Mana Bullet(Remake)

A day later, Adam is back in Shabu Forest. He came here again to hunt and to test out the new spell he bought, Mana Bullet.

Adam doesn't know why he is so strangely willing to go around hunting beasts like this since he would be horrified to even kill a chicken in his past world. Maybe it's because killing them with spells felt less personal?

He bought Mana Bullet because it just needed to gather magic power like Mana Shield, so no chant was needed and the output can be controlled. Different from Fireball, which he could only use two to three times at best before nearly fainting.

Well, that and the fact that Fireball burns down the corpse and lowers the price of it, he had a hard time selling the wolf from yesterday for a good price and the best he could get was seven copper coins.

Mana Bullet's attack power will increase accordingly to the amount of magic power used, if he uses one magic power it will be as powerful as the punch of a toddler,two to three magic power will be equivalent to the punch of a teenager, and four to five magic power will be comparable to the punch of a powerful adult.

Of course, this comparison sucks, but Adam really had no better ideas to describe it.

After walking around a bit, he unsurprisingly met another wolf, Shabu Forest was apparently crawling with those. So many of them in fact that they were named Shabu Wolves, after the forest.

The only real surprise this time was that the wolf was not alone, there were two of them.

Adam was a bit weirded out by how the wolves here didn't seem to like packs, out of his 3 encounters with them this was the first time they were not alone, and it was just a duo.

"Oh well, let's do this." Adam said while playing with his staff.

Unlike the first two encounters with their kind, the wolf duo actually noticed Adam and were warily eyeing him while snarling and moving to surround him.

One wolf on his front and another on his back, both slowly moving and examining him. Adam lazily stared at them, he was calmer than he thought he would be in a situation like this.

One wolf broke the staring contest and charged at him with bared teeth, Adam raised his staff and aimed at it. A blue ball of magical energy quickly formed at the tip of it, before being fired at the attacking wolf.

The impact sent the wolf rolling backwards violently with a whimper of pain, it shivered on the ground like a hurt dog, moving very little.

"Grrraw!!!" Adam suddenly heard something coming from behind him.

The second wolf, which Adam had almost forgotten about was dangerously close to his back. It jumped at him before he was able to turn around, intent on biting his neck off.

"AARW?!" The wolf's attack was repelled by the sudden appearance of a thin, sphere-like blue thing surrounding Adam. It stood there confused for a while not comprehending the situation.

'Hmm, I better not waste mana.' Adam noticed he didn't have that much magical power left, so he turned around and tightly gripped his wooden staff.

He smacked the confused wolf with his staff at full force like he was using a baseball bat instead. The wolf was almost sent flying, fainting on the spot. It probably got a concussion.

He slowly approached the first wolf who was still very barely awake and looked at its pitful appeareance, shivering on the ground like a dying animal.

Adam looked at it and sighed, raising his staff. His hands trembled a bit and he closed his eyes briefly, breathing out.

He opened his eyes with a determined look and slammed down his staff with all his might.

He heard the sound of bones breaking as some warm blood flew into his cheek, it was a horrible sensation.

'I don't feel nearly as bad as I thought I would doing this.' Adam looked at the wolf's corpse with mixed emotions, he was not feeling good but he was otherwise pretty calm. It was pretty abnormal since he had never killed even a rat on Earth.

Regardless, he didn't like the feeling of killing something one bit. There was no choice for now though, and he also killed the fainted wolf while grumbling about his staff getting dirty.

He had to carry the two dead animals back to the city, and it was a massive pain in the ass to do so. He was dead tired from walking too much while carrying them, dirty from blood and other random things in the forest.

He managed to sell the wolves for three silvers, as they were in better condition than before. He was finally able to get a reasonable price from that stingy shop owner.

He bought a knife on the way back just in case he would ever need something sharp, before going back to the inn.

He was warmly welcomed back by the inn owner and his daughter, all he wanted right now was to take a shower and sleep but there was no such thing as a shower here, only a tub of cold water.

It was better than nothing so he washed himself, his apprentice robe, and his staff before changing into his old clothes and waiting for his robe to dry.

He actually went back to take his clothes he forgot inside the forest, otherwise, he would have to choose between being buck naked or always wearing dirty clothes. Thankfully they were still there somehow.

*Knock Knock*

"Brother Adam, I brought your food!" Adam suddenly heard a voice coming from his room's door while he was lazying around on the bed.

As he got up and opened the door, he was greeted by a small teenage girl who looked to be around twelve years old or a bit older. She was somewhat average looking but still pretty cute.

"Hey Hong Yu, thanks." She was Hong Yu, the daughter of the innkeeper. Adam took the food and talked with her a bit before waving her goodbye.

'Guess it's time to do that.' Thought Adam after eating his fill.

He sat down in a pose he remembers seeing on meditation videos and closed his eyes, trying to remember the sensation of when he first felt magic power.

He was successful after a few minutes, and he was able to feel the mana in the air. The mist-like magic power in the room was slowly entering him, he already learned how to meditate and had already done it a few times.

After meditating for a pretty long time, he opened his eyes feeling a refreshing sensation.

"Status." He spoke out loud for the system.

[Host]: Adam Walker

[Magic Power]: 25/25

[Level]: Apprentice(First Circle)

[Equipment]: Apprentice's Staff, Apprentice's Robe

[Points]: 0

'My magic power increased.' Happily thought Adam.

By the system words, when he reaches seventy magic power he will be a Second Circle Apprentice. The only real difference between First to Third Circle Apprentices was just magic power capacity.

But then he realized that at this rate, he would advance to Second Circle in nine days or so, and his excitement cooled down a bit. He felt it to be a bit too slow.

If the people of the magic world could hear Adam's thoughts, they would curse every single relative in his family tree living or dead. He is unconsciously treating it as a game where you can level up reasonably fast.

Adam's talent for magic is the highest possible for a human being as the system remodeled his body, though he didn't notice that. Other apprentices have to spend months meditating and improving and he is complaining about spending a week.

For the next three days, Adam continued to meditate, hunt, and practice spells. Adam's magic power recovery rate is one per half a minute, his mana recovers faster if he is meditating.

He also became closer with the inn owner, Hong Tian, and his daughter. Their inn doesn't usually get that much activity for some reason.

The result of his practice is that he can now put more magic power into his Fireball spell, earned five silver coins, and most important of all, his magic power capacity is now forty.

Adam recently got a new objective, crafting potions. The low-level mana potion recipe inside the shop costs one hundred points and it recovers twenty mana. He can't exactly stand still in the middle of a fight and wait for his mana to recover after all.

Adam walked out of the Moonshine Inn and went towards Shabu Forest as he has done for the past three days. He has gotten used to walking around its outskirts, although he still holds a deep hatred for the long walk he has to take every day.

During the past three days, he met many different animals inside this forest, mainly just wolves, but also rabbits, foxes, small monkeys, snakes, etc.

He also tried to learn skinning and dismantling, as that would increase the profits of hunting by a lot. The shop he usually sells stuff to already does the skinning, dismantling, and drying of blood, which takes away some of the money they give him for the animals as compensation.

Of course, with only three days of training and a cheap knife, he often ruins the fur and other mistakes that end up lowering the value of his loot. So he only does it if he hunted at least two animals.

"Hm?" Adam suddenly noticed a rather unusual silhouette in the distance...

A large black feline was laying around on its paws, looking alert for any potential prey. One of its ears twitched and it turned around, looking straight at Adam.

"You gotta be kidding me..." There was a damn tiger staring at him right now!

Not only that, it didn't look like any kind of tiger Adam has ever seen. It had dark skin with even darker pitch-black stripes, it seemed to be bigger than the size Adam remembered tigers to be.

Its ferocious eyes locked with Adam's as the tiger stood up and looked at him. Adam stiffly stared back, wondering what the hell should he do in a situation like this.

He remembers reading somewhere that they might not attack you if you don't turn your back and look at them, so he began to slowly move backwards while staring warily at the tiger's face.

*ROAAR*

Unfortunately for him, the strange tiger lost its patience after a while and just charged at him with a roar.

"Oh come on!!" Adam, mildly annoyed at a speeding tiger charging at him, hastily began chanting Fireball.

"Fire shape thyself into a sphere and destroy mine enemies, Fireball!"

There was quite a bit of distance between them to begin with, so he could get the chant done. Mana gathered at the tip of his staff, forming a ball bigger than last time.

The first time he used this spell he could make a ball as big as a tennis ball, and it has now doubled in size. The ball of magical power instantly turned into flames before being fired at the approaching tiger.

The black tiger could barely react to the incoming fireball flying at it with the speed of an arrow, with no time to dodge it just swiped its left paw at it.

*BOOM*

The impact flung the tiger rolling backwards, clawing at the ground to stabilize its body. Its left paw was visibly injured, and at least a fourth of its body was on fire.

The tiger glared at Adam with burning anger and gave a roar so loud he thought his eardrums were about to burst before charging at him again, flames and all.

Adam frowned. There was no time to chant Fireball, the tiger was about to reach him.

He pointed his staff at the rampaging feline, took a deep breath, and used as much magical power he could to do Mana Bullet, aside from some left to activate Mana Shield. Shapeless magical power was drawn from all around and began to gather at his staff.

*ROAR*

The black tiger, which Adam thought was still a bit too far away, abruptly stopped for half a second before crouching and putting power into its hind legs. It lunged its massive body at Adam's neck from all the way there!

From his point of view, it looked like a speeding car was about to hit him at full force. He was somewhat panicked but did not cancel Mana Bullet to try to dodge or run, as he thought it would only result in death anyway.

The lunging tiger was about to reach Adam and tear him to pieces when Magic Shield activated, covering Adam into a half sphere and blocking the tiger who was in mid-air.

Adam trembled as some of the impact still somehow reached him, and the tiger fell backwards like it hit a wall. There were cracks all over his Magic Shield, the tiger's attack almost destroyed the whole damn thing together with him. It would instantly break if it was attacked again.

The tiger stood up and shook his head, still disoriented by the impact. What greeted its sight was a smiling Adam who had finished charging his Mana Bullet, pointing his staff at its face. The thing was the size of a football.

Adam always wondered how strong would Mana Bullet would be if he put more mana into it if five was already nearly enough to compare to the limit of a normal human in power. He would now get his answer first-hand.

The mana bullet left his staff and flew straight into the panicked tiger's face at an amazing speed, caving it in before sending its whole body flying. Adam felt some wind blowing towards him as the tiger's massive body hit the ground, twitching.

'It's finally dead this time right?' Adam, panting, still remembered the incident with the wolf.

He waited a bit for his magic power to recover before sending another Mana Bullet at its body. No reaction, it was truly dead.

"System, what the hell was this thing?"Asked Adam while approaching the carcass, still a little traumatized. He was panting from the tiredness of magic power exhaustion and his head was hurting.

[Rank 0 Spirit Beast, Shadow Tiger.]

[Rank 0 beasts are the equivalent of Martial Disciples, although Spirit Beasts are usually stronger than humans in the same realm because of their bodies.]

[It has barely reached the requirements for forming a Spirit Beast Core. The system recommends the host harvests it.]

"A core huh?" Adam took out his cheap, trusty knife which he had been using in his attempts at dismantling animals until now, and blew the remaining flames away. Yes, the tiger was still on fire until now.

He stabbed its belly, the place where the system told him to, ignored his own disgust,and searched around its insides for the so called core. He was able to find it after a minute, pulling out a small, sparkling red nucleus-like crystal from it.

Did this thing work like an organ? Adam curiously stared at the core in his hand, playing it with a bit before the system's voice sounded inside his mind:

[Do you want to sell this Spirit Beast Core?]

"Yeah sure, I don't have anything better to do with it."

He doesn't know what to use those things for, and the system's shop currency was worth more than normal money for him so he didn't want to sell it at the shop.

[100 Points acquired.]

'It only sold for as much as that spirit pool stuff, huh?.' Adam wondered if selling the thing was really worth it.

"Now what the hell do I do with this..." Adam looked at the large body of the dead tiger. He couldn't possibly carry a whole damn tiger back home with him, could he? Much less one bigger than a normal tiger.

He shook his head and took out his knife again, intending to dismantle whatever he could to take back with him. He was only half done with it when he heard an arrogant voice behind him:

"You, put these Shadow Tiger parts to the ground and get out of here."

A youth dressed in expensive silk clothes with a punchable arrogant expression on his face and two dumb looking fellows who followed him around like lackeys appeared.

'You gotta be fucking kidding me..'