Chapter 10

'Status'

[Status.]

Name: Remy Riverson

Age: 15

Level: 2 (150/300)

HP: 53/110 (+0.1/min)

MP: 120

STR: 8

VIT: 7

DEX: 10

AGI: 20

INT: 12

Points: 0

Perks: [None]

Skills: [None]

Remy glanced at his status as he rushed up and hid behind a support beam. His HP went up a bit during the time he lounged around. His wounds had closed and the small ones already scabbed over. His ribs, leg and shoulder still hurt like hell, but the pain was noticeably lesser than before.

This may have been seen as a miracle in his old world, but Remy realized this was his normality now.

He kept himself hidden and discreetly turned to look at what was coming. The creature was only half as tall as Remy, almost a meter in height. It walked on two legs, its back hunched. The wild fur covering it looked dirty even with the dungeon's general lack of light.

The rat man walked with steady steps, its tail being dragged along with him. When it occasionally passed by a thicker Mithril vein the green glow shone along it's long whiskers.

Even with the memories he gained, Remy couldn't identify anything about the, in his opinion, walking adulteration of nature. What he knew was that it was a monster and that was enough for him to kill it.

Different from normal animals or beasts, monsters were manifestations of mana that were created when magical energy met a natural formed matrix. In a way, dungeons could be considered monsters too since they formed the same way, just with different aspects.

If Remy had to guess, all the leftover Mithril together with the way the tunnels were dug formed such a matrix. Since a dungeon already occupied this place, the natural formed spell could only continue to produce simple monsters instead.

One of them was currently getting dangerously close to Remy's location. Its snout twitched from time to time. It either felt Remy's scent or, most likely, the still wet patches of blood on him.

A drop of sweat fell down Remy's cheek. There was no way he was going to avoid it so he might as well give the first blow. His dagger was already in his hand, but he carefully changed it into a reverse grip. He readjusted his weight a bit and waited, his back adjacent to the wooden beam.

He didn't have to do so for long. The creature stalked up curiously, wondering what smelled so delicious around there. The moment Remy saw the beginning of his snout he exploded into action.

The monster had no time to react as the blade hungrily dug into its chest. A split second later its instinct caught up with it and it began wailing and spasming. Seeing as it was still alive, even if momentarily, Remy turned and punched it, taking the dagger out in the process and spraying more blood over him.

Just as he wanted, the hit had put a stop to the rat's screams. Remy didn't hesitate to finish it off with another stab through its neck.

The rat man fell to the floor and began dissolving into mana particles. Even its blood that covered Remy's blade and part of his clothes did the same.

It took less than five seconds for the monster's corpse to completely disappear. Meanwhile, Remy was glad everything went smoothly. He gave himself a mental pat on the back for using those ten points earlier. He's movements were much smoother now and nothing felt forced in combining his attacks.

'Status' he intoned.

[Status.]

Name: Remy Riverson

Age: 15

Level: 2 (170/300)

HP: 54/110 ( +0.1/min)

MP: 120

STR: 8

VIT: 7

DEX: 10

AGI: 20

INT: 12

Points: 0

Perks: [None]

Skills: [None]

He gained twenty experience points from killing the rat man. If he was honest with himself, he couldn't really ask for more. Even with his ambush, the creature felt much weaker than a human. Just his measly eight [STR] punch was enough to almost send it flying.

If push comes to shove, he could probably take two of them in direct combat. Of course, that was just him trying to encourage himself. He had no way of knowing exactly how dangerous the rat men were since he killed this one before it even got the chance to put up a fight.

Even so, if he thought about it, he'd rather all his encounters be like this one…

Seeing something shining where the monster died Remy walked over and picked it up. It was a crystal, the size of a fingernail. It's blue color could be easily discerned even with all the green glow from the Mithril around.

It was a monster core, not a very valuable one, but a monster core nonetheless. It acted like an anchor for the monster. Without it the mana would become chaotic and, depending on the monster's power, would eventually lead to dispersion, a.k.a death.

Remy understood it was a very useful item, but it was mostly so for mages. It was something made from pure mana and capable of all kinds of functions related to it. Monster cores were the perfect containers for magic with no wastage or resistance. Even Mithril itself, often used as circuitry in artifacts and high tier weapons, paled in comparison.

Unfortunately, the old inhabitant of the body was not a mage so he didn't know much about cores with the exception of a few things.

Piecing together a few ideas from his memories, Remy understood he could only do two things with it currently. One was naturally to sell it. You could never go wrong with money or Mithril nuggets in this case.

The other use was to practice magic on it. More specifically mana manipulation. He had no way of performing actual spells currently as he had to study how to do so.

Remy had a pair of reasons why he wanted to learn something like this. First one was naturally because he was a person from another world where magic didn't exist. Even as an adult he was still feeling excitement at potentially casting actual, real spells.

The second reason was more practical. From his memories he knew that magic could be pretty useful. His line of thought was that anything that could give him an extra edge in the Nest was worth investing in.

He stored the core in his [Inventory] and looked around. No more rat men had arrived so he was safe for now. His HP was already halfway towards recovering, but stalling as much as possible was definitely the safe bet in this case.

He sat back down and took out another potato. Only two hours had passed since he'd last eaten and he still felt a bit hungry. Now that his stomach has had the chance to rest he could safely eat more.

Another hour passed as Remy kept nibbling on raw potato like the smaller cousin of the thing he recently killed. Soon after, he once again grew restless.

'Might as well do this now' He said as he brought out the small core. He didn't know how good of an idea it was to be distracted while watching out for monsters, but he was certain nothing would get too close without him noticing.

He held the core in his hand and stared at it. He had no knowledge on how to go about this. Instead, he relied on his imagination and luck.

Seconds turned into minutes and Remy had no success whatsoever.

'I know I have mana. The existence of MP should be proof of that'. He was not discouraged and kept trying different methods of channeling his mana into the core.

Suddenly a small flicker appeared inside it, but it died just as soon. Remy ignored the small 'ding' coming from the system and focused on the feeling he just had.

Once again he began trying to push his mana inside. The core was stubborn, but it soon relented and a small spark appeared inside it. Remy was overjoyed, but he didn't get distracted. He had almost caught onto the correct method.

This time he closed his hand around the crystal and focused with all his might. He could feel something flowing out of him and into the core. He continued pushing it out and was overjoyed to see the blue light emanating from between his fingers.

Unfortunately, as entranced as he was with his first performance of magic he forgot to stop the mana flow.

He was reminded of this fact as soon as the core grew searing hot, but by that time it was too late.

The monster core was overfilled and violently exploded!

The mana inside was released all at once and with that came the wild force behind it. Remy's head flew back and smacked into the wall behind him. His arms were thrown to the sides and he was shaken like a rag-doll from the impact.

The air was forcefully taken out of his lungs. Remy coughed a few times before he slid off the wall and fell down on his side.

"H-holy sh*t! What, what was that!?"