My Joker System: From Low Mana Trash to the Mightiest Wizard!-Chapter 84: Relentless Grind

Inside a luxurious office with a banner of the Arcanum Imperium hanging on the wall, an old man faced his subordinate, asking with hope, though evidently not much:

"Omar, any news about her?"

"I just contacted the observatory, and unfortunately, it seems she’s still inside the Ancient Great Forest of Eordyrr."

Korvus sighed with disappointment, regret, and a sense of loss.

Only two weeks after one of their five-star students, Liora Whitemane, left the academy did they find out that she had entered an extremely dangerous forest.

It has been a little over two months now since she entered, and she has still yet to return.

"I...see...keep on checking with them everyday..."

As much as Korvus wanted to personally look for the young woman, who was already on the empire’s list of possible Magna Prospects, he was bound by his duties as the academy’s Deputy Headmaster.

He was but one man, and no matter how powerful he was, it would be difficult to scour such a dangerous forest on his own.

It was also difficult to assign a team to look for her, as they might very well all end up dead.

While some areas were less dangerous than others, who knew where Liora had gone?

They could only wait for the day she returned on her own or accept that she had perished and the empire had lost a valuable talent.

"Damn it, and that young man just had to add to our problems!" the old man cursed inwardly, equally frustrated by Hal’s disappearance.

He had been missing for three months now.

Fortunately, Ennya was grounded by her master and forced into closed-door training.

She wouldn’t learn about the matter for at least two more months.

But what about after that?

She would, no doubt, go crazy with worry, and it would be hard to stop her from doing whatever she wanted.

"Aihh... my head hurts..."

***

Meanwhile, in the depths of a forest illuminated by blue runes, a tan-skinned, white-haired young woman turned into a blur of light, reappearing a few meters to the side after dodging a Red Goblin’s blade.

She then fired a ray of thin light that pierced through the forehead of the four-foot-tall, red-skinned monster, killing it instantly.

Liora huffed and puffed as she gazed down at the corpses of two monsters, a look of triumph on her face.

With Little Loki by her side, she now sometimes hunted independently.

The cub’s senses simply never missed.

She only ever encountered creatures she could take on, and whenever a monster was beyond her ability, Loki would immediately inform her by bumping his head against her calves, giving her ample time to hide or leave the area.

The pup, now as large as a fully grown mundane dog, was also unusually fast and smart for a mere Dharmwolf, leaving to hide promptly after informing Liora that she would be ambushed and from which direction.

Loki acted differently depending on whether the young woman could handle the attacker or not, making it easy for Liora to decide whether to stay or flee.

As a result, Liora had consumed a total of roughly 216 D-ranked cores, along with a few dozen C-ranked ones, greatly boosting her overall capabilities as a wizard.

There was no doubt that she was at least at the level of an Adept Wizard now.

’Phew... I need to rest for a while and recover my mana...’

And so, Liora returned to the Root Hollow Camp, with Little Loki leading the way a few meters behind her.

They had learned quite a bit about the runeforest by now, and as long as she returned to camp before nightfall, she could make it back without any problems.

She had been extremely careful not to make a mistake, as one slip could very well get her killed.

Then, if they still had the energy, the two would hunt together at night.

Upon arriving at the camp, Liora settled in, ate a nice meal with Loki, and then took an hour-and-a-half nap.

The white-haired maiden had always watched Hal and his strange habit of tiring his body out, sometimes even doing so half-naked.

She couldn’t help but swallow and quickly look away whenever she felt overwhelmed from staring at him.

Of course, this led to curiosity about what he was doing, which Hal happily explained.

It had been three weeks now since Liora began working out, and that was what she did for an hour after waking up, while waiting for Hal to return.

The maiden couldn’t explain it.

However, after she began exercising, she felt her movements had become lighter and her stamina had increased by quite a fair bit, allowing her to hunt more and perform better in battle.

She simply couldn’t stop once she started, now understanding why Hal did it five to six times a week.

Unbeknownst to Liora, her comrade was just a few hundred meters away from her, hiding in the high branches of an oak, tapping his heart away with a somewhat mad look on his face.

"Hahaha, yes! Give me more [Glacial Shard] cards, come on... Let me level this bad boy up to forty. Oh, another [Fireball]? Heh, why not? Maybe this one will be level thirty by the time I’m done, or even thirty-five..."

Hal, like Liora, had been grinding away over the past two months, gaining a total of 140 D-ranked cores and 19 C-ranked ones.

He needed his comrade to grow stronger as well, so he gave away a few of his D-ranked cores to her, which accounted for the lower number.

Hal kept the C-ranked ones for himself, though.

He only let Liora keep the ones they had hunted together.

He also ate a shitton of beast meat to enhance both his physique and mana pool, modest as the increase was.

As a result of the relentless grind, Hal obtained a total of 1,130 Chaos Points just from killing monsters, and another 5,320 points by exchanging all his D-ranked cores using the [Chaos Converter] function.

He would’ve had far more if the system upgrade hadn’t gotten in the way.

Apparently, he needed to upgrade the system first, and then the [Chaos Converter], for a total of 11,000 points before he could exchange C-ranked cores and above.

Hal could only delay the matter and settle for his current 6,450 Chaos Points.

And so, he continued tapping away, allotting 1,450 points to [Common Draws] to level up his permanent-durability spells and gain new ones, 2,000 points to [Uncommon Draws] to increase his overall firepower, and the remaining 3,000 to [Rare Draws] to give himself a fighting chance against stronger monsters and opponents.

This would be one long, mad, yet delightful night for Hal...

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