Chapter 179: A worthy investment
The cores were mesmerizing to look at. Some of them had a dull, muted glow to them, indicating they came from standard, lower-grade mana beasts, while a select few among the pile were glowing far more brilliantly, pulsing with a radiant, concentrated mana.
Noah turned his head slightly to look at Kael, his smirk widening into a grin.
"What do you think now... hehe," he murmured softly, a playful, victorious chuckle escaping his lips as he gestured toward the glittering hoard of energy.
Kael’s face was immediately one of pure, unadulterated awe. The arrogant, mocking demeanor the ancient dragon usually carried completely vanished, replaced by an expression of intense hunger.
He stared at the brilliant beast cores with his eyes wide, his mouth almost salivating at the sheer concentration of beast cores laid out right in front of him.
Morris had been quite surprised when Noah had initially laid out his demands, as he had asked for a stash of beast cores as his primary reward, alongside a pile of specific books for him to read.
The Grand Guild Master had clearly been expecting requests for legendary weapons or vast sums of gold.
Instead, this mysterious, powerful ally who had just altered the course of almost everything wanted nothing more than beast cores and books.
It was a bizarre, almost humbling request from an enigma like Mr. White, but Noah had known exactly what he was doing.
To ensure he maximized the value of his achievement, Noah had made sure to explicitly include a strict condition in his negotiation: high-grade beast cores absolutely had to be included in the pile as well, rather than just standard, low-grade cores.
Morris hadn’t hesitated for more than a second before agreeing to the condition, readily adding seven genuine, highly coveted high-grade beast cores into the reward package.
In truth, Noah had been a little surprised at how easily and effortlessly Morris accepted his request without even batting an eye or trying to barter the numbers down.
The process had been so incredibly smooth that it caught Noah off guard, making him realize just how much leverage he truly held in the eyes of the guild’s leadership.
Before entering that room, Noah had previously thought that something like a high-grade beast core would be far too precious, rare, and tightly guarded for the guild to let go of so casually.
He had operated under the assumption that items of that caliber were reserved exclusively for the absolute pinnacle of human mages, requiring months of paperwork, approvals, or legendary feats just to look at one.
To his complete surprise, though, the adventurer guild apparently had quite a large bunch of them sitting directly in their deep underground stashes, treating them more like highly valuable currency than unattainable myths.
While a count of seven might seem like a relatively small or modest number on the surface to an outsider, when one factored in how exceptionally rare, dangerous, and utterly devastating high-grade mana beasts were to hunt in the wild, the number made so much sense and carried an astronomical value.
A single high-grade beast could level an entire village and slaughter a dozen mid-tier adventurers before being subdued, meaning each core represented a historical event of blood, strategy, and triumph.
Seeing Morris hand them over so nonchalantly made Noah fully realize the sheer magnitude of wealth and raw resources sitting in the guild’s possession.
When he took a step back to evaluate it, the situation made total sense given the kinds of high-risk, high-reward missions adventurers regularly undertook across the continent, bringing back different things.
The guild was not just a military order; it was a financial and magical superpower that sat upon a mountain of accumulated treasure.
What Morris didn’t know, though, and what Noah had carefully kept hidden behind his neutral facade, was that those beast cores were incredibly important to his personal progression, and those books were precisely what would assist him in completing his daily quest requirements.
To the Grand Guild Master, the cores were just dense batteries of energy, and the books were merely texts meant for scholarly research or leisure.
But to Noah, they were what would help him in completing his daily quests even better, and providing the essential materials needed to fuel Kael’s appetite and make him evolve even more.
A more powerful Kael was basically a more powerful him, since the ancient dragon was his familiar, so it was a very worthy investment, one which he would reap its rewards very soon.
Apart from that, Noah had been stuck in a mind-binging routine for the past few weeks.
He had been reading the exact same books over and over again just to satisfy the daily quest requirement.
The repetition had gotten to a point where the words completely lost their meaning, turning what should have been a simple task into an arduous chore that became extremely boring.
Every single day, he would flip through the identical, worn-out pages, tracing lines of text he had already memorized by heart, forcing his brain to register the information just so the system would mark the objective as complete.
It was a tedious process that drained his mental energy far more than any physical workout, making him dread the completion of that specific daily quest.
Having fresh, unread material would not only make the daily quest completion significantly easier by removing the agonizing monotony of the task, but it would also make sure he actually enjoyed himself while completing it.
Instead of forcing his eyes to scan paragraphs he could recite in his sleep, he could now immerse himself in unfamiliar lore, history, and magical theory, turning a mandatory system requirement back into an engaging, intellectually stimulating pastime that he genuinely looked forward to tackling.
Even after granting those highly specific requests for the cores and the literature, Morris hadn’t stopped there.
The Grand Guild Master wanted to make absolutely certain that a man of Mr. White’s caliber felt thoroughly compensated, so he had personally overseen a transaction ensuring that a huge sum of gold was deposited directly into Noah’s official adventurer account.
It was a massive financial bonus meant to solidify the guild’s goodwill, transforming Noah’s digital balance into something fit for a high-ranking noble.
Sitting on the luxurious bed, Noah stared blankly into space as the financial reality of his situation started to settle in.
’Come to think of it... I’ve never really touched the gold in my adventurer card.’ he thought.
Ever since he had started his journey and jumped up to S-rank, he had almost completely ignored the economic perks of his position, letting his hard-earned funds sit entirely idle.
With the massive addition of the two million gold coins recently deposited there by Morris as a grand gesture of gratitude, the total balance on his card had reached an astronomical figure.
He now had around three million gold coins sitting in his name. It was an absolute fortune, an amount of wealth that could buy out entire estates, fund private armies, or secure premium, high-grade magical gear from the most exclusive black markets on the continent.
Looking around the pristine, opulent room, a new thought crossed his mind as he contemplated the sheer weight of his wealth.
’Perhaps, it’s time I start changing that.’ he thought.
There was no longer any practical reason for him to live like a penniless ascetic when his adventurer card held enough capital to completely change his lifestyle, and utilizing these funds could open up brand-new avenues for his growth and comfort.
Shifting his focus away from his finances, Noah turned his attention back to Kael, who was still frozen on the floor in a state of pure, desperate longing.
The ancient dragon was practically mesmerized by the glowing pile, his posture completely rigid as he waited for permission.
Noah let out a soft laugh at the sight, gesturing toward the scattered, radiant spheres. "Come on now," Noah said, his voice full of amusement. "Stop drooling and eat up."
Kael didn’t need to be told twice. The ancient dragon nodded enthusiastically, his eyes flashing with a sudden, predatory hunger before he pounced directly on the pile of beast cores.
He began devouring them one by one, tossing the dense spheres of pure mana into his jaw and crunching down on them like pieces of hard candy, swallowing the raw, concentrated energy whole as his body absorbed the elemental power.
The display was rapid and intense. It didn’t take long at all before Kael had completely eaten up every single one of them, leaving the soft sheets of the luxury bed entirely empty.
He sat there for a brief moment, his dark form humming slightly from the massive influx of raw, high-grade energy, before letting out a slight, satisfied belch that echoed softly in the quiet room.
With his belly completely full of crude mana, Kael’s majestic posture crumbled as the sheer weight of the meal caught up to him.
The ancient dragon collapsed directly onto his back right there on the bed, his limbs sprawled out in total relaxation.
He stared up at the high ceiling of the luxury suite, completely content, thinking to himself, ’that... was awesome!’
