start running this way.

The boars are about twenty feet from me when the spell completes.

You've unlocked the [Gravitational Shift] Skill!

Aster lets out several startled barks as he and the boars suddenly find themselves flying upwards. The pup will be fine due to his nature but the boars won't and that works for me. This spell has a lengthy cast time and an intense cost.

[Gravitational Shift] Level: 1 Alter the direction of gravity in the chosen area. Cost: 5,000 MP Duration Cost: 500 MP/second Range: 99' Casting Time: 100 seconds

With 15,500 MP, I can cast the spell and then maintain it for around 20 seconds. Since my range is limited, I start making the boars and pup spin in a circle as I make small adjustments to try and make it a cycle.

Their speed continues to pick up and I quickly figure out how to make the altered gravitational field I've generated actually be circular on its own, taking some mental effort off of me.

A few moments before I'm about to run out of mana, Aster turns himself into a bird and just lets himself glide through the zone while letting out gleeful chirps.

At the last possible moment, I alter the gravitational field again to send the boars into the ground while maintaining the high speed they've built up. This should be the equivalent of falling from three thousand feet if I did things right and… the boars splatter upon impacting the ground.

Congratulations on completing your Level 6 Awakening Quest! Your stats have been increased and your HP and MP have been refreshed!

I find myself back in the monster-infested riverbed at the appearance of that notification, no new zone unlocked. That being just a stretch of land with no notable features, I already assumed it wouldn't be a new zone for me just yet. No looting their essence crystals, no chance of looting their hides. The latter isn't really something I was planning on doing since I've never really been a beast scavenger before.

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"Head to Happy Butterfly Hill and clean the gore off," I say as I get dressed, and Aster lets out some chirps, having joined me just I pulled on some underwear. "Then you can hang out with me as I do some more work. Maybe even help me with the work."

Aster vanishes the moment I say that last part, so I suspect I won't be seeing him again for a little while.

I finish dressing and return to slaying monsters. The next bend in the river I turn reveals a boar wandering the path, sniffing some of the stones on the ground. Unlike the ones in the Level 6 Awakening Trial, this one has a metallic hide. These are likely either irontusk or steeltusk boars, which require around 75 or 90 Magic to harm, respectively. After my Level 6 Awakening Quest, I now have 97 Magic so I can handle either one.

Without needing to resort to gravity magic, too. At least so long as it's not a group of them, but this boar is alone.

My [Magic Missile]s fly 97' now so I'm able to shoot the boar from a decent distance. The spell doesn't have as much effect against the boars as an attack with a sharpened point would, but they're effective for stunning the beast long enough for me to send a second one forth. Then a third. Then a fourth. It's the sixth [Magic Missile] which kills the boar, the beast not getting a chance to come after me.

I follow that up with a [Magic Missile] to the skull of the goblin which began charging toward me.

For a moment, I contemplate looting the boar for some extra money, but decide against it. I don't know how to properly skin and butcher them, and my storage spaces aren't large enough to store a beast that's as tall as I am. Then there's the matter that mine are ordinary storage spaces and not ones which would preserve the state of the beasts. The meat would start to spoil.

Now that boars are added to the mix and I can take on the trolls faster as well, the higher EXP requirement for Level 7 doesn't take me too much longer to handle than reaching Level 6 did. The moment the inquiry about taking on my Level 7 Awakening Quest appears, I strip and store my things, then accept the Quest.

This one takes me to a zone which I suspect is another expansion to the Whispering Life Spring based on the fog wall in the center and its size and shape. This one will expand the space by another five hundred fifty feet in all directions, which is strange. The plant growth has still barely spread past the original fog wall for it, so not much more than fifty feet.

Yet it's already wanting me to expand the zone? I can't really think of a reason that might be but there must be one if it's happening now.

The monsters in this zone are neither goblins nor trolls, but are still humanoid in appearance. They stand around twelve feet in height with large builds, their green skin reminiscent of their smaller cousins'. All of the ogres I can see wield a thick branch as a club, and the System helpfully tells me how many of them there are.

Your Level 7 Awakening Quest will begin in 5 minutes. Fail to complete the task, and you will not progress to the next Level. Slay all ogres: 0/21 Time Limit: 2 hours

Ogres can be handled much in the same way as goblins: with [Magic Missile]s to the face. They're a little bit more resilient and have a lot more HP than a goblin, however, so [Fireball] would probably be better. The main issue for me is that I don't have someone to draw the attention of the ogres away from me to give me casting time.

Aster served that purpose in my last Awakening Quest, but he's off doing whatever it is he's doing right now.

Them being faster than trolls will also make it hard to round them up for group attacks without me needing to run around and dodge their attacks. A wide-scale attack would be best, but I can't cast one without someone else to draw their attention away while I work.

The moment the barrier disappears, I'll likely have several of them wanting to attack me.

This task seems impossible, but it can't be. Awakening Quests are always doable with one's abilities. I might need to think of another spell I could use that has a short casting time but which could… no, not a spell.

Not that sort, anyway.

Pale purple light trails after my right index finger as I begin drawing runes on the air. The barrier fades and three nearby ogres turn to look at me. This bit of [Runic Script] is significantly shorter than the previous two I've used but its effect is still quite pronounced.

Upon noticing the first three trolls charging at me, others spotted me and began to charge. Not even the closest of them makes it to me in the four seconds it takes me to quickly write the runes to create a burst of deathly terror all around me upon activation. Adding in a mental compulsion to a barrier with lightning magics is far more difficult than just instilling terror.

I have 64 Mind right now and that influences the effect of this spell rather than my Magic. Non-mage ogres tend to have a much lower Mind stat than that and I watch as all of the ogres around me stiffen up the moment the spell activates.

They're also close enough together now that I can [Fireball] a significant amount of them, except I'm a bit too close. The terror burst should last for a bit, so I hurry to a spot where there aren't ogres and which is also out of the radius of a [Fireball] if it hits the nearest one, then begin casting said [Fireball].

Less than fifteen seconds later, I'm informed that nine of the ogres are now dead.

I repeat this process to take out the rest of the ogres in the zone and the moment I finish, the inner fog all fades to reveal the Whispering Life Spring, which hasn't changed at all since I checked on it yesterday.

Congratulations on completing your Level 7 Awakening Quest! Your stats have been increased and your HP and MP have been refreshed!

That should help me out some more with handling my objectives and even make taking out the boars a lot easier. I call up my Status to check my gains.

Name: Evan Rethe Rank: 5 Species: Human Sex: Male Level: 7 EXP: 0/175,900 HP: 21,700/21,700 MP: 21,700/21,700 Strength: 50 Constitution: 65 Agility: 50 Dexterity: 88 Magic: 143 Mind: 90 HP Regen: 5% MP Regen: 5%

So this is the point at which my stats start growing quite fast when looking at only Level gains and not the EXP requirements. For some of the Dungeons and some of the monsters in the world, Rank 5s are necessary for handling them. Massive gains like that will be necessary if I ever help out others in Dungeon runs or monster hunts. It may even be necessary for work here.

That boost alone will make cleansing contaminated soil much faster and will allow me to cover a significant portion of ground when using [Boost Plant Growth].

As I close my Status, I realize something.

"I guess I could've used [Flamethrower], huh?"

That wouldn't have guaranteed a win before the ogres shook off the effect of my runic casting, though, and I would have needed to adjust my aim several times. My life would have been more at risk, so [Fireball] was definitely the better option.

Since this was just a zone expansion, it seems I don't get teleported back to the river. I walk over to the grassy section around the small pond to take a look at some of the plants that have grown here. Most are still plain, but there are a few which have healing properties, such as the regeniberries I observed before and some herbs.

One of the trees which has grown now has apples on it, their skins pinkish in color with red streaks running across it. Other than that, they look like ordinary apples but I know what they are even before inspecting them in the System.

[Heartapple] Tier: 7 An apple which recovers a small amount of HP when consumed. Potency: 1,082 HP

Heartapples are a rare healing reagent and restore anywhere from 100 to 150 HP when consumed, with the recovery range multiplied by 1.5 times their Tier. Their interior is a bold red in color and I know it puts off some people but they really are a good way to recover some HP. They're also quite useful in making health potions and they're the last reagent I need to make some strong ones without relying on Dungeons or other shops.

Which means, of course, that I can also make beginner-level ones as well.

I'm happy this zone is recovering a little and has several magical plants available once again. If things do spread out further like the System or the King of the Celestials seems to be suggesting, then the Whispering Life Spring will be much more beautiful and comforting in no time at all.

This is as good a time and place as any to take a break from the morning's work as well, so I lie down on the grass and close my eyes. Before fully resting, I remember about my phone and pull it from my [Dimensional Storage] to check the time.

Good, I've still got about twenty minutes before Ryan will probably show up wanting to know about lunch, and my alarm is still set for fifteen minutes from now.

If I didn't bring that out, I might end up sleeping through lunch with Ryan and I don't want to miss it.