Desolate World

"50 bottles of mana potions, 20 bottles of health potions, 10 bottles of antidote, 10 bottles of stealth potions, bandages, ropes, my repair tool, 50 slices of bread, 10 shining sphere scrolls, are they all?" Sofia mumbled while thinking deeply. Sofia took many items from a big black chest. It was a vault that was summoned by Sofia by using a vault access scroll. 

"Geez… Aren't those too much?" Ace protested. He thought Sofia did an unnecessary thing. He would just travel for a few days or the longest a week to find more human refugees. Such preparation was too much. He thought that he only needed some mana and health potions and food. Actually, he already had some bottles of potions and food in his inventory.

"No! You can't be careless. As we don't know the future. Many possibilities can happen. You may need a month to come back, as many people will follow you to come back here.

Oh… protective array, insect repellents, dried meats, and… blankets. I think those are all. Anything else…?" Sofia asked.

"How about no? Sofia, those things would fill ⅓ of my inventory. I still need space to keep the loot, you know," Ace said nearly begging. He thought those things had already been too much. 

"Okay. I think you should meet Mars before going. Maybe he had additional tasks," Sofia suggested.

"Right… However, I am thinking, should I bring Red and Blue or not? You know, I will need help if I need to pass a difficult area," Ace asked.

"Instead of doing that, why don't you bring Geo and Mom too? With Geo's four pets and a healer at your back, you can fight stronger monsters, you know?" Sofia said.

All of Ace's party members are already level 17 or 18. These days they weren't too idle, as many monsters roamed around the area, Ace always spared some time to accompany them to level up. 

The one that had the lowest level was Torch. She was Geo's new pet that was hatched from the fire crown's egg. She was an agile monster with a pretty strong fireball attack. Although her level was only 9, she was strong enough to deal with a monster with level 11 or higher.

Ace himself was level 23. Most of his experience, he got from quest completion. Hunting was no longer enough to accumulate experience, as he had never seen monsters that had level more than 15. So he needed to meditate to supplement his growth. 

It was surprisingly effective. Inspired by Gon who swallowed monster cores to get experience, he would hold a core every time he meditated. The core would reduce in size per a few minutes until it disintegrated when it was used to meditate. He usually got 15% to 17% of experience by meditating for 2 hours at this level.

However, the consumption of the cores was incredibly heartbreaking. If he used the cores nonstop in his meditation for 2 hours, he would consume 50 to 60 level 3 ants' cores. He still didn't use higher-level cores because he thought it would be too wasteful. 

Fortunately, he had almost a thousand level 3 ants' cores. He planned to use up all of them to meditate. As for the others, they would use the cores that were gotten from hunting. He had already talked about it with the rest of the team.

For the level 8 ant's cores, they didn't have plans to use them at the time being. If possible, they would use them to build equipment and other products. Because they only had a limited number of them.

He had consulted about the meditation matter with Gon a few days before. When he knew that Ace used monster cores to meditate, he was slack-jawed in an instant. He then yelled to Ace that he was too wasteful. 

Gon said, by using the monster core, it indeed made the meditation several times more effective. However, it was like burning a tree to make a bonfire, it was too overkill.

Gon advised Ace to only use monster cores for more productive matters like making equipment, potions, or just selling it to buy a skill, as experience would be accumulated over time by hunting monsters or meditating.

Ace couldn't understand Gon's way of thinking. Wasn't using monster cores could make them stronger faster? 

He then understood after Gon said that normally dragons would take their time to level up, because for them each leveling up needed an adaptation phase. And because their time was abundant, they didn't need to rush it. 

Ace assumed that it was just a different concept of time. For a long-life race like dragons, time was what they had the most, so they didn't have to hurry.

However, Gon's next statement made him feel strange. He said, "You have already reached level 22, right? So you will understand immediately that rushing to level up is impossible."

When Ace heard that, he was confused about what the dragon meant. Gon only smiled without giving any more explanation.

***

"So you came. Do you want to go North like you have planned tonight?" Mars, who was in humanoid form, asked. These days, he always used this shape when walking around the villagers. It made Gon look like the biggest creature here.

Ace scratched his head, "Well, no. The plan has changed. I would go along the river. Phil suggested that to me. He said that the undead shouldn't be provoked before the village was formed."

Mars frowned. He then looked towards the East direction.

"Oh, Elder Phil said that? I don't mind crushing some bones, you know. I think going North was more promising than roaming around this stupid forest. But, if it was your decision, I don't mind. 

Maybe you even can do me favor, if you don't mind," He said while looking directly into Ace's eyes. 

Ace wanted to exclaim, as the request meant a new quest. However, Mars's gaze made him stiff. Ace always felt terrified when Mars looked at him with his sharp gaze. 

"Y-yes?" Ace answered with a trembling voice.

"Am I that terrifying? Well, it couldn't be helped. You are still too weak," Mars said while looking at Ace with a mocking gaze. 

Ace was pretty dissatisfied with Mars's ridicule. But he was helpless. Who asked him to be weaker.

Mars then continued, "Whatever… I just want to ask you to pay extra attention if you find different intelligent races along the road. Just take a note if you find peaceful races and report back to me or you can directly persuade them to join us."

"Okay," Ace answered. Ace then waited for the quest notification to pop up. However, it didn't happen, after he waited for a few seconds. It made him more upset.

'It seemed like it was part of the quest to help Mars build the village. F**k you Mars!' Ace cursed in his heart.

As he wanted to say goodbye, Mars seemed to have something else to say, "By the way, now you can be assumed as one of my subordinates. So, I have something for you."

Mars then transformed into his dragon form. His size expanded from 1,8 meters to more than 15 meters tall.

It made Ace alarmed and a little expectant. But, Mars's next action made him puzzled. The Dragon then inserted his two fingers or they were more appropriately called claws into his mouth. He then tossed a tooth, a quite large fang to Ace.

Ace caught the 30 cm object with his two hands. He checked it a few times. 

Mars's fang (quest item)

Can be used to call Mars. Could be used once. (0/1)

He then heard Mars's voice, "You can call me when your mission is in danger. Do you understand?"

***