One Last System

I gathered up every last bit of what appeared to be valuable from this monster.

Normally, I would have to ditch right away...

But this entire arena was now stinking with all the mana that both I and that monster used.

'I guess it's safe to say no one will dare to approach me for now,' I thought, stripping the meat of the bones before storing both away in my ring.

Who knew? Maybe if I turned it into steaks later, eating them could provide me with some benefits?

Taking my cooking job into account and the strength of the monster that the meat came from, it wouldn't be all that surprising if it worked.

But for now, I had to hurry.

The thirst for mana was quickly becoming unbearable.

I deployed all the arrays that I had before, ensuring that both of my wardens performed at their peak.

'Let's dig in,' I thought, pulling out all the cultivation resources that I gathered so far.

I started with the smaller and common cores.

Even after sucking an entire bag worth of them dry, I barely felt any tingle in the pool of my mana.

And then I started to consume the resources left by that powerful monster.

For a moment, the numbers on my status screen went crazy. Even though the change was only cosmetic, it reached the same effectiveness as the resources sourced from the sect.

"Wait, could it be...?" I muttered in shock, watching the crude core in my hand melt down.

Soon, it crumbled when I sucked every last bit of its energy.

But right before falling apart, the monster's core took the same form as the orbs that the boss obtained for me!

'Wait, the numbers,' I thought, glancing over at my status.

And there it was.

By the time I consumed every last bit of the mana I could obtain, my statistics raised by roughly a million each. In other words, consuming all those cores and the spoils from that powerful monster only amounted to ten percent of my actual needs!

'This stage is going to be a massive pain in the ass,' I thought. I then stood up, about to gather my formation up...

When I stopped.

I learned an important thing.

In order to advance quickly past my current stage, I had to hunt this kind of monsters.

Not the weaklings that the forest was brimming with. I had to set off to find and then hunt down the peak predators that roamed those woods!

'I'm not strong yet,' I thought, slumping down on the ground.

But I didn't waste time.

Outside of the cultivation resources, the corpses of my recent hunt offered me a plethora of other materials. Some of which I could easily use to grow even stronger!

I bothered painting a few more formation stones for a second before enclosing the entire area within a set of five formations.

The more I used this useful ability of mine, the more confident I got into actually wielding it. And with each passing moment, my crafts would become more and more complex.

Then, my surroundings calmed down as energy surged towards me.

I pulled out the bones of the monsters and my knife. Then, I started to carve those bones up with slow, steady movements.

I lost track of time.

By the time I finished my job and finally raised my head, the sun was long gone. Yet, even though it was well past midnight, not a single monster dared to even approach the outermost of my formations.

'That should do,' I thought, raising the three items that I either made or modified.

My spear now had two groups of formation cubes made out of the monster's bones. Each of those formations had a different effect. But the end of the spear was what changed the most.

This formerly blunt end of the weapon was now adorned by a bone-ball made out of the monster's skull. It was covered with tiny inscriptions, each more complex than the other.

'The system is clearly pushing me towards a tool-oriented fight,' I thought after analyzing my military mage's abilities once again.

Wardens?

The Mage's Tower?

Those abilities only served to fortify my position. And since the system was so insistent on me using this kind of buffs, I turned my spear into a mage's staff.

'Bolt,' I thought, only for the skull to emit a faint light.

A set of three balls exploded away from my staff, in the direction I was looking at.

And it was only the first of the things that I prepared for my next hunt.

Yes, next hunt.

No matter how much stronger I became, hunting in the forest would always bear a massive risk. A risk that would multiply greatly during the nights.

Attempting to face off a powerful monster that I didn't know anything about without even the ability to see it?

I wasn't suicidal to do something like this.

That's why, as much as it pained me to do, I decided to retreat for the night.

I was out in the forest ever since we returned to the camp. This alone was a good thing as it could potentially send a wrong message to Lucius.

'It would be great if he believed that I finally picked up the pace,' I thought, shaking my head as I gathered my thoughts.

I then reached the ground, where two small necklaces awaited my attention.

Those were the second and third elements of the surprise that I prepared. Each of the necklaces consisted of nearly forty bone cubes with formation markings inscribed on them.

But it was the third element that I had the highest hopes for.

Ultimately, wardens were just small formations that gained the ability to better attract mana with my skill. And since the requirement to use my ultimate ability was to have six wardens...

The fourth and last item that I prepared turned out to be a formation pouch.

Inside, there were four hundred pieces of formation stones. Yet, instead of forming a complex structure, they could all be divided into segments of the same, repeating formula.

In other words, this was the formation with the sole purpose of attracting as much energy as it was possible. The elements of the formation responsible for processing that energy into a useful form only took five percent of the stones.

"Let's retreat for the night, then," I thought, stashing all of my belongings and remaining spoils back to the ring.

It wasn't the time for me to tell Lucius about my advancements. I wasn't going to go talk to him first.

And to be perfectly honest, right now, I wasn't in the mood of flexing my sudden growth. It was something that I would do eventually...

But not when I continued to grow with each passing second.

My warden ability was about to reach level three. I even started shooting down my wardens with my bolts instead of just turning them off. Thanks to this, I could also exploit the growth of my main offensive ability!

'Still, there is one more thing that puzzles me,' I thought as I continued to farm the progression points for my abilities.

'If the materials of that beast had so much energy in them,' I thought, 'then why was it so weak?'

This was the one thing that I failed to figure out. The one thing that made me feel as if there was something wrong with the situation.

And then it dawned on me.

'Doesn't that mean,' I thought, freezing on the spot.

For a second, I even stopped juggling my abilities.

'That I actually happened to pick an overpowered class?'