Chapter 177: Cute Merciless Beast

While Gerald was recovering from his reckless test, the servants of the Golden Pouch Auction House were having a hard time.

Their master, Arthur Rosecloud, ordered them to search through the city and the surrounding farms to find White Berry Seeds for sale.

The job seemed simple enough, and they even considered it as a break from labor. However, little did they know that there was not a single seed to be found anywhere outside the city.

Even when they visited the farms where they grew White Berry Bushes, they were unable to buy any at all.

That's because a certain person already paid for all of their future yearly products a while ago and they were still being delivered to him.

A few days passed and the servants still didn't achieve any advancements on their tasks. They became increasingly nervous and searched for the person responsible for buying all White Berry Seed in the surrounding land.

Finally, after bribing many people and wasting a lot of time, they finally got a clue: The Flask of Wild Herbs shop!

Inside The Flask of Wild Herbs shop, the shopkeeper, Alois Mundo was under a lot of stress during the last few weeks.

He spent all of his life savings and even took a giant loan, just so he could buy all possible White Berry Seeds. The first round of harvest was at hand, and every day he would receive sacks full of seeds.

Unfortunately, unlike what he thought would happen, nobody came to ask for those seeds after that day.

The man's nerves were already at their limit due to stress and uncertainty. He barely even slept anymore and his body was becoming thinner because he forgot to eat multiple times. His small shop was filling up with sacks of seeds and with each one added, his heartbeat became faster.

"I can't take it anymore! A few more days and I'm going to go insane!" Alois Mundo shouted and pulled his hair in frustration. "Why did I have to do something so stupid?! Aaaaaaah!"

Just as he was about to go insane from stress, a few men entered his humble shop, making him sober up immediately. They all had distinctive attire belonging to the Auction House and looked at the sacks littering the place, before turning directly at him.

"Alois Mundo, correct? We are from the Auction House on the order from master Arthur Rosecloud! We were told you had bought all White Berry Seeds… We would like to buy them from you!"

"Ah?" Alois Mundo looked at them with bulging eyes, before his mouth opened into a wide smile.

Then he collapsed on the floor.

"Eh? Sir, Alois Mundo?" The servants looked at him and then at each other. "Did we scare him to death? He looks like a corpse already..."

Alois Mundo lost his consciousness due to all the accumulated fatigue during the last few days. Hearing that someone wanted to buy his goods, his body finally couldn't hold on any longer and he collapsed from happiness.

"What should we do? Should we just leave him there?" one of the servants asked doubtfully.

"I think we should bring him back just in case. We can't let people think we killed a commoner just for a few sacks of seed! It would not look good for our master, and we might even get punished if some weird rumors start spreading!"

"Hmm, I agree, let's get a stretcher!"

The men quickly lifted the man on a makeshift stretcher and hurried back to the Auction House with the poor shopkeeper.

***

While the poor guy was recovering at the Auction house, Gerald already recovered and went out to play.

His plan was to hunt a few more beasts and absorb their Essence as much as possible.

His skill with the Essence Extraction increased significantly, allowing him to keep a greater part of the target's strength.

While he calmly hunted a few beasts in the high Iron Ranks, he noticed a big elk calmly munching on leaves and grass.

It attracted his attention for a few reasons: First, it was quite big, more than three meters in height while also having a powerful Mana signature. Its outward appearance was quite tame, even cute looking by some standards. It had nice short brown fur with a dark mane around its neck.

"Yum, that looks like it would be a good snack!"

Just then, he noticed a big brown bear, slowly walking towards the elk, almost as if it didn't see it. The elk stopped eating grass and lifted its head, calmly watching the bear approach it.

The tall grass moved out of the way as the bear advanced, until it was almost standing before the elk.

When the big fluffy guy suddenly noticed its presence, the bear jumped back, almost as if it was frightened. It then showed its sharp teeth and lifted its head to roar at the elk. It even stood up on its hind legs, showing off its muscly body.

However, the elk simply stood there, staring at him, almost as if it couldn't be bothered to care about the bear.

The bear contemplated his next move for a few seconds and then suddenly tried to bite the elk in the leg.

Wham! Boom!

The elk suddenly moved at almost the speed of sound and kicked the bear in the shoulder with its front hoof.

The impact created a small explosion, and the bear's shoulder was split open, revealing white bone underneath.

The bear whimpered loudly and immediately tried to run away with blood trailing behind, but before it even did a few steps, the elk jumped forward and appeared before the bear in the blink of an eye. It lifted its head high up and brought it down at such a speed that the antlers on its head appeared as if massive swords cutting through flesh.

The bear was instantly split in half, diagonally, from shoulder down, and it barely had a breath left to cry in pain before dying.

Thud!

A century-old tree suddenly collapsed beside the elk, as its strike also split the tree in half by mistake.

Gerald's eyes bulged out in shock as he was hiding on top of a similar-sized tree not far away. He felt the vibrations of the fallen tree, but he didn't feel anything when the tree was split in half.

It was almost as if the elk encountered no resistance from the wood whatsoever.

"What the fuck!" he whispered while squatting on the tree branch high up. The elk returned to its calm demeanor, looking completely harmless.

The only difference was that now instead of eating grass, it started to feast on the bear's flesh. It calmly chewed on the muscle, and its teeth cracked the bones, allowing it to eat the bone marrow. It chewed on the tough bones as if they were hard candy.

A bit of sweat formed on Gerald's forehead and he wiped it off while giving out a big sigh of relief. "What kind of monsters live in this world? I almost wanted to fight with that freakish elk…"

He was still quite new to this world and he didn't know every single animal there was. It was clear that even the innocent-looking herbivores could have immense power hidden inside them and wouldn't hesitate to strike with deadly force if provoked.

"I need to be more careful next time or I won't even know how I died!"

Contemplating his life's decisions, Gerald threw another Essence Core in his mouth. 'The author was right, these little things are not worth much…'

He could already consume three Essence Cores every day without any problems and he could feel his strength growing, albeit slowly.

"I wonder how strong have I become? Maybe I can even extract some Essence from the Queen's meat?"

He took a big chunk of meat out of his Space Pouch and placed it on the branch he was sitting on. Leaning against the tree trunk he activated the Essence Extraction skill and focused his mind.

The meat started to disintegrate as expected, and a few small, sand-sized silver particles were slowly revealed. They slowly gathered at one place and then condensed into a single silver sphere the size of a mustard seed.

Gerald licked his lips at the sight of a silver Essence Core, but just as he wanted to grab it, the Core started turning darker, until it became black and landed in his hand.

Making a deep frown, Gerald stared at the tiny speck in his hand. "Wha- But I sealed it! Why did the Essence suddenly dissipate?"

He held the sphere between his fingers and then placed it on his tongue. It barely contained any energy for him to absorb.

"I guess this means my Mana quality is too low, huh?" He sighed, "That's frustrating…"

He didn't know what the author meant when mentioning 'Mana quality' at first, but he now clearly understood something: He couldn't handle the Essence of stronger beasts.

He could eat them if he wanted, but he couldn't manually extract Essence from them. It was quite a shame.

"Whatever! Since I can't extract stronger Essence, I guess I'll have to substitute quality with quantity!"

He jumped off the tree and started flying above the forest, leaving the scary elk behind. He needed to find weaker targets he could devour without fear.