There were in total four drops, three of which were gem shards and the fourth one was the staff of high priestess that was required for the quest.
Liam quickly took out the other gem shards he had and started assembling everything together curiously.
"Is it just me or does this look like they don't go together?" Alex asked. She was also kneeling near Liam, watching what he was doing.
"Hmmm… The staff has three empty sockets so maybe there are three gems?" Liam responded absent-mindedly.
While these two tried to figure out the puzzle, the person who actually had the quest calmly stood on the side with her eyes closed.
Mia was doing an analysis of the fight that had just taken place trying to see what could have been done better. Everyone else as well was silently trying to recuperate.
A few minutes, Alex excitedly shouted, "I got it!"
"Liam, give me the one in your hand. I can fix this." She asked again.
"No."
"Huh? What do you mean no!" Alex furrowed her brows.
"Give me a minute." Liam shushed her which made the redhead even more agitated. She scowled and stood up to take a walk.
Liam, however, did not even look at her and still kept staring at the semi-attached together gemstone.
"What is it?" Mia slowly walked toward him and asked.
"I don't think this is a gemstone."
"Huh?"
"Ya. I am sure of it. I don't think this is a gemstone at all." Liam stood up abruptly and tossed everything into his inventory.
"Everyone let's get out of the dungeon. This run is over." He announced and started walking back to the portal at the entrance. He then without any explanation left the party.
Everyone stared at him curiously wondering what was happening when they saw him once again squatting on the ground and playing with the gem shards.
And this time he actually placed everything together to form a complete gem or rather what came together was not a gem at all in the first place.
It was a mana core! He was sure of it!
And the system notifications that popped up also confirmed his doubts.
[Ding. You have obtained a cracked high-grade demonic mana core]
[Ding. You have obtained a cracked high-grade demonic mana core]
[Ding. You have obtained a cracked high-grade demonic mana core]
Liam would have recognized it immediately but since this was red in color and he had not seen many mana cores to begin with, he was slightly thrown off his mark.
But once he saw the complete thing there was no doubt about it.
"Hmmm… I wonder if I can use these as well for that auction?" Liam suddenly had a thought.
He was in terrible need of mana cores and though these were not the absolute best quality mana cores because they had the weird tag 'cracked', these were still high-grade ones.
The mana core that he obtained by struggling so much against that wasp field boss was only a medium-grade mana core.
Sure with better skills he might be able to kill other field bosses a lot faster, there was still the chore of chasing after them and finding them.
While these three cracked high-grade demonic cores, he had obtained them with not much effort. So what he needed to do was pretty obvious here. The only question was…
Would it work?
Liam smiled bitterly and turned to look at Mia. He then handed her the staff but not the three demonic cores.
"Invite me back. Let's farm this dungeon again."
"Hmm…" Mia looked at him for a moment and then nodded. She didn't ask for any explanation. They had anyways planned to run this dungeon a few times to gain fast experience points.
Everyone else as well was thrilled to hear this. First, when Liam left the party they had all been dejected but now that he was back, they were super hyped to attempt the run again.
Everyone wanted to correct their mistakes and do it all better this time around.
However, this opportunity… never arrived…
From the get-go, Liam started going all out and started training the couple of new spells he had learned.
These were finishing moves and with his mana core to boot, the group basically blasted through the mobs in half the time they had taken previously.
Experience points constantly rained and system notifications constantly dinged. This was a real speed run!
Alex twirled her hair and moved to Mia to ask her, "What is he doing? Is he looking for something?"
Mia shook her head. "I also don't know."
Someone else standing beside the both of them answered instead. "I think party leader is just helping us level up?"
Alex rolled her eyes and then walked away. She knew Liam too well to come to this conclusion. She was sure that there was something that he needed.
And she got her answer soon enough. After they cleared the first boss for a second time, unexpectedly, they once again received the gem shards as drops.
"Huh? What is happening? Do we need more than three gemstones for the staff?" Alex picked up the drops.
Liam was already next to her and took the shards off of her hands. "I will be taking these."
"Huh!" She wanted to say something but then she was the big smile on Liam's face and she took a step back from the smiling demon.
"Alright. So the thing is…" Now that Liam had confirmed his theory, he explained a little to the two. He showed the completed demonic mana cores to them.
"These are actually mana cores, not gemstones. Since you guys have the quest, this dungeon seems to be dropping these broken mana cores for you both."
"Oh!" The two of them now understood what was going on. This was why he did not hand over the red stones to the two of them.
If Liam had given them the completed mana cores, then the quest would have progressed to the next stage, and there wouldn't be this specific drop anymore.
"So you want to keep running this dungeon to farm these?"
"Yup. Right now, I need these cores. A lot of cores!" Liam grinned. Three mana cores for a single run was too good! That too, high-level ones!
He had originally planned to run this dungeon because he had heard about the hidden boss of this dungeon possessing a mana core, but he never thought that there would also be these additional gifts!
And talking about the hidden boss, it was maybe time to trigger that guy?
