Red Monster

The number of kobolds was still unknown. There were at least over one hundred, and it might be over two hundred kobolds. He saw a lot of bodies, but he chose the one he burned outside the village.

He burned the kobold in the backline, and he figured out that they might be the higher-level kobold ones. The way both sides fought was similar. They used the weaker one in the front as a meat shield, exhausting the enemy before the strong one stepped in.

It was similar to when the Elite Kobold Fighters stepped in at the last moment. If the Elite Kobold Fighters led the attack, the tide of the battle would be totally different. More than ten of them should be enough to wipe out the goblins and kill the hobgoblins. Yet they chose to act later.

"Thirty bodies..."

He started to exchange the loot. The smell of burning flesh was unpleasant. It was totally different from Darla’s grilled meat. Both were burned, but this one was much more unpleasant.

The first body got him two inferior cores. He hit the mark but lost in the gamble, only getting two. He didn’t immediately absorb the cores this time. He wanted to exchange them all before absorbing them, and he could do so because of his new item, the Storage Pouch.

Red made the correct choice to go out of the village. He always got a core on each loot. While most of them were two cores, it was still better than nothing, with some of them dropping three cores.

The Chief told him that he had to exchange thirty bodies, but he did more than thirty. He got loot from forty-two bodies and got 104 cores in total. His Storage Pouch filled with the cores.

He had six stacks of Might Cores and four stacks of Magic Cores in his pouch. The excess four cores were three Might Cores and one Magic Core. There was no more space to keep them, so he absorbed them.

Red didn’t immediately absorb his cores even though he was excited with a potential for another level. It was over a hundred cores. Along with the Mediocre Cores he absorbed before, he might be getting close to level 12.

He was excited about that, but he didn’t immediately absorb the core. He instead went back to the spot where he kept the earlier excess cores. He saved twelve cores in two different spots, and he had better get to it now before he forgot about them. Twelve cores were a big number.

The spot was easy to find: a spot with a spear nearby, and the one with fresh marks in the jungle. He quickly found the first spot, but it took a while to find the second spot. Twelve Might cores were absorbed.

Red didn’t return to the village, climbing up to the tree. There was something he needed to think about before absorbing the cores in his pouch.

The war was not over, but the battle for today was over. The Chief mentioned waiting for more reinforcements from the King. On top of that, the Chief was not in a good condition to continue fighting. He had just had a battle with another Chief and was ganged up by the Elite Kobold Fighters. It would take a while for the Chief to recover.

What did it mean? It meant he would return to day, and he was glad that they managed to end the battle before his blessing expired. It also meant he needed to spare some cores for Darla.

Darla made him the food with the blessing. She deserved the core, and he was thinking how much he should give her. She mentioned needing more Magic Cores now with that new class.

Red closed his eyes; the image of the ten slots filled with cores appeared in his head. He had sixty Might Cores and forty Magic Cores. He could spare Darla a lot of cores, and he still had many to absorb.

"She still needs more Might Cores... I want her to be able to protect herself, or at least she’s fast enough to escape from the danger..." He muttered.

Then he remembered about Tob, the little gob that became his eyes and ears in the village. That little guy helped him a few times.

"Does that guy join the battle at all?"

He certainly didn’t see Tob among the surviving goblins. However, considering Tob’s cowardly nature, that little guy would think of a way to escape from the battlefield. Tob might pretend to be one of the workers just to stay behind.

"Let’s give that guy five Might cores... if he is still alive..."

Red decided to keep three stacks: two stacks of Might Core and one stack of Magic Core. He needed that little guy to protect Darla when he was away. That meant he would absorb the remaining seventy cores.

He had his status sheet open as he absorbed the core. He chose to absorb the Might Core first. His eyes widened in surprise as his Might Stat increased so much. The number shot up, and without him realizing it, his Might Stat reached the threshold.

He was taken aback that he already reached the threshold for the next level up. He reached level 11 when he killed the last two Elite Kobold Fighters he lured into the jungle. Not even an hour passed; his blessing was still active, and he was already on the threshold for the next level.

His guess about the increase in his absorption rate was spot on. The lowest value was 0.4 for one core, where it was 0.2 for an inferior core before his stat tier upgrade. His average absorption per core was 0.6, and he hit a 1.0 increase two times. He hit 0.8 more often as well.

The tier upgrade literally doubled, if not tripled, his absorption rate. This explained why he could level up twice in a day. Of course, it was also because of the number of cores he absorbed. He might have absorbed more than two hundred cores if he included the thirty magic cores that he hadn’t absorbed yet.