Though at least this reminded him about the existence of his quests. He had been so caught up in everything lately that he had even forgotten that his system had features other than the crux.
~If I ever want to reach level 100 and get the dual crux unlock, I've got to start paying more attention to it,~ he thought to himself before calling up his quest screen.
┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓
─────⋅☾ Daily Quests ☽⋅─────•
[Complete]
[Complete]
< Eat> 300 exp
<Absorb catalyst> 200 exp
─────⋅☾ Milestone ☽⋅─────•
<Buy 978,680 Evo points> 600exp [Unlock ??? in item shop]
┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛
It was a little depressing to see just how little experience the quests gave. It would've been nice if every kill he got dropped some, though he supposed such a perfect world would make him even more complacent than he was already.
~Still, this milestone quest has been here for a while now,~ he thought to himself. Nine hundred thousand Evo points was the equivalent of 90 million helios, which wasn't too far out of reach at the rate he was accumulating it at this stage.
But that would mean he'd have to delay his evolution. Unless of course there were some other source of helios he could use.
~Kumulipo gives a fairly good amount of helios each time I absorb a core. And it also seems to contribute some progress towards evolution at the same time, though I can't just go around slaughtering golems,~ he thought to himself. After all, the golems were the only creatures he knew that had mana cores.
~Wait!~ he realized suddenly, before bolting out of the room, to retrieve his pouch from his room. He quickly pulled out one of the mana stones, before closing his eyes and bracing himself for the pain it would take to change from solar crux to Kumulipo.
With a good amount of effort, he pushed through, allowing the white-hot pain to completely consume him.
By the time he was back from the 'white space' his mind felt like it had been chewed up, swallowed, and regurgitated. However, he was still tingling with excitement at the prospect of his theory being correct.
With this, he attempted to inject his energies into the mana stone.
Of course, there was resistance, however, due to his prior experimentation with Kumulipo, he had learned a few tricks to get past the natural resistance objects had toward his energy.
As he pushed even harder, he noticed a few small cracks begin to form on the stone. It was a shame he would be losing something so valuable, however, he was certain it would be worth it.
He manipulated his energy so that it would put more pressure where the cracks were forming, until eventually a piece of the stone broke off, and his energy rushed into it.
Once his energy filled every corner of its insides, he pulled it out and absorbed the energy he had retrieved from it.
His body began glowing slightly, and he felt as if a deep hunger he hadn't even realized he had until now was being satiated. Once again, the feeling threatened to consume him, however, his mind had already been toughened by worse, and he easily dismissed it.
[Processing…]
"It worked," he whispered to himself in disbelief, before pulling out all the other stones and doing the same for them.
And before he knew it, he had done so for the other two mana stones as well. Each time he absorbed the energy, the satiating feeling got stronger, and as a result, it tried even harder to consume him. But the scars already present on his mind acted like an impenetrable wall, bouncing them off just as quickly as they came.
Each time he absorbed the mana from the stones, he noticed a very slight change to his physique. He had grown a few centimeters and was now 1.55 meters, his tail was now 4.1 meters -which sort of bothered him since it would soon mean he wouldn't be able to fit comfortably into certain spaces within the den-.
His horns began branching even more as well, and the faded patterns on his skin became more apparent. Though they were still too light for him to properly discern what they were.
Though something odd happened. Whereas everything else seemed to evolve closer to some final form, the pull he felt coming from the earth seemed to grow a little weaker.
It wasn't as if his earth sense had become weaker- quite the contrary, he could now sense things a little further than before- it just felt like whatever attractive force was calling to him was beginning to fade away.
~Should I be worried?~ he thought to himself. He really wished he had some sort of manual to this or an assistant of some sort. Perhaps if he had been into fantasy books he would've known what this meant, though he supposed that wishful thinking would get him nowhere.
What he knew right now was that using Kumulipo was the fastest way to evolve and finish the milestone quest. And he had even found a more morally acceptable way to achieve it.
~Though I haven't gotten the helios notification yet,~ he thought, worried that perhaps mana stones couldn't be converted.
Just for good measure, he sat silently and waited for 2 more minutes, before finally-
[30 million helios absorbed]
This meant that each mana stone gave fewer helios than the golem's, however, it was better he killed mana beasts than Grenovarish's people. Morals aside, he didn't want to find out how powerful an angry golem king was, so he'd have to settle for this.
~Besides, if one small mana stone gives this much, then how much does the mana stone I gave Triden and Geyron give?~ he thought, his greed threatening to make him forget that he still had other things to focus on.
~No, I have to calm down. So far I've been focusing on a single thing for too long while neglecting everything else. I need to find a balance,~ he thought to himself.
