Manaless Mage

120  Comprehending an element[1]

      "How much for all this?" Harry asked with a smug expression.

    Neil's eyes were widened as he stared at the beast bodies that laid on the table.

   Ben was also taken aback by the mana beasts on the table but his focus was more on the two small cores that were glowing with a dim yellow light.

   'Beast cores…' He mumbled inwardly with his eyes shining. He was even about to reach his hand out for it, before his father tapped him lightly, telling him to caution himself.

    He pouted and then turned his head from the table, facing Harry instead, with admiration in his eyes.

   There were two stage one mana beasts and both had fairly large bodies, the cores were also placed on the table beside the bodies.

   However, what caught Neil's attention the most was the body of the huge black bear that laid sprawled in front of him.

    He didn't even need to use his mana sense before he was able to recognise the stage of the beast in front of him.

    It wasn't that he had never seen beast bodies before, but rather because he was surprised that Harry, a stage one elementalist, managed to kill a stage two beast.

   "A black bear?" Neil mumbled, with a tinge of surprise in his voice.

   Angry black bear, or angry bears as most likes to call them, were very strong and what made them terrifying was the fact that the angrier they got, the more their strength seemed to grow—that was why they were called "angry bears".

   Since Harry came here alone, it meant that he went into the forest without any company.

   It was definitely impossible for a group of stage one Elementalists to take down a black bear, and even more impossible for a single one.

***

    Harry collapsed on the soft foam of his bed with a deep sigh.

      He was currently in a different set of clothes than the one he wore when he went into the beast forest.

   He was putting on a simply blue designer shirt alone with matching black pants.

    After selling the beast core, Neil directed him to a small inn that existed in the 'hub', advising him to clean up and change his clothes.

   While it was a little embarrassing to be reminded about his tattered appearance, Harry had taken his bath there and also changed his former rough and dirty clothes into fresh ones.

    He had stored some other clothes in his storage device beforehand, feeling like there might be a need for them, and those extra clothes were what he changed into.

    He felt quite exhausted after everything that happened today.

   Although all the injuries from the beast forest were healed completely after his level up, he still felt quite exhausted mentally.

    He came home straight from the beast forest, without even bothering to return the daggers first.

   He could always return it the next day.

    His lips curled up into a slight smile when he remembered what happened earlier when he was selling the beast cores and bodies.

   The expression on the faces of Neil and Ben after he revealed the number of beast bodies in his possession was definitely one to die for.

   He even got Neil's contact, promising to contact him any other time he had a beast core or beast body to sell.

     His eyes flashed with a weird glint when he remembered how Neil acted after he brought out the black bear.

   He had expected Neil to question him about how he got the beast and even go as far as conducting an investigation on the beast's death.

    He even prepared an excuse beforehand in case something like that happened.

    But to his surprise, Neil didn't ask any question and simply checked the authenticity of the body as he would for any other mana beast.

   It turned out he was the one being too paranoid.

   It was no surprise though, beast core dealers and traders didn't exactly care about things like how the beast was killed or if it was stolen, all that concerned them was it should be in good condition.

    The excuse he had prepared was that he came across two mana beasts engaging in a heated battle; with one being the bear and the other a tiger-type mana beast.

    And after the fight was over, the other mana beast walked away and he simply crawled out of his hiding place and stored the bear in his storage device.

    Thinking about it now, his so called "good excuse" might have never even worked in the first place.

   It had a lot of holes in it that could easily be found out, and he now felt happy that he had never used it.

  He chuckled lightly before suddenly sitting up on his bed.

   Bringing out his storage device from his pockets, he checked the amount of money that was there and smirked.

    Whether his "excuse" would have worked or not didn't matter, all that mattered was that he sold the stage two beast body! And for a huge sum at that!

    He got a total of 370000 credits from selling other two stage one mana beasts and 250000 credits from the bear's body alone, bringing the total amount of money he earned today to 620000 credits!

    Out of that amount, he had already spent ten thousand credits in the inn where he freshened up and only had 610000 credits with him.

   Putting the storage device away, Harry's face turned serious.

   'Host stats.'

===========

[Host Stats]

[Name: Harry Morton]

[Race: Human]

[Class: Novice Manaless Mage]

[Level: 17]

[EXP: 19000/85000]

[H/P: 220/220]

[Energy: 330/330]

[Strength: 84]

[Agility: 81]

[Stamina: 80]

[Perception: 99]

[Endurance: 81]

[Intelligence: 78]

[Mental: 78]

[Charm: 76]

{Stat Points: 20]

===========

   Looking at his stats now, it had indeed improved. But one thing that still irked him was the name "Morton" at the top, however, he was no longer too worried about it since it would only be temporary.

   The name change process was long and since he had no connections, it was even somewhat longer for him, but everything would  be finalised by the next week.

   However, neither his name or his stats were what worried him the most, but a quest he had yet to complete.

    Switching to the [Quests] tab, a familiar set of tabs and characters appeared across his eyes.

======

[New Quest Alert!]

[Unlocking Affinities ]

—Comprehend An Affinity

[Quest Progress: Fire Affinity {6%}]

—Time Limit: Six months {Time remaining: Four months}

>>Rewards For completion: 5000EXP, Class Evolution

>>Punishment For Quest Failure: 50% Reduction in all stats.

======

   Seeing the quest now, five thousand EXP didn't seem to be as much experience points as it did to him before.

   But the EXP was more like a bonus reward to him, the main rewards was the class evolution.

    The last time he went through a class evolution, his strength rose tremendously.

   Despite being a sort of less class, according to the system, it still increased his strength a lot.

   Due to this, he couldn't help but wonder: how powerful was the actual "Manaless mage" class?

   Since the system was called [Manaless mage system], he knew that class was compulsory for him.

   He felt a little bitter at the fact that the system placed such an heavy punishment on the quest, but he knew better than anyone to doubt the system's power.

    If it really says his stats would be reduced by fifty percent, then it would really be reduced!

    But the unfortunate thing about it all was the quest itself!

    It was too difficult; both to understand and to complete!

    He had already tried getting hints from the other voice, and all the other voice kept saying was: "all you have to do is to perfectly understand the element".

    Of course, they was no way he could understand that!

   He had tried doing it the only way he could understand by researching as much about the fire element as he could, but even after doing that for weeks, all he got was a six percent increase.

   The percentage even went stagnant a few weeks ago, and hasn't gone up even by 0.00001% despite all his efforts.

   But a few days ago, he got a crazy idea on how he was supposed to complete this quest.

    According to the other voice, he should "perfectly understand" fire—something which sounded very stupid.

    But he could now somewhat understand what the other voice meant, though he still felt like it sounded very weird.

   Nothing about him or the system was 'normal ' in the first place, so his first mistake was trying to approach this in the 'normal manner'.

    'I hope this works…' Harry mumbled. His anxiety was already growing as about two months had passed and he still hadn't made any significant progress. If he kept going at this rate, the four months would be over before he even knew it.

   He sighed and then stood up from the bed before moving to the sitting room.

    Positioning himself in a lotus position in front of the fire place, Harry took a deep breath before lighting the fireplace.

   Doing this felt very awkward since the current weather wasn't cold in anyway, but was even quite hot. Anyone that saw him now would probably call him a mad man.

   Harry brushed off all useless thoughts from his head and slowly stretched his hand towards the burning fire.

    He made sure his hands weren't touching the flames directly but he could still feel the heat emanating from it.

   He ignored the burning pain he felt from the heat and tried his best to focus on the matter at hand.

   'Energy control.' He mumbled inwardly, closing his eyes and going into a state of utmost concentration.

***

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