'Let's hope that him being inactive for more than a week now means he had a bountiful harvest.' Langford thought as he led the way.
By the time they had moved to a much larger room, Langford had prepared his mind for both shock and disappointment, but the moment Blake began taking the corpse out of his dimensional space all his preparations were for naught.
'12 magical beasts, 3 chief ranks, and an elite rank Jackler!' Langford's mind was in turmoil. He couldn't help but switch glances between the corpses and Blake.
He had expected, a higher number of magical beasts and maybe one chief rank beast, but seeing him bring out another elite beast shocked him. It now looked as if elite beasts were now cabbages, that anyone could head into the forest and get themselves one.
'Apart from the elite beast, 12 magical beasts, and 3 chief rank beasts… Someone tell me why he is still in D rank?!'
Snapping out of reverie Langford began appraising the corpse and just like the last time, they didn't sustain much damage to their hides. It was only the Elite jackler that had sustained multiple damages to its hide because the whole team had unleashed their most powerful spells on it.
"Are you the one that harvested the beast cores?" After seeing how perfectly they were extracted he confirmed that it was no fluke and would really like to know who was responsible.
The problem with extracting beast cores was that the less skilled the extractor was the lower the amount of energy the beast core would contain.
The extraction process involved perfectly using mana to cut both the pathways that connected the core to the organs that allowed the beast to absorb nature's energy and those that distributed its pure energy to other parts of their body.
If the pathways were not cut accurately and quickly the beast core was bound to lose some of its energy and to the environment and the quantity lost was dependent on how skilled and efficient the extractor was.
"Yes, I am…" Blake's reply stunned him for a second.
'He is only 16 and is able to extract a beast core with it still retaining 80% of its energy, if not 90%' Langford thought. One of the reasons he was the chief appraiser of the adventurer's association Calton branch was because of his ability to judge the quality of a beast core just by looking at how the pathways were cut.
But unknown to him, the beast cores extracted by Blake had retained 100% of their energy thanks to the help of the system. Even if Blake had heard his thoughts and corrected him, Langford wouldn't believe him unless he was shown the core, because only those that could do that were at the saint rank alchemist.
"Who taught you how to extract beast cores? I mean, from the way that the corpse was extracted they seemed almost perfect. So, I would like to know who taught you?" Such skills brought about 2 possibilities; either he was a genius or he had a saint rank alchemist as his mentor.
[From his shock it seems he doesn't know about the 2-point extraction technique…] The system said in a pondering voice.
The point extraction technique was a common technique in his era. It was a complex but efficient technique used to prevent mana from dissipating through the pathways and once all of them had been cut with high precision mana blade the core would regenerate itself blocking all the mana leakages.
"It's a secret..." Blake said with an indifferent expression.
Seeing that Blake wasn't planning on telling him, he decided not to pry further. He began making a list of the corpses and attached their prices.
"With the association's large network, you wouldn't have to come back later because there are request for them already. Alright, check the list so that we can complete the transaction." Langford handed him the list containing the appraised items and their prices.
'220 gold coins for the magical beasts except for the sklades that have a price of 270 gold coins. Seems in both worlds the scales of reptiles are highly sought out for." Blake thought as he skimmed through the list.
"The jackler only costs 670?" Blake asked with a confused expression. The knox he had killed was 970 gold coins, so he wondered why this had to be so low.
"Oh, that's simple. The hide of knox was still intact, but this was received a lot of damage reducing its worth. Also, the hides of a knox are highly sought for." Langford explained.
"Alright, I agree with the price." As Blake confirmed everything, Langford gave him a parchment to hand it over to Susan at the desk in order to retrieve his coins.
"Thank you." Blake made a bow before leaving for the desk.
"After deducting his appraisal fee and the association's commission, your payment is 5700 gold coins." Susan handed him a leather bag filled with gold coins.
"Thanks for your help..." Blake said as he dropped 2 gold coins as a tip and headed for the exit, but that was where he met Lambert.
"Are you Zero?" Lambert said while offering his hand.
"Yes, and you are?" Blake said leaving his hand hanging.
"My name is Lambert and will like to invite you for a joint commission." Lambert hid his killing intent as he retracted his hands, but this didn't go unnoticed by both Blake and the system.
"Sorry, mister Lambert I am not interested. Have a nice day." Blake said as he ignored Lambert who was beckoning for him to wait.
His harvest was huge; hence the appraisal had taken a lot of his time. He didn't have time to waste on someone who had an ill motive and besides he just came back from the survival exercise and was in no mood for missions.
Taking a carriage back to the school, Blake used his power as a locator to find the room of his teammates and gave them their own share of the gold coins gotten from the jackler, and as expected Luciano had forfeited his part for Blake since he wasn't lacking gold coins. When he finally returned to his room, he was 5239 gold coins richer.
"The life of hunting beasts is quite alluring, I would have considered it a future occupation, but that isn't my reason for being here." Blake sighed as he still hadn't figured out his reason for being summoned.
He took a short nap before heading to he concealed space to train his newfound abilities in order to gain profound mastery over them.
…
Since they had been given the remainder of the week to rest before school activities resumed in full. Blake decided it was high time he visited the cultivation room.
When he was done with breakfast, he went straight to the administration building and requested to use the cultivation room.
After having his badge scanned and it was confirmed that he had 24hrs to spend in the cultivation room, he was sent to a warp array which warped him into the building.
When he had regained sight, he was in a well-lit corridor. On the sides were rooms numbered from one to twelve and on the far end of the corridor was a lager door leading to a different part of the building.
Being eager to see useful the prize was given to the top positions of the awakening test, Blake went up to door number 7 and after seeing it the number was green signify it was empty and ready for use, He let it scan his badge before entering.
"It seems the cultivation rooms are of great importance to the school." Blake thought as he noted the double security measures placed to prevent those without permission from entering.
"Not bad…" Blake nod as he got into the completely white room.
The room was completely padded just like those found in a psychiatric hospital. The completely empty room had the size of a normal room with a length of 3.2 meters and a width of 3.5 meters, but its most impressive feature was the density of mana in the room.
"Now I know why they are double security measures." Blake blurted out in surprise.
The amount of mana coursing through the room could be said to be double that of the concealed space. He couldn't help but question his reason for not being here the moment he was given the prize.
Not wasting more time, Blake sat in a cross-legged position. "So how am I to proceed?"
[Alright, it's just the same thing you've been doing for a long time, but this time you have to fill in 42 stars.] The system said.
"What! 42?!" Blake blurted out in shock.
[Yes, 42. The aim of the champion realm is to form the protective case of the Azkelwart hourglass.] The system replied.