Ren climbed to the surface through the newly made tunnel.
His legs wobbled from the hard struggle and the mana poisoning.
The mushrooms in his hair managed only the faintest light, but it was enough to make out the carnage spread before him.
‘What a mess.’
he thought as he surveyed the scattered remains of the Lesser Worm. Ashen flesh and gobbets of green fluid coated the tunnel walls.
The foul smell of mana rising from an Iron Grade Beast's flesh hung thick in the air.
The mana concentration inside its body had become highly concentrated while the mana outside was far too low. Unfortunately, a mere Iron Grade worm dwelling at this depth could not withstand it. For some other Bronze Grade Beast that much would have been nothing......
Ren, of course, had understood his opponent's capacity perfectly.
But even in this carnage there was opportunity.
His eyes lit up when he found several of the Bronze crystals he had used as bait, miraculously still intact among the remains.
Forcing down his growing dizziness, he hurried to collect them with calculated movements.
‘At least I salvaged this much.’
he thought as he gathered the crystals.
‘If it had been a Bronze Grade Beast I could have taken more materials. A pity.’
His fingers stopped on something harder amid the organic debris.
A tooth.
Lesser Worm teeth were only Iron Grade, but they were fairly useful.
Ren collected them carefully, his mind already sketching out possible uses.
‘Not as good as a Bronze Grade fang, but they're built for digging, so they're quite hard. With these.......’
A particular light caught his attention.
Somewhere in the heap of remains, something pulsed faintly with a soft silver glow.
Ren held his breath and carefully pushed aside the torn flesh.
‘A core!’
It was not a complete core.
Unlike the core of a Bronze Grade Mirror Mantis, a Lesser Worm's was far more primitive, barely managing to serve as a reservoir of mana.
It was little more than a simple mana crystal.
But the silver light was real. It held concentrated mana on the order of a hundred units.
‘A low-quality Silver crystal.’
he appraised as he picked it up carefully.
‘Incomplete and unstable...... but handled well it should be useful.’
The sound of approaching boots cut off his thoughts. The guards who had heard the explosion would be arriving.
Ren quickly stowed the core along with the other materials he had recovered. It was time for the final stage of the plan.
‘Right, showtime.’
he thought as he arranged his face into a mixture of surprise and confusion. His mushrooms, weakened by the poisoning, staged the perfect picture of an exhausted student who had just been through something terrible.
The guards' voices drew nearer. Ren reviewed his story in his head one last time.
He had found a rich vein, and a mad worm had appeared and exploded....... Everything fit together perfectly.
His legs shook. There was no need to act out the exhaustion. The mana poisoning was reaching a dangerous level.
But it had been worth it.
The crystals gathered legitimately, the ones recovered from the remains, and the unexpected Silver core. By any measure it was a great success. he thought as he listened to the guards' voices coming closer.
‘Explaining this Silver core is going to be...... the most entertaining part.’
***
“I really can't believe this!”
Taro shook his head as he examined one of the Bronze crystals.
“All of this came out of that worm?”
Ren leaned back on his bed.
His head was still spinning from the mana poisoning, but seeing the admiration on his friends' faces, that much discomfort was nothing.
“Thirty-eight Bronze crystals,”
Min counted meticulously as he arranged the materials on the table.
“fifty-nine Iron...... and each of these pouches of deep earth has to be a good kilogram.”
Liu whistled in admiration.
“Lucky, weren't you? Though being right beside the worm when it burst...... I'm not sure whether to call that good luck or bad.”
“The guards said they'd never seen anything like it either.”
Ren shrugged with an innocent expression.
“They told me it looked like the worm ate too much of a good vein and its mana burst.”
‘They'll never dream that I was the one who burst it.’
“Look at this!”
Taro held the Silver core up to the light.
“It's a Silver Grade crystal. How did a Lesser Worm have something like this?”
“Professor Song said it in the lecture, remember?”
Min added.
“Lesser Worms don't have a ‘real’ core yet, so they just store mana like a crystal.”
Ren smiled as he watched his friends inspect his spoils.
It had been a very good month's harvest. One hundred Bronze crystals, 783 Iron crystals, 2.5 kilograms of ‘deep earth,’ one Silver crystal, and the usable Lesser Worm materials on top of that.
‘If I report it tomorrow they'll count it double, so that should come to nearly 2,500 crystals. Will they really count it double......’
All of it remained in the guards' records.
All month they had marveled at Ren's gathering skill, and had even taken to calling him ‘Lucky Mushroom.’
“This calls for a party!”
Liu pulled a few sweets out of a drawer.
“The rotten mushroom has become the lucky mushroom!”
Taro laughed as he took a sweet.
“Who would have thought rotten luck could turn into something this good?”
‘He wouldn't say that if he knew how much work went into arranging that ‘rotten luck.’’
Then, all at once, the dormitory door flew open.
“Ren?”
Everyone froze at Lin's icy voice. She was standing in the doorway.
Her expression was dangerously calm.
“Care to explain why you weren't at the training ground?”
The blood drained from Ren's face. The night training. He had forgotten it completely.
“Assistant Instructor Lin, I was...... because of the mana overload......”
“Oho, so you have the strength to hold a party but not to train?”
“It's just, I really don't feel well......”
Lin cut him off, seizing him by the shirt collar and starting to drag him toward the door.
“Perfect! When you don't feel well, you work it out with exercise. There's nothing better for drawing off excess mana.”
“But, Assistant Instructor......!”
“No buts. You were late, so that's thirty extra laps as punishment.”
Taro, Min, and Liu watched their friend being hauled out of the room with eyes full of amusement and pity.
“Save me some sweets!”
Ren barely managed to shout before the door closed.
As Lin dragged him mercilessly toward the training ground, his friends' laughter chased him down the corridor. Despite the fatigue and the dizziness, Ren could not help smiling.
‘So this is the price of success?’
he thought as he gave himself over to the brutal night exercise.
As Ren headed for the exchange with his friends, the mushrooms in his hair pulsed with new energy.
***
Assistant Instructor Lin's pills, the previous night's hellish training, and this morning's meditative circulation had effectively purified the excess mana in his body.
“I feel really good today!”
Taro practically bounced as he walked. The Beetle pattern etched on his body sparkled with excitement.
“I thought it would nearly kill me again, but the circulation was much smoother. I could actually feel the mana going around!”
A smile spread across Ren's lips as he recalled the morning's training.
Watching Taro's progress was as satisfying as watching a complicated puzzle slowly come together.
“You've improved enormously. Soon you won't need my help at all.”
‘The sooner Taro gets used to it, the sooner I can focus more on my own growth.’
Ren thought.
The exchange bustled with activity. Students from every year crowded around the counters like a beehive.
The place hummed with haggling voices and the subtle resonance of magical items changing owners.
Crystals clicked on the scales, and preserved Beast parts gleamed inside glass containers.
“So how much is it once they double it?”
Min asked. His water snake slid around his shoulders.
“I received 2,500 crystals.”
Ren answered as he approached the Beast material purchase counter.
Glass containers lined the shelves, their contents casting colorful shadows across the old wood.
“That gives me close to 4,000 crystals to spend. I doubt it covers everything, but I hope it's enough to start......”
When he asked the prices of what he needed, his heart sank.
Bronze Grade Beast materials, meticulously preserved inside crystal containers, shone temptingly.
Each piece carried an outrageous price tag of 1,000 crystals apiece.
Fortunately, he did not need specimens that pristine.
But even the discarded, slowly decaying parts that he actually needed......
“A single day's feed for my Spore costs 100 crystals......?” he muttered as he examined a piece of common crocodile hide that had begun to rot.
“And for a hundred days......?”
It was relatively cheap, but it was by no means free.
His Spore was not the only Beast that could make use of such materials.
Liu let out a long whistle.
“Wow, 10,000 crystals just to buy that trash. And you need other things too, right? Your Spore really is a money-eating monster. Is it worth going that far?”
It was worth it beyond any doubt, but the time......
Ren nodded glumly and headed for the toxic fungi section.
A shopwoman whose hands were covered in burn scars greeted him with sympathetic eyes.
“Three thousand crystals apiece.” she said, pointing at the glowing specimens before he could even ask.
“Yes, the price has gone up. This material has to be imported from Ino, and relations with them are not exactly good these days.”
‘One of them can process ten crystals, so...... I need another 30,000 crystals.’
Ren felt the world swim before his eyes.
“Excuse me, what about the Rune of Wisdom?”
Unable to let go of hope, he pointed a trembling finger at the relic section.
The Rune of Wisdom pulsed with a soft blue light. It was the most basic one, and even so......
“That one's on the cheap side. Ten thousand crystals, the same as the Rune of Vitality.” the clerk sighed.
‘Fifty thousand crystals all together.’
Min scribbled quick calculations in a notebook. His Water Snake peered at the numbers with curious eyes.
“To buy everything you need...... even if your luck keeps holding like this, and you gather at this pace, and you get a scholarship on top.......”
“I'd have to save for a full ten months.”
Ren finished, his shoulders slumping.
“And that's only while I can keep mining the way I am now.”
‘If only I could go deeper...... but mana poisoning is already a problem even at this depth.’
At that thought the mushrooms in his hair pulsed faintly.
“Hey, that's still something!”
Taro tried to lift the mood. His Beetle pattern brightened in time with his words.
“Ten months will fly by! And in the meantime I can practice handling mana more.......”
“Ren!”
When the group turned, Assistant Instructor Lin was coming toward them.
The feathers of the crane at her side glittered with every step. Her expression was unreadable, but a dangerous light lingered in her eyes.
“Surely you aren't thinking of skipping tonight's training?”
Ren swallowed dryly.
“No, of course not. I was just......”
Lin stared at him for a moment as though seeing straight through him.
“The road to Bronze is a hard one by nature. Still, you gathered a great deal this month, so keep it up just like that. And remember this. Sometimes the longest road is the safest one.”
‘If she knew how I really got those crystals...... she'd say it was a long way from safe.’
“Let's go.”
Lin continued with a predatory smile.
“You seem to have strength to spare for scheming, so some extra exercise tonight should be easy enough for you.”
Ren groaned while his friends struggled to hold back their laughter. The evolution would have to be put off a while longer.
For right now, there was another session of torture, no, of training, to endure.