Chapter 9

After exchanging the resource coupons for resources, Xiyi immersed his mental energy into the tattoo on his hand.

["Night Forest · Periphery" cleared]

[Rating: A]

[Claim Reward]

"Huh, I actually got an A even with such a performance!" Xiyi was pleasantly surprised. "Could there be an S rating if I complete it perfectly?"

The system, of course, did not answer his question.

Xiyi didn't bother with it and directly selected to claim the reward. The Russian roulette wheel appeared again, but the prizes had changed.

First, there were still three resource rewards: +30 alchemical materials, +30 metal resources, and +10 gem resources. The other rewards were: a building blueprint, a magic staff, and an identification crystal.

For Xiyi, the most useful items among these were the metal resources and the magic staff. Unfortunately, he couldn't control the wheel and could only watch as it spun automatically.

The wheel, ignoring Xiyi's will, began to spin and finally slowed down, the needle passing over the magic staff and the building blueprint. It seemed about to stop on the metal resources, but the wheel continued to spin at an extremely slow speed, passing over the metal resources and finally stopping on the identification crystal.

"..." Looking at the red crystal in his hand, Xiyi didn't know what expression to use.

This was a consumable item used for identifying objects, similar to the lower-grade identification crystal he had found in a treasure chest before. The only difference was that this one had a higher success rate for identification.

Apart from monetary resources, this identification crystal was the worst prize in this lottery... even a healing potion would have been better.

With a gloomy expression, he selected to log out and returned to reality.

Outside the window, it was still pitch black. From the markings on the hourglass, it was probably not even one o'clock in the morning.

Xiyi stared at the bright red crystal in his hand, which seemed to emit a faint red glow, for a while. Then he jumped out of bed and ran to his desk, using a key to unlock a drawer. Inside the drawer were his previous spoils: a fingernail-sized red gem and a construction blueprint.

After placing the unknown feather inside, Xiyi took out the small red gem.

This was the first time he had cleared the Night Forest periphery, and he had obtained it from a goblin caster.

Since the identification crystal seemed easy to obtain, Xiyi used it without hesitation to identify the small red gem.

[Shattered Fire Elemental Crystal]

[Gem/Fragment]

[Weapon Engraving: +3 Fire Damage]

[Armor Engraving: +3 Fire Resistance]

[This is an elemental crystal filled with the essence of fire, but it seems to be just a fragment that has fallen from a complete crystal, with a not very concentrated amount of elemental energy. It can be embedded in weapons or armor. If used unprocessed, it will explode after three seconds of magic infusion, with a power equivalent to the second-level spell "Flame Shock."]

[Note: "Gurah... Gwah! Gwao!" — By Goblin Caster]

Clearly, this was a gem for embedding. However, without anything to compare it to, Xiyi didn't know if the +3 fire damage or +3 fire resistance was high or low.

But since it was just a fragment, it probably wouldn't be that strong.

Apart from embedding, it could also be used as a grenade, but doing so made Xiyi feel like he was wasting the identification crystal.

"Maybe I'll give this to Elisa tomorrow to see if it can help her sense magical elements faster."

Deciding on the use of the elemental crystal, Xiyi put it in his mage robe pocket, yawned, and went back to bed.

☆

Xiyi woke up around nine in the morning.

Elisa's family ran a small tavern, the only one in the village, and business was pretty good.

The little girl would help at home in the morning, so she wouldn't come until after the busy lunch period, bringing food to study magic.

"Strange, why do I feel like I'm being fed?" Xiyi, who had just finished washing up, stood outside the mage tower, looking at the distant village with its wisps of smoke.

In the green fields outside the village, a few black dots, which were villagers working, could be seen.

Although he could meditate to pass the time, it was still early, and he had already used his dungeon opportunity. He had plenty of time to meditate in the afternoon.

The villagers in the village had become much friendlier to him because his predecessor had killed the arrow porcupine, but being respected because of someone else made Xiyi feel a bit strange, so he didn't plan to go into the village.

So he turned and walked up the mountain, wanting to climb and take a walk to exercise a bit.

Although it was called a mountain, Rock Gate Mountain was not very high, and according to Xiyi's estimate, it was less than 400 meters tall.

As the starting point of the Angora Mountains, the monsters on this mountain were very weak. The strongest were probably the cherry baboons on the backside, which looked like baboons with cherries on their heads and faces painted red.

When Xiyi's predecessor decided to settle here to teach Elisa, the cherry baboons, thinking he had invaded their territory, had attacked him. However, the already初级法师的Xiyi easily repelled them and left a deep psychological scar, so they never dared to bother his predecessor again.

Although Xiyi, after soul transmigration, had been demoted to a mage apprentice, only he knew this. The beasts still dared not do anything, so he could climb the mountain without any worries.

However, as Xiyi approached the summit, he noticed something was off. The not-so-dense forest on the mountain was too quiet.

It was mid-summer, and at this time, the usual cacophony of cicadas would be heard, but now there was complete silence.

Xiyi, on high alert, took one step at a time up the mountain. Although it might have been best to return immediately, he decided to find the source of this "abnormality" rather than hide in the mage tower and worry. Otherwise, not only would he be in danger, but Elisa might be too.

After walking a bit further, a faint smell of blood and the buzzing of flies reached him.

Following the direction of the blood smell, Xiyi found a not-too-decomposed corpse.

Even though Xiyi was used to seeing goblin corpses, his stomach still churned at the sight of this one.

It was the corpse of a female cherry baboon, with a terrified expression on its ugly monkey face. Its body, covered in coarse fur, was torn to shreds, with a large gash on its belly, and white intestines spilled out onto the ground.

The baboon's left paw was completely missing, revealing broken bones and peeled muscle tissue that looked like an orange. Its eyeballs were gone, and maggots were crawling in and out of the yellowish-white mucus inside. Flies buzzed around the various wounds, some of which exposed pink muscle and even internal organs and bones.

Suppressing the urge to vomit, Xiyi carefully examined the wounds.

However, he was not a forensic expert and had not studied anatomy. Apart from seeing that most of the wounds were caused by sharp teeth, he found nothing else.

But at least one thing was certain: a powerful predator had come to Rock Gate Mountain.