Chapter 102 101 - Collecting Payment

Once the essence cores and beast parts had been checked over, David entered the trailer with all the loot they had gathered. Undead beasts didn't have many useful beast parts, and because of this, Milo only received essence cores from them, which all beasts contained, and the one strange gem that was dropped by the boss of the gate. For now Milo pretended to put all the stuff he'd been given in a backpack and instead stored it in his system inventory. Seeing the loot disappear into thin air would definitely cause his teammates to think something was up, and could lead to them finding out about the system, which Milo wasn't ready for, maybe one day he'd reveal publicly that he could copy abilities but that would only happen once he was powerful enough to fend off anyone who came at him.

Soon, Cameron came over and handed over the essence cores he had been given as his cut of the loot and told Milo to keep them. It was his way to pay Milo back for risking his own life attracting the attention of all the Ghouls to save his own.

Milo gladly accepted them, as that meant he'd be increasing his magic power stat even more, storing those cores in his inventory as well. In total he had received 3 unique cores from Blood Ghouls and 7 rare cores from basic Ghouls. The heroic core that was contained in the boss was taken by the guild as part of their cut. Milo was a bit sad to not get it himself, but this was something that came with being part of a guild, as if they gave away all the loot from gates they closed to the gatecrashers they wouldn't have any way of making money.

After the loot had been fully distributed, David also gave them their commission for closing the C rank gate. For the E ranked gate he closed on his in-field experience, Milo was given 2,000 credits as the commission by the GAA. The higher the difficulty of the gate, the higher the commission rate, and since it was the Incubus guild, they had some of the best commission rates around. Milo had earned 7,500 credits for his role in closing the gate.

Seeing the credits load into his account, Milo smiled in satisfaction, hopefully now he could buy the materials Avery needed in order to create his chain whip sword. David ended their time in the trailer meant for them to relax after closing the gate by announcing that they would now head back to headquarters where they could hang out in the lounge for the day or go out and do whatever they wanted to do. Closing a gate took a lot out of a gate crasher and for this reason, the group was also given the next day off to recharge and they'd reconvene the day after to reflect on their experience in the gate

This was welcomed by Milo as he had used a ton of energy while closing the C ranked gate, almost using up all his stamina not just once, but twice. Because of this, after returning to the guild headquarters Milo got on the first taxi he could find and headed home to relax.

Once he arrived back at his apartment the sun was beginning to set, they had closed the C rank gate in 8 hours. This was longer than their simulation runs but since it was a live gate, the team was a lot more cautious than they normally were, as a death didn't mean they'd have to wait to respawn, it meant the end. Milo stared out at the golden light falling over the city and was happy for the life he was currently living.

He had good friends, he was growing stronger and was gaining experience in the field he wanted to pursue after graduation and was excelling at it. He was earning a good income doing this as well, which was just the cherry on top. The system had changed his life, and in the next few minutes it would expand even more.

Milo extracted all the cores from his inventory other than two of the unique ranked cores from the Blood Ghouls. The other cores were all now laying on his bed, the strange crystals looked like all the others he had seen so far, with some strange power flowing inside of them. The unique tier cores seemed to have more colors flowing through them in comparison to the rare ranked cores. Milo wanted to take a quick look at his stats before absorbing the cores so he could see exactly what changes occurred once they were absorbed, so he opened his status screen.

[Stats] [Tutorials] [Plunder]

Name: Milo Fenix

Title: [None]

Level: 31

Gold: 175

Armor Rating: 1650

Abilities[4 / 6]:

1 - Reinforce: can reinforce the body to make it stronger (lvl. 5)

2 - Ice - Can freeze water nearby and control it, the higher the ability the better the ice can be shaped (lvl. 6)

3 - Beast Whisperer - Able to read the thoughts and feelings of friendly beasts, also allows the user to imprint on and tame young beasts(lvl. 1)

4 - Hunter's Eye - Allows the user to overlay their vision that highlights the weak points of lifeforms(lvl. 5)

5 - empty -

6 - empty -

[Stats]

Free Stat Points: [0]

Strength: [50]

Agility: [45]

Intelligence: [50]

Stamina: [58]

Constitution: [45]

Magic Power: [30]

[clear]

When looking through his status screen he first checked his abilities. Whenever he absorbed cores they seemed to increase in level, allowing him to use them at a stronger degree. While checking them, he realized he hadn't attempted to copy Seamus's ability with the Plunder skill, which was Soul Siphon. If it was successfully copied, Milo's strength would take another jump, as it would allow him to take power from another target and add it to his own. It was a debuff and self buff skill that would flow well with how he fought. He also noticed that he had yet to increase the level of the Beast Whisperer ability, which most likely came down to the fact that he always used his inspect skill to find out info on beasts rather than using the ability to read their thoughts, his main reason for holding onto the ability was so that he could one day tame a beast, like Zach.

Next were his stats, since beginning at the guild he had gotten up to level 31. One of these levels came while he was closing the gate, causing all his stats to be boosted again. He smiled seeing the level of his stats before moving on.

He lastly noted his Magic Power stat was at 30 and turned to the essence cores laying on his bed. He decided to absorb a rare ranked core first. He absorbed the core, the system then began pulling the energy from the core into his body causing the core to disappear in a strange rainbow mist that dissipated into the air, similar to what happened when storing something in his dimensional storage earring. When he did, a screen appeared.

[Notice]

Rare Essence Core successfully absorbed

Gained 3 points in the Magic Power stat

Gained 50 exp

[clear]

Seeing that his magic power stat grew by 3 he absorbed another and another identical screen appeared however this time an additional screen came with it.

[Notice]

Due to Magic Power stat reaching a certain level, essence cores will lose some effectiveness when absorbed.

[clear]

Reading the message, he figured it'd get to this point as if he could continuously absorb essence cores to make it so his Magic Power stat increased, he could just clear low ranked gates on his own and use all the low tiered essence cores to increase it. This was likely the system's way of preventing him from cheating his growth, even though he had already become extremely strong.

He just hoped that the level at which the system nerfed it wasn't too high. He absorbed another rare core hoping for the best and his heart dropped reading the message that appeared.

[Notice]

Rare Essence Core successfully absorbed

Gained 1 points in the Magic Power stat

Gained 10 exp

[clear]

At this point Milo chose to absorb all the remaining cores he wanted to absorb, as even increasing it by one point would help him reach his end of summer goal eventually. After absorbing the cores his Magic Power stat had reached 44. The unique ranked core he absorbed along with the 7 rare cores gave 14 points total, and it was almost halfway to what Milo had set as his goal from where he started. He then opened his status screen to see if any changes were made to his abilities. When he absorbed the cores, he could feel the increase in magic power flow through him but wasn't sure to what extent it'd increase the level of his abilities.

[Stats] [Tutorials] [Plunder]

Name: Milo Fenix

Title: [None]

Level: 31

Gold: 175

Armor Rating: 1650

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Abilities[4 / 6]:

1 - Reinforce: can reinforce the body to make it stronger (lvl. 7)

2 - Ice - Can freeze water nearby and control it, the higher the ability the better the ice can be shaped (lvl. 8)

3 - Beast Whisperer - Able to read the thoughts and feelings of friendly beasts, also allows the user to imprint on and tame young beasts(lvl. 3)

4 - Hunter's Eye - Allows the user to overlay their vision that highlights the weak points of lifeforms(lvl. 7)

5 - empty -

6 - empty -

[Stats]

Free Stat Points: [0]

Strength: [50]

Agility: [45]

Intelligence: [50]

Stamina: [58]

Constitution: [45]

Magic Power: [44]

[clear]

Each of his abilities had grown two levels from the 14 point increase to his Magic Power stat. To what extent that affected his strength when using the abilities he would have to test the next time he went to the training room. Overall however, absorbing the essence cores was a great boost, and Milo couldn't wait to test things out the next day after resting for the rest of the night. He also planned to send a message to Avery about creating his new weapon.