Chapter 66 – “Loot” Master (Unfortunately, Still “In Progress”) (Patreon)

After I finished checking all my announcements, Mahya asked Lis, “Should we harvest here or on Earth?”

Lis thought momentarily and said, “Let's do another round and then decide.”

They left and came back after a short while.

“Looks peaceful.” Mahya said, “I think we dealt with all the big threats.”

"Excellent! Then we will harvest here." Said Lis.

In a second, a pile of monsters appeared in front of them. Most were snakes, like the green one I killed, but some monsters looked like bears with squished faces and metallic spikes, while others looked like canines with six legs and a tail with a stinger.

“How come they are not dissipating?” I asked.

“Those are mana beasts, not monsters.” Said Lis.

Lis took out a large knife, straightened one of the snakes, and cut the skin from head to tail.

He turned to me, saying, "Start peeling the skin off the flesh; you don't have to be too careful; this skin is very tough and doesn't lose its strength after the borrower dies."

I had a better idea and said majestically, “Behold." I covered the snake with a thin mana layer between its skin and flesh and popped the skin right off. With all my practice on the bison, it took me two minutes, and the skin came off clean.

They both looked suitably impressed, and Lis said, "Great, that'll go faster," and started cutting all the snakes lengthwise.

I started popping off the skin from all the snakes while Mahya cut them open one by one and removed a green liquid sack about the size of a mango and a small crystal.

“What are those?” I asked her.

“The venom sacks and the beast cores.”

“And why do we need them?”

“The venom sacks are an alchemy ingredient, and the cores are mana crystals, like the ones Lis told me you can harvest.”

“Oh, cool.”

I continued popping off skins until we ran out of snakes.

“You should harvest the meat, too.” Lis told me, “It’s much richer in mana than the meat you saturate.”

“I’m not sure I want to eat a nasty green snake.”

"Mana snakes are delicious, and don't forget about Rue. He needs the mana-rich meat to progress.”

He had a point. I gave him a thumbs up and decided to use the opportunity to progress my loot spell, but I wanted to go about it differently this time. I took out the biggest plastic sheet I had and spread it on the ground.

“What are you doing?” Lis asked me.

“Wait and see.”

I lifted the snake with telekinesis—God, the fucker was heavy; I felt my mind sweating from the strain—brought it over the sheet, split my mind, cast Clean and Purify, and examined it with my mana sense. It had a long digestive tract and some other internal organs. I encapsulated all the unneeded parts in mana and created a grid of mana inside the snake to cut it into steaks, applied the correct aspects to the grid, pushed mana into it, and released the telekinesis from the steaks but still held the offal. A nice stack of steaks fell on the plastic sheet, and the offal was still hovering.

Lis and Mahya clapped, and Mahya even cheered.

I took a bow and continued. This way, I cut all the snakes but one.

Mahya stopped me from handling the last one and said, “I nicked the venom sack; this one is poisonous now.”

“He has Neutralized Poison,” Lis told her.

“I know, but there is enough meat. There is no need to scavenge damaged goods.”

I laughed and nodded in agreement. Lis just shook his head at us. I remembered the snake I had in Storage and took it out. I tried to cut it lengthwise like Lis, but my knife slid off the scales without scratching them.

I asked Lis, "How do you cut them so easily?"

"It's an enchanted mithril knife. I'll do it, or do you want to build a mana edge on the knife and cut the snake?"

"I've trained enough for one day. You do it, and we'll get on with the harvesting."

We switched to the bears with the quills this time, and while the skin was useless, the quills were valuable. It turns out that they are used in crossbow bolts. You learn something new every day.

It took me almost twenty minutes to figure out how to pluck the quills with mana, but I succeeded. You must coat the quills' bottoms with mana and pop them out. After that, it went fast. In less than an hour, I plucked more than thirty bears. The next step was to open their bellies, empty the internal organs, and hang them upside down to drain the blood.

We switched to canines, and once again, we had to open their abdomens and hang them upside down to drain the blood. However, there was a specific way to open the abdomens to prevent damage to the venom sac of the tail stinger.

I asked Lis and Mahia, "How do you know these things? Have you been in this world before?"

Lis replied, "No, but there are specific groups of mana beasts that you will eventually learn to recognize. The alchemists always buy poison-related items. Leather of any kind goes to the leatherworkers unless the skin is perforated, as in the case of the ursine here. You're already familiar with mana crystals, and meat rich in mana is always popular. And if you don't like the taste, give it to Rue.”

“What about the quills and the location of the poison sack?”

“The quills feel metallic and are venomous. What else can you do with them but use them as crossbow bolts? They're not long enough to make an arrow. The sack's location is simple: in reptiles, the head, and in mammals, with the other internal organs. You can also buy the Appraisal skill to learn what is valuable in any monster.”

"I have the Appraisal skill in my Merchant class."

“Right, I forgot about it. Go appraise one of the beasts we haven’t processed yet; you’ll understand.”

I went to one of the canines and appraised it:

Pelt 6-9 Silver

Meat 3–7 Gold

My vision was drawn to its belly.

Venom Sack 1-3 Gold

Beast Core 6-9 Gold

My vision was drawn to its tail.

Stinger 1-3 Silver

Cool!!

I asked Lis, “It says the stingers are worth one to three silvers; why aren’t we harvesting them?”

“Locating a blacksmith who crafts poisonous weapons is difficult, as they typically face opposition and work in secret with assassins and the like.”

“Got it.” I asked, “Why is there a difference in prices?”

“Supply and demand. This material quality is rare in medium-mana worlds, so the price is higher. It's more abundant in high-mana worlds, so it’s cheaper.”

“It’s still expensive.”

“Of course, you must still kill a dangerous mana beast.”

Well, economics applies in every world, I guess.

After all the beasts hung like macabre displays, Mahya asked me, “Can you cast Clean on me, please?”

“Why don’t you buy it? You have a ton of points.” I asked.

“I can’t. I had it, and I converted it to an engineering skill."

“So now you can’t buy it ever again?”

“I hope I’ll be able to buy a mage scroll with the spell.”

“You can learn it from a scroll, but the spell construct has to differ from the one you converted.” Lis stated, "If the spell construct is the same, you consume the scroll but don’t receive the spell."

“How do you know?” Mahya asked him.

“Happened to a traveler I know. It took him seven scrolls to find a different version of ‘Peaceful Night.’”

“What’s ‘Peaceful Night’?” I asked.

“It’s a spell to make your camp invisible,” Mahya said, sighing deeply. “I had it, too.”

"Sounds useful,” I said.

"Yes," Lis responded, adding, "but don't rush to buy it; try to create or learn it instead. You are lucky with your wizard class; you can learn spells like you did with the barrel.”

"Yes," Mahya confirmed, "He and Lyura both."

“Why Lyura?” Lis asked, looking confused.

"Her mother is a witch who taught her all the spells she knew. Lyura also has the ability, but is just starting to develop it.”

"It’s an ability? not a class?" I asked.

"Yes," Lis replied, "it depends on the type of mana body you have. Because you have power orbs, you could be either a Mage or a Wizard. However, you cannot become a witch due to the inability to store mana in your body, nor can you become a sorcerer due to the inability to channel external mana, unless you advance in your Wizard class and develop the necessary skill.”

“This whole subject of magic is very complicated," I said.

"Not really," replied Mahia. "It's new to you. After you get used to thinking with these concepts and continue to study, it will become second nature and very clear to you."

"I'm not there yet," I said.

Lis said, "While waiting for the beasts to drain, we should start working on the trees. We have a quiet and undisturbed place here."

"Why did I have to cut down so many trees?" I asked.

"It's for a project Mahya and I are working on."

"Yes, but what project?"

"Like we told you about the radio, be patient."

I huffed, said, “Keep your secrets,” and removed the first tree from my Storage.

We had to remove all the branches from the trees, and once each tree was free of branches, Lis stored them in his Storage.

Again, I had to coat the saw's blade with mana, which was still difficult. Liss had an enchanted saw that did the job quickly, and Mahia busied herself with taking the leaves off the branches.

After a few hours, we finished with all the trees and were dead tired. Lis told me not to throw away the branches but to save them as firewood; it turns out that mana-rich wood is excellent for fire and burns for hours.

I asked him, "Why did I have to cut down all these trees instead of saturating Earth's trees with mana?"

"You can't saturate a tree with mana if it doesn't have it in the first place. No matter what you do, the tree will turn into mulch. It's a great way to make money in medium-mana worlds: turning trees into mulch with mana and selling it to alchemists. They are willing to pay considerable sums to grow more potent herbs."

This man was a fount of knowledge.

We were too tired to cut all the beasts into steaks, so Lis told me to keep them in my Storage. They will mostly be for Rue, and I am the cook for all of us.

After getting all the beasts down from the trees, Lis and Mahia divided the hides, crystals, quills, and venom sacs into three equal piles. They each stored one pile, and Lis told me, "This is your pile."

"Mine? But I didn't do anything! You're the ones who fought all the beasts and monsters."

"Yes, but you helped us cut trees and heal our injuries. The party rule applies here—an equal division for the three of us."

"What's the party rule?"

"When a party works together, if there is no different agreement in the first place, everything is divided equally between all party members, unless something specific is very suitable for a particular person. That person gets it but must give up something of equivalent value."

Good to know.

Once we had stored everything, we headed back to the Gate and bed. We were dead on our feet.

On the way, I checked my profile; my Harvest Game was still [in Progress] 👿