After resting for a bit, Clark stood up and headed to the edge of the lake where the serpent's corpse now laid. "Let's get this over with, shall we." He said as he single-handedly pulled the giant serpent fully out of the water. It was quite a sight to behold, but Clark was a knight, after all, having impressive strength was a given for him. "Come help me scale this thing. It'll take forever if I do it by myself." Clark called out to his teammates. Phillip and Blair immediately stood up and headed over to help Clark cut the scales off of the serpent. Matt, however, sat there for a bit, deep in thought. 'Do you think the entire creature would fit inside my spatial ring?' Matt asked, he didn't want to leave the serpent behind, he felt there was something its body could be used for. He had already been told that its meat is poisonous and could not be eaten, and even if the poison is neutralized with magic, the meat is bland, tough, and sinewy, making it very difficult to eat. Matt, however, was raised in a poor household where every part of the animals they killed was used, so leaving behind this giant creature didn't sit right with him. 'No, kid, the creature is far too large, you'd barely be able to fit half of it within the ring if you're lucky.' Emma replied after a while.
'Do you know if any of its parts can be used for anything then? I know we hunted the serpent just for its scales but I'd rather not waste anything that could be used."
"To my knowledge, the only thing that is valuable on it aside from the scales are its fangs, they are extremely sturdy, I recall they've been used to make weapons in the past, and even if they're not used that way anymore, they can be made into expensive Ivory necklaces." Emma responded, and Matt decided that was better than nothing, so he went and ripped the fangs off of the serpent's mouth before going to help the others tear the scales off of the serpent's body.
When they had finished tearing off the scales, there was a giant pile of deep blue scales on the ground. "How are we going to take all these back to town?" asked Blair, they had never hunted a creature this big and were confused as to how the giant pile of scales would be carried.
"Don't worry, I've got them." Said Matt as he put his hand on the giant pile of scales and sent them all into his spatial ring. The group stared at him in amazement, his ring could carry much more than they had expected.
"A spatial ring of that quality is very hard to come by, even I don't have one that can carry so much. How did come into possession of such an expensive magic tool?" Phillip asked, surprised that a simple farm boy would be able to get such an expensive magic tool, and one of such high quality as well.
"It's a family heirloom, been in the family for around 300 years now." Matt replied matter of factly, that was the story he had come up with when he had originally received the ring as a quest reward, he knew very well that people would question how he had gotten such an expensive magic item.
"Well it's a good thing you're here, I was going to suggest that Phillip and I put what scales we could into our own rings and carry what couldn't fit by hand, which probably would have still been about a quarter of the pile." Clark replied happily, he could very well have carried the scales without much of a hassle, but it would have caused them to take more breaks on the way back to town, and they probably would not have made it there before nightfall.
"Now that that's taken care of, let's head out. the faster we get going, the higher our chances of making it back before nightfall." Clark said before picking up his pack. The others followed suit and soon enough they were on their way back to town.
The road back was rather calm, since most of the terrain between the lake and the city was open plains, with a few small hills here and there, there was little worry of being attacked by wild beasts. In their 5 hour journey back to town, they encountered very few hostile creatures, all of which were dealt with swiftly. Just as Clark had said, they made it back to town just as the sun was starting to fall below the horizon. They headed to the tavern so they could get their reward for the quest they had completed. The tavern wouldn't close for a few more hours so there was no need to rush. They arrived in front of the guild representative's table and told him the quest was completed.
"That is wonderful, but where are the scales? the quest specifically said to bring back the beast's scales." The young man asked, looking around confused.
"I have them in my spatial ring, but there's quite a lot of them, you're going to need a lot of space for them." Matt answered while pointing at his ring.
"Alright, follow me then." he said as he walked off, leading them to a warehouse behind the tavern.
"We keep all of our quest items in this storage facility until they are picked up by the client, please place them down right here." The man said while pointing at one of the corners of the warehouse. Matt did as he was told, leaving the great pile of scales in the corner.
"Wonderful, here is your quest reward, 20 gold coins"
Clark took the money and split it equally amongst the four. "Great job today everyone, we'll meet back up in two day's time to discuss what our next quest will be, I'll see you all then." Clark said before walking off. With the quest completed and their rewards received, the others went their separate ways as well.
When Matt returned home he finally took the time to think about where to put the 2 stat points he got from killing the Hydroscale Serpent. After thinking about it for a bit, he decided to put both points into intelligence, bringing it up to a total of 15. He wanted to get his MP to 30 so that he would not run out as quickly, sure he could buy potions and store them in his ring, but that would prove to be expensive, so for now he needed to increase his MP. With this new addition, his stats now looked like this.
| Bio |
| Name: Matthew Arber |
| Race: Human |
| Age: 17 |
| Level: 9 (250/3645) |
| Class: Mage (Novice) |
| Path: None |
| Strength: 12 |
| Constitution: 12 |
| Intelligence: 15 |
| Wisdom: 11 |
| Dexterity: 11 |
| Charisma: 10 |
| Skills: Basic Air Control Lv. 4, Basic Lightning Control Lv. 3, Intermediate Earth Control Lv. 2, Intermediate Fire Control Lv. 2, Magic Absorption Lv. 5 |
| HP: 24/24 | | MP: 30/30 | | S: 24/24 |
Looking at his bio now, Matt realized how much he had improved. Just one month ago he was a simple farmer with dreams of grandeur, and now he was well on his way to becoming a force to be reckoned with, it would be a while before he would be considered a great mage, but for now, he was satisfied with his results. He also realized that he was pretty close to completing the last quest the system had given him, "train 5 different elements to level 5". He already had 2 elements at the intermediate level, and 2 more close behind. All he needed now was to find someone with water magic. He decided he would go to the docks tomorrow to try and find someone with water magic. He also hoped another storm would come soon so he could finally get his lightning magic to level 5. This was a weird thought for him, normally, he would hate storms because they would spook the animals and make his job harder, but now he was patiently awaiting one. It was astonishing how quickly his simple life had changed.