The academy had coin like tokens where missions could be imprinted on and delivered to students willing to undertake it. It might seem a little too much, but Alex had five such tokens on his table and as he made his way outside the tower and towards the transport area, he began to go over the missions that have been given to him. Of the five mission, two of them required him to hunt down a particular kind of demonic beast and retrieve it"s core, the third actually wanted him to wipe out a nest of demonic arachnids, ma.s.sive spiders with a rather for human flesh. Then the final two were actually collection missions, where he had to find a particular kind of plant and a moss. Of all the missions, the lowest paying one was the Moss collection mission, and that alone was worth 10 thousand good, which was a lot of money.
All of these missions were based in the Orcon forest, no to mention the danger the creatures he might face would pose, the environment itself would be out to kill him, so the reward amount could not be little, especially since the Academy would be taking a five percent commission from it on the completion of the mission. Either way it was just Alex going into the forest this time, for one he"s had a lot of people around for quite a while it was becoming hard to know just how capable he was on his own, so he just had to do this. Two the poison from Orcon forest might actually be able to affect him, but it could also be quickly neutralized. One of the capabilities of black Ash was it"s ability to eat(for lack of a better word) other poisons. Alex was safe from the poison of the forest and his friends would be more in danger if he dragged them along, plus this was also a chance to train a bit and increase his cultivation.
Alex lacked a personal transport of any kind as opposed to the numerous other towers and individuals who had personal care or even airships of their own. Alex on the other hand had to use a public system that was heading for the Academy"s camp outside Orcon forest, when he gets there he would probably have to look for something smaller to ride, probably one of those tamed beast native to the forest, sure he could be faster, but utilizing his movement technique burnt through his Qi reserves, so it would be better to use a mount.
Alex successfully bought his ticket and took a window seat in the bus heading to the camp, he was wearing some dark clothes, along with a face mask and a hood that covered his head and his eyes. He drew a lot of attention with his weird dressing, especially with how Hot Australia was at the moment, but he didn"t care too much about that as he closed his eyes and quietly listened to the hum of the bus as it moved forwards. The only companion he had with him was Khan, and he couldn"t let the guy out until they got to the forest, away from prying eyes, so for the next hour or so, Alex decided to take a short nap.
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"The Orcon Grey Deer can be rented out for nothing less than a thousand good! Normal rent fee would be a 100, but with no guarantee that you can come back with it alive or unharmed, a down payment for such costs would taken, which is why it"s a thousand good!" this guy was cheating him, based on how the onlookers were silently snickering to themselves Alex knew it was true.
The only way he could cowl this guy into submission and stop such blatant rip off was to expose who he was, his reputation would probably force him to rent at the proper price. But that would just defeat the point, Alex wasn"t hiding from people, he was hiding from Anya and his sister. Those two overprotective women would never have allowed him to go into the forest alone, which was why had to sneak around in a disguise.
Alex looked at the seller and let out a small grunt of annoyance, he only had 900 gold with him, and had intended to use 500 (as he was previously told) to rent a demonic beast mount, and the rest to buy some extra supplies for the forest, cause he honestly had no idea when he would be back.
Alex just turned around and began to walk away, this was the only guy renting out demonic beast mounts in the Academy"s camp. Beast mounts were an old and redundant form of cultivation, so it was only in places like this that their value an be shown, or in Dimensions where the use of Qi or Mana tech wasn"t allowed. As he was about to move on, resigned to use his legs to travel, the seller called him back.
"Errrm! *Cough* esteemed buyer, I can give you a one time discount and rent to you for 700 gold, when you return successfully without any sort of scratch on the beast, I will return your 600 good deposit. But as this is a business and it was really hard to capture and train these beasts mount, I can"t go any lower." The seller lamented with tears in his eyes, Alex knew that it was all just bulls.h.i.t, but he didn"t have too much of a choice, he wanted to be on his way. If he"s lucky and the beast doesn"t die or get injured, he"ll get his money back, if not, then that"s all she wrote.
Alex laid the guy and was handed the reins of an Orcon Grey Deer. The Demon beast had a blackish grey coat, pitch black hooves, antlers a whole two meters wide stretching from over to right and half a meter tall. There was an extra horn in the middle of it"s forehead and for height alone, this beast was a good two and the half meters tall, and that"s not counting it"s outstretched antlers. The demonic beast had powerful muscles and a bulk that let Alex know that it was too simple, a cheat the seller might be, but he delivered Quality, and that was good. There was a saddle on the back of the demonic beast, and storage pouch on both sides to store things that a storage ring can"t otherwise carry, in case it was full.
Alex led the mount around the camp as he purchased whatever extra resource he might need to survive an extended stay in Orcon forest. That didn"t take too long, and he was able to avoid getting cheated (hopefully) before he finally mounted the demonic deer and made his way into the forest, a map in his hand as the deer walked at a leisurely pace. Based on the map the closest target out of all his missions was the (Yutiok Moss), it was a natural coagulant when you if ores the fact that it was total poison. With a little bit of processing and purification, it becomes possible to use it as an ingredient in healing medications. With his aim determined, Alex rolled up the map and sent it back into his storage ring before grabbing onto the reins.
"Go!"
The deer was well trained, the moment Alex had given it a command, it had shot forwards through the forest like a bullet. Contrary to his believe, this deer was fast, in fact it was almost as fast as he was, but that"s in a forest. In an open field, the deer wouldn"t even be able to catch Alex"s dust, but none the less the east was good specimen as it bounced through the forest, going above and around natural obstacles. Alex noticed that the beast was traveling in a way that made it avoid coming in contact with anything that could be a catalyst for the Orcon forest poison, which means it was not just a well trained, it was well trained and smart.
The (Yutiok Moss) grew in rapid batches near a small Brook 3 or four kilometers away from the camp. It was close enough to the camp that any dangerous beasts would have already been taken care of, so the most rushed had to come from the poison itself.
There wasn"t a river or a proper stream in the Orcon forest, there was just a ma.s.sive lake towards it"s central part that delivered water to the shop forest. Either way, a bunch of peculiar plants that need water to survive always grew in batches around the tiny bodies of water spread throughout the forest.
However there wasn"t an abundant of water so the plants act like weeds to each other, the stronger or the plant that can grow the fastest, becomes the one in charge of said body of water.
Which explained why some of the plants grew in ma.s.sive batches around bodies of water. Either way his mission had said he only needed to bring back three batches, and since a single batch was 10 un-damaged single stalks of the (Yutiok Moss). Alex was lucky enough that when he got to the location there was no one else around. Alex immediately got to work uprooting the Moss, he had on a pair of black leather gloves to serves as protection from the poison. Just because he was somewhat immune to the poison, it didn"t mean he would recklessly endanger himself by being careless. Alex didn"t have to spend more than fifteen minutes gathering the Moss, before he was done and had to move on to the next target.
His next target turned out to be one of his hunting targets; (The Red Orcon Herd Boar), and this could prove to be a little bit harder than he thought. After all even though the here boar was just a 2nd circle magical beast, the secret of the danger it posed was in it"s name, it ran with herds of at least five to at most fifty, so Alex knew he was in for quite a ride. Guess it was time Khan came out to play.