Frostfire Legacy

Chapter 21: Having a Small Advantage

Soon, the two, Aster and Cassandra, approached their next target, another solitary slime.

They quieted down as they got close before splitting up, with Cassy circling around it while Aster stayed in place.

After the two reached their positions, Aster gripped the rusty sword in his hand and lunged forward.

"HYAAAAAH! AUGH!"

With a hearty shout, he charged forward and tripped on a stone poking out of the ground.

"Star!" Cassy shouted with concern.

However, before she could run to his side, Aster had already pushed himself up and resumed his charge.

*BOING!*

But the slime was already aware of his presence. Therefore, it easily dodged his strike. As slimes only attack when they have the liberty of surprise, the one before him quickly turned tail and fled. "It's going there, Cassy!"

"I see it!"

Fortunately, the slime couldn't "see" beyond the grass ahead of it. Consequently, it didn't notice Cassy, standing still with her dagger at the ready.

"...!"

As soon as it burst out of the grass mid-jump, Cassy brought down her dagger in one swift motion.

*SQUELCH!*

Her dagger, combining the stabbing motion and the slime's rush, ended up piercing right through! Seeing the gel-like contents of the slime's body leaking out, she quickly panicked.

"Ah, ah! It's getting wasted! Aster! Do your thing, quick!"

"Alright!"

Aster ran quickly, picking up the backpack thrown on the ground, getting a single packet again, and rushing to Cassandra's side. "Give it to me!" He asked in a hurry before placing the slime's corpse over the plastic and laying it on the ground.

"Watch for other slimes!" Aster commented as he began to concentrate.

Cassy, as told, watched the surrounding grass and noticed two points moving closer. It would reach them in a few seconds, so she decided to meet them midway instead.

Aster had his eyes closed, focusing on using his magic carved seal. Before, he seemed to have set the temperature too high, so now he was trying to go slow. About half of the temperature he imagined before!

*GURGLE!* *GURGLE!*

In a flash, the slime's gel-like contents started to "boil" over and gradually evaporate. About fifteen seconds later, the liquid practically disappeared and changed into flakes inside the slime's plastic-like outer skin

Aster stared at it and frowned a bit before beaming. "Success!"

"Next one~!" Cassy, right as he finished, delivered two more slime corpses to him.

Aster was surprised at the sight. After all, it meant that Cassy hunted two of those at the same time! "I'm getting used to matching their movements~!" She exclaimed proudly.

Not missing a beat, Aster lined up the two beside each other, straight onto the ground, and began to focus once more. His imagination, still fresh from his previous success, was able to solidify the image almost immediately.

*GURGLE!* *GURGLE!*

In a flash, the liquids started to boil, evaporating like alcohol and leaving only the mana powder in the form of flakes. Both slimes were dried successfully at the same time!

"I'm getting a hang of this too." He muttered with a smile. "But we should collect the powder first!"

Aster used his sword to slash open a new packet before carefully pouring the flaky material inside the slime's outer skin. After combining all three, even without crushing them into a finer powder, it still couldn't even fill up a tenth of the container.

"Amazing! So you can extract the mana powder directly!" Cassy clapped excitedly, seeing the result of Aster's "magic."

"But how many times can you use it? You've used it three times already," she curiously asked.

Aster carefully rolled the pack of mana powder and placed it safely inside the backpack. As the mana powder would sublimate when exposed to the elements for a long time, they needed to seal its container right after collection to preserve their loot properly.

"It's a Magic Carved Seal, so I think I don't have a usage limit," he answered her question with a light shrug.

"No limit?!" Cassy groaned, almost envious. "I wish my heal was like that too..."

Aster smiled lightly before standing up, staring at the back of his right palm. There, the mark that glowed earlier was still visible. Rather than a tattoo, it looked more like it was etched into his skin, as one could feel the lines if they ran a hand over it.

The only thing limiting him was that he wasn't accustomed to using it yet. He basically self-taught himself how to use it, but the entire process requires his full concentration. At least for now.

'As such, I can't even use it to battle yet.'

One might think that he was jumping the gun, but sooner or later, he would become able to use it as naturally as breathing. All he needed was practice... and lots of it.

Aster's imagination ran wild before he shook his head, returning to the task at hand.

"Anyway, we should continue hunting! Three slime's worth of mana powder isn't enough to bring us out of the red!"

Thinking that their weapons and backpack were "long-term investments," all they needed to clear was the entrance fee to the dungeon to reach the minimum break-even point.

Slime Fluids cost 50 Tels per 1000 grams, but dried mana powder costs 100 Tels per 10 grams. With their harvest of roughly 25 grams from three slimes, they have only reached 250 Tels currently. It was far from enough!

To reach the break-even point, they would need to hunt at least 50 more slimes!

"Alright! Leave the scouting to me!" Cassy pumped her hands before her chest, raring to go.

Just like before, they continued their hunt. Cassy was scouting slimes that were alone, or up to a group of two, before they attacked from both sides, ensuring the enemy couldn't escape.

As they repeated their hunt, they gradually got used to the process, and the rate of failure of their initial surprise attack dropped down to about once every ten tries. Mostly Aster, as Cassy rarely failed by then.

Long hours later, they began to show signs of fatigue. They have hunted exactly 143 slimes, of which 110 were successfully dried by Aster.

The division of their kills was quite lopsided too, with Cassy killing 98 while Aster only managed to catch 45.

*Huff!*

Aster sighed as he filled another pouch.

"With this, we roughly earned twice our entrance fee!" He smiled as he declared. "We should call it a day here." He added.

He then began to wonder what time it was and how long they had been hunting, only to see that the time was already past 8 p.m. Due to the sun staying the same the entire time, the pair completely lost track of time!