Luck looked at the village with a complicated expression.
Every rational bone in his body was telling him to stay clear away from that village, but the rewards being offered were just too tempting to cast aside.
He knew what awaited them at Lysarrieth, after all.
Luck glanced at his team. He had convinced himself that attacking the village was in their best interest, quite easily at that.
He didn't believe the rest of his team would be that simple as well.
...
"Are you nuts?!"
Luck smiled wryly, (Sometimes, I hate being right.)
"Not only are you asking us to try to bring down a settlement probably filled with scores of goblins, but you're confident we can win?" Terra stared at him, her expression incredulous. "And I thought you couldn't get any more psychotic."
"Well, our assumptions have clearly been proven wrong," Harry added snarkily.
Luck's mouth twitched, but he didn't say a word. He knew his current goal was crazy.
Luckily, though, he had a plan. Unfortunately for them, that plan was even crazier.
They listened to his scheme with blank expressions. At this point, nothing could surprise them anymore; it was better for them to go with the flow.
"First things first, we're going to need to get stronger than we already are."
Harry cocked a brow, "How strong are we talking 'bout?"
Luck smiled thinly, "A lot. I can feel an aura. It's pressuring me all the way out here, even when the owner does not know of our existence yet."
"Congrats," Tara remarked dryly, "You must have met the village chief."
Luck sighed in frustration as he walked away from the group to the foot of a reasonably large tree nearby.
He scaled the tree in seconds, balancing on one of its many branches in a meditative position. "Well, I guess it would be better to worry about the chief after I see where the cores of his hunting squad can take me, don't you agree?"
Luck had already immersed himself before they could reply, and with a sigh of defeat, they joined him up as well.
"Sometimes, you're a pain in the ass, you know, brother?" Luke said as he scaled past his brother.
He didn't respond.
Luke sighed in exasperation, continuing his climb upwards with the rest.
Luck's shadow suddenly shook as numerous cores rose out of it. They were what he had gained throughout the goblin hunts.
(If the rank of that thing is what I think it is, then all of us need to get as strong as we can get.
Seeing the number of cores around him almost made it look possible. He had picked off two of the hobgoblin leaders from each hunting group they had hunted with their method. Adding the previous three he and his undead had killed, he had a total of fifteen C-rank cores.
Not to mention the almost the numerous D-ranks he had looted.
It was safe to say that Luck would have plenty of cores to spare for his summons after he had done this.
(That leaves the main issue.) Luck thought as he began to absorb the energy from the cores, causing his eyes to roll back into his head.
The problem with this plan was the process itself.
Luck's body was still too weak to contain that amount of energy all at once. It had gone through several enhancements, sure, but ultimately, he was still just a mortal at the beginning of his path.
His talent and rigorous pre-awakening training allowed him to rise through the previous ranks in such a manner, but talent and training could only take you so far, especially when he was trying to speed run through the lower ranks.
If he did what he did again, there was a high chance of not only his foundation being damaged, but he could end up dead as well.
In other words, he could likely implode from containing so much energy in his body.
"Aaaahhhh," Luck let out a low shout as the energy he had absorbed began to wildly thrash inside his system.
Fortunately or unfortunately, Luck already knew the dangers of doing what he was doing, which meant he had already devised a plan to take care of it.
Luck began to circulate his mana wildly, allowing the violent energy to be pulled into its motion.
Then, using Mana Manipulation, he slowly began to incorporate the wild energy into his body, claiming it as his own bit by bit.
The process wasn't easy, though. Coupled with his low level of manipulation, the untamed energy made sure it didn't go down easily. In fact, it fought back all the way, causing Luck to occasionally cough up blood due to the backlashes he was frequently facing.
He was lucky he had managed to summon his undead in between the torture, unless he would've he had been defenseless, as his teammates were also busy.
But still, the energy became his own until;
*Ding*