The Master of Cards Chapter 48: Hunting missions

Alex now turned his eyes to the pit that the Golem had left behind with its destruction. Alex had been a bit dumbfounded by the Golem's behavior earlier.

Alex could understand rage for killing its family members, but the Golem seemed to be recklessly attacking him at the cost of its own body and strength. Alex carefully traded through the rubble and shattered boulders and earth to enter the pit formed by the disappearance of the hill.

Alex walked down into the crater and at the center, he found something odd. A small rod made of stone was rising out of the soil like a stem. Alex could not sense a shred of energy within the stick.

Without thinking much, Alex pulled the stick, which was stuck upright into the ground, out. The stone stick wasn't too long, about half the size of the his own black metal stick that Old Ren had given him.

"The Golem was trying to hide this thing? What exactly is it? There is no sign of energy within it." Alex murmured.

Although it was made of stone, the stick felt very fragile. "I can only try and investigate it later at the Adventure House or Knowledge Tower."

He put it inside his bag and searched around the crater to see if anything was hidden and din't find anything else. "That stick is really what the Golem was trying hide..." Alex shook his head and moved out. He updated his own map with details about this area and then returned to original area where he initially encountered those small golems.

He followed the path to the next area which was related to one of the hunting missions he had accepted. The mission was to kill a rat like creature which had a poisonous bite and collect its venom sack.

Alex had taken this mission because he thought he could use these rats to see the effectiveness of his Light Aura as a defensive card.

As he walked to the site where he could encounter these rats, he actually found a group of people already hunting the rats. Among the group, he found two individuals he had come across before.

These two were none other than the burly man and the blonde young person who had tried to mock Alex during his registration at the Adventure House.

Alex walked up to the group and calmly asked. "Are you from the Adventure House? Doing the hunting mission?"

One of the people in the group was an old skinny man with wrinkles all over his face. He seemed to be the leader of the group. "Yes, we are the Frigate Guild. My name is Bull, I am guiding some new members with Adventure House hunting missions."

"Alex, solo adventurer. I too came to hunt some of these rats. I will not interrupt your group then." Alex spoke and began to go a little deeper than the group.

At that time, the blonde man whispered to the group. "I and burly know this guy. He was registering behind us. After registering he sold some rare treasure for twenty thousand points!"

Bull's eyes bulged. "New adventurer sold a rare special item? I heard of him, so its this young man?"

Burly spoke with some hatred. "Why don't we quietly follow him? May be we can find some treasure!"

Bull had a glint in his eye. "He travels alone and was able to take out an item worth thousands of points. He is not ordinary!"

Blondy shook his head. "He was just behind us. He is just a Card Initiate with abnormal physical strength. I suspect he has some sensory card, which is how he found the treasure. We can quietly follow him and steal if he finds something."

Bull's face gradually had a smile. He took out a single use card from his pocket. It was a Rank 2 Life attribute Tracking card. "Let us quietly hunt these rats, later we can can track him down using this card."

Alex, meanwhile, had already paced away from the group. Although he didn't hear the machinations of the group, he had noticed the greed in their eyes from a distance. He ignored the group and turned his attention on the rats.

The rats were actually quite simple animals to kill. Their main threat was their venomous nature, thus Alex was able to easily slaughter them just using basic stick technique without much trouble. He was disappointed, because he wanted to train his Light Aura, but he had noticed the prying eyes of the Frigate Guild as well and the rats were actually not as challenging as he thought. He just collected the venom sacs and packed them carefully before putting them within his bag.

He was disappointed in the rats and just hunted the minimum required to satisfy the mission. He decided to explore this site a little. He could expand his map data as well as look for any items in the area.

The site where the rats crowded was actually not far from a shrubby area. The shrubs were thick and filled with vivid colors from green to orange to purple. Alex zig zagged through the shrubbery trying to look for signs of any abnormal energy.

Meanwhile, the group from the Frigate guild were whispering to each other. "That boy seems to have entered those shrubs. There are many poisonous beasts hidden there. Let us follow him, but we must be careful.." Bull said

Meanwhile, Alex did encounter many poisonous beasts. There were small snakes and bats that would attempt sneaky attacks on him. Alex found this to be a great place to practice his Life Aura.

Whenever he saw an animal sneak attack him, he would manipulate his aura to concentrate at the point of attack and the bites would fail to reach his skin. Alex also noticed that the poison in the fangs would be slightly nullified by the aura.

"Indeed, one of the specialization paths of the Light attribute is healing. My Light aura is actually showing very slight detoxification properties! I need to improve the grade of my Light Aura card." Alex was even more determined now.

Chapter end