BXBX NOVEL Chapter 33: Mana Exhaustion III
"Great job!" Damien stretched forth his hand, giving them a thumbs up. However, Damien\'s words fell on deaf ears as the beasts focused on dealing with the large meals presented before them. Each of the mana beasts his summons had slain was larger than them but they\'d brought it down regardless.
While Cerbe was already digging its multiple heads into the flesh of one of the mana beasts, Fenrir was up to something else. Its (Devourer) skill activated and in a blink, one of the corpses was gone.
Damien\'s eyes opened so wide that he thought the would fall out. \'What the?\'
He was genuinely shocked. While he knew how the skill worked with Luton the Stellar Slime, he\'d only attributed it to the slime\'s race. Since they could naturally expand, Damien thought it was just their method of swallowing their targets whole.
Now that Fenrir, a wolf had swallowed its prey whole, Damien had to rethink his assumption.
Then it appeared, a new notification he\'d never received until Cerbe first finished devouring its first Grade Five Mana beast along with its essence core.
Ding!
«Grade Five Mana Beast devoured! 190 more for Fenrir to evolve!»
Yes! Damien could now tell how far his Summons were from advancing and while it was a great news, it also wasn\'t. Where was he supposed to get 190 Mana Beasts to feed to Fenrir? Even though the forest was fully of them, how long would it take him to achieve such?
Fenrir had only slain three Grade Five Mana beasts while Cerve had slain two to exhaust Damien\'s essence core. That brought the total to five Grade Five Mana Beasts.
If they were to do this repeatedly, it would take thirty-nine more times for them to get to 200 Grade Five Mana Beasts. The problem however? Fenrir wasn\'t the only one that needed an advancement.
Cerbe needed to advance to and then there was Luton who was still a Grade Six mana beast.
It would take almost two time that amount of trials to successfully increase their grades by one each.
Damien was still busy doing his calculation when Fwnrir devoured the second mana beast.
Ding!
«Grade Five Mana Beast devoured! 189 more for Fenrir to advance!»
Danone nodded, "At least, that\'s progress. Minus one more mana beast to advance." Even though he looked excited, his voice told otherwise. He remained calculative. What strategy would he implement to quicken the pace?
Once again, Fenrir directly swallowed up the third mana beast it had slain, the beasts corpse magically shrinking till it fit inside the wolf\'s mouth and then…
Gulp!
It swallowed.
Ding!
«Grade Five Mana Beast devoured! 188 more for Fenrir to advance!»
"188 more Grade Five Essence Cores for you huh? Sounds like a lot." Damien sighed.
Ding!
«Grade Five Mana Beast devoured! 148 more for Cerbe to advance!»
Another panel popped up with a slightly smaller number to fill. "At least your requirements are a little smaller." A sigh escaped his lips, his mind racing quickly. He needed over three hundred cores to advance his two Grade Five summons.
The only comforting part of this whole process? Mana beasts and demons slain by his summons counted as Experience points for him.
Although each beast slayed amounted to a smaller point than he would usually get if he personally defeated it, the difference was less than five percent and honestly, Damien didn\'t mind since the higher his level reached, the more Life Force he would have and by extension, the more Magic Essence in his reserves.
The more essence reserves he had, the more time Fenrir and Cerbe would have to go on hunts and the faster they would be ablw to advance.
But first, he needed Essence Cores to restore his magic essence reserves as well as his life force. The underlying problem was that he was out of cores.
His eyes quickly landed on the last remaining Grade Five mana beast which Cwebe had slain, his guts telling him that he would be fully recovered from just that one core.
The only problem was that Fenrie had once again activated (Devourer).
"Hey! Stop! Don\'t eat that one…"
Gulp!
It slid down Fenrir\'s throat before Damien\'s words could get to the wolf\'s ears.
«Grade Five Mana Beast devoured! 187 more for Fenrir to advance!»
"Damn it!" Famine dropped his head low, feigning a cry at hopelessness. Fenrir couldn\'t restore devoured things like Luton could which essentially meant the Grade Five core it had just devoured was gone.
Just then, he received the notification panel that made things even worse.
Ding!
«You have exhausted your essence reserves! Summons will now be cancelled!»
«Cancelling Summons in 5…»
«Cancelling Summons in 4…»
A countdown appeared and the moment it hit one…
«Summons cancelled!»
On a single moment, both Fenrir and Cerbe vanished like they\'d never existed, their connection to him instantly ending. For a moment, Damien panicked as he ceased to feel even the connection of Luton who\'d been away on a separate mission—Gathering the essence cores of Grade Seven and Six mana beasts.
This was his first time having his summon abruptly ended and so he didn\'t recall that the same thing happened whenever he also cancelled the summons himself—the connection disappearing.
Now that he was out of Magic Essence as well Life Force to convert into new essence, Damien could only sit on the floor in the forest almost lifeless while waiting for his essence reserves and life force to naturally recover which would take very long hours if not days. Damien simply didn\'t know how long since he had never waited before.
"Hey, wait a minute. I do have a Grade Five Essence Core gotten from a demon. Damien remembered he was yet to touch the two Grade Five Essence Cores he\'d received from Luton. While one belonged to a demon, the other belonged to a human Damien concluded had been devoured by Luton.
"I\'ll summon Luton once I get the 100 units of essence required to summon it." Damien could see a way to speed up the recovery period.