“What do you mean?” Leo asked Miller. He wanted to know exactly how bad the outbreak had gotten.
“The Outer Forest is completely filled with 2nd Circle Magical Beasts. There are 1st Circle Magical Beasts wandering around the outskirts too. None of the commoners who don’t have aura are leaving the city premises. We don’t have any income left.” He said. “As for the adventurers, they have no choice but to take the risk and enter the forest. A lot of them were unfortunate and met 2nd Circle Magical Beasts. A lot of them were able to escape, but some weren’t as lucky.”
Leo shook his head. “Does this mean that the Beast Wave is near?” He asked him.
Miller nodded his head. “Very close by. It will be here in a week according to some of the more experienced adventurers. The city already increased the rewards for hunting 2nd Circle Magical Beasts and also prohibited any Aura Knights from leaving the city.”
Leo was puzzled by that. “Can they do that? How can they force us to stay?”
“This is an emergency. They will conscript all the Aura Knights. The only way to escape the conscription is to show that you have hunted 10 2nd Circle Magical Beasts, but who can really do that here in Solhaven?”
Leo shook his head, acting like he was agreeing with him. Miller didn’t know that the kid in front of him was one of those people.
“You don’t have to worry. The conscription only affects people above 15 years old. Kids like you aren’t going to be fighting the war. That would be inhumane,” Miller said. Leo sighed.
If he was forced to fight the Beast Wave, he would miss the best chance to raid the Center of the forest. This was because after fighting the wave, all of the mages would flock there to loot what the Magical Beasts have hoarded for those years. They clearly haven’t found the inheritance yet, but if they did this time, then he would miss out on it.
“So don’t head out to the forest any time soon. Stay in the city. As long as you stay alive, there are more opportunities to make money,” Miller added before going back to his job. Leo shook his head and headed out.
He walked to the forest while planning what he was going to do. He was planning on solely hunting 2nd Circle Magical Beasts. He wasn’t planning on showing them for proof or anything. He only needed the cores to feed his plant. It was almost withered and he had to revive it.
He also needed to see how much his power increased with his consecutive breakthroughs. While he thought this, he already reached the forest. It used to take him 2 hours but now it was just 30 minutes because his physical capabilities increased a lot.
He didn’t even have to head deep into the Outer Forest to find a 2nd Circle Magical Beast. He find one immediately after he entered the forest. He realized what Miller was saying. If they already got pushed out this much, eventually they would all get pushed out of the forest. He was curious about what kind of resources were hiding in the Inner Forest for the stronger Magical Beasts to push out the 2nd Circle Magical Beasts like this.
He found an Ironshell Bison guarding a herb and walked to it. It was only an Early-Stage 2nd Circle Magical Beast while he was a Peak-Stage 2nd Star Mage. Even if the Bison had a very tough shell on its back that made its defense hard to crack, he was not worried in the slightest.
He cast a Flame Burst at the Bison. The sphere flew toward the bison quickly. It noticed Leo very quickly and saw the attack coming its way. It quickly turned its shell toward Leo and tried to defend the Flame Burst with the shell.
The sphere contacted the shell and burst into a huge explosion. The force shattered the shell instantly and killed the Bison without giving it any chance to fight back. Leo smiled. He knew he was stronger but now he confirmed it. He was eager to see what another breakthrough would do to him.
He quickly took the Beast Core and went on to the next Magical Beast. This was going to be more fun since he barely had to exert himself while fighting.
He left in just 4 hours since he gathered enough cores. He got a total of 10 Beast Cores. At this point, he was actually frightened by the number of Magical Beasts that were in the 2nd Circle. There were only around 1000 2nd Circle Aura Knights in Solhaven. But by his estimates, there were at least 3000 Magical Beasts that were in the 2nd Circle. There were also 3rd Circle Beasts as well. He was now worried about how Solhaven would fare against the Beast Wave.
He got back to his house and saw that Daphne was still training. Ever since he told her about the Beast Wave, she holed herself up in her room more than him and focused on getting stronger. Leo didn’t know it, but she was doing it just so that she could be less of a burden to him and be able to help him during the Beast Wave.
He went to his room and fed the tree the ten Beast Cores that he got. It instantly recovered from all the damage he did to it. All 20 leaves grew back. He realized was easier to grow back leaves that he had plucked off than grow new ones.
He didn’t use any of the leaves and just trained normally to consolidate his magic for the rest of the day. He woke up the next day to repeat what he did. At the end of the second day, the tree grew another 10 cm. There was also a new change in the tree.
A new branch grew, but at the end of the branch, along with a leaf, a flower started to form. He was very excited to see this change. He was expecting that the flower would be more effective than the leaf, so he wanted to see it bloom.
The next day he stayed for twice as long to hunt twice as many beasts to gather more Beast Cores and make the fruit bloom. But even twenty Beast Cores didn’t do anything to the bud. It only barely started to open up. He would need more Beast Cores.
For the next 4 days, he brought in twenty Beast Cores each day and fed the plant with them. Finally, at the end of the last day, the flower finally bloomed. The rest of the plant didn’t even change. It was only that one flower that took more than 100 2nd Circle Beast Cores to bloom.
However, the blooming of the flower was such a magical sight that it captivated him completely.