Chapter 104: 104. Personal Mission
After failing to find an answer from the discussion with Roubaul, Ben decides to go to the location that is marked on the map. He has a feeling that this will be very dangerous, so he needs to prepare himself.
Ben will go to the location next month because he wants to prepare many things. He starts to train intensely as a preparation for this personal mission. Not only that, but he also prepares some magic items that might be useful later.
For a month, Ben keeps training his magic and spells. He makes some improvements on his magic after reviewing all his battles so far. Of course, his intense training also raised his stats.
[Name: Ben Cooper
Epithet: Karna (The Sun's Child)
Real Age: 15
Body Age: 15 (halted)
Status: Alive
MP: 170,310/170,310
STR: 230 (halted)
AGI: 230 (halted)
STA: 230 (halted)
INT: 267]
His MP has increased a lot since he halted his physical powers' growth. It increased more than 15,000 points in these 3 months. That's because he is focused on his magic and leaves his physical powers training. He just trains his physique to keep it in shape.
"15,000 points. In the past, I could only get that number in half a year. But now I get it in 3 months, it's 2 times faster because I focused on my magic. That means I can get 2 times the result from now on. Then I can get 6 years of results in 3 years. That's dope," says Ben excitedly.
2 times seem small, but that's still faster than before. Besides, Ben's progress is very fast already, compared to other Mages. Now, he can get stronger even faster, even though it's only in Magical stats.
MP capacity doesn't always be the parameter of a Mage's power in the Magical aspect. Their mastery and usage of magic are important too. But having a higher MP capacity can help Mages to use stronger and bigger spells.
Now with his new MP capacity, Ben is more confident to do his mission. He prepares his luggage for this mission that might take a few days because he doesn't know what awaits him there.
Strangely, Ben only prepares his stuff and doesn't prepare Bella's stuff. He has decided to go alone on this mission because of the unknown danger level. Taking Bella with him is very dangerous with many unknown factors in this mission.
Bella was mad at first, but she finally accept it after some talks. Wendy & Carla also talk to her, so it became easier to persuade her. Ben has promised to take her & the girls for a vacation after he returns.
"Then, I will go now. Take care of yourself," says Ben to everyone at the village entrance.
"Take care of yourself too," says Roubaul.
The girls hug him and he hugs them back while rubbing their hair. Ben then enters his car and waves at everyone before leaving. He has a feeling that this will be a journey that is very different from the previous ones.
Ben takes out the map and looks at the location. It is on the Southwest mountain area of Fiore Kingdom. That is very far from his village that located in the Northeast forest area. It's like going from both ends which are very far.
Without his new model car, Ben's travel is very slow. He only covers half of the distance after driving for a day. The problem isn't just speed, but also MP usage. This car uses his MP as fuel, so he can't keep using it or his MP will get drained.
Ben make a camp in a forest near the Mountain range where he found Smog's soul. It is near Capital Crocus, but he doesn't go there and choose to make a camp. It's been a long time since he camps like this, so he wants to do it again now.
The next day, he resume his journey after having breakfast. Ben goes to the Capital first to buy a map of the Southwest Mountains area. The map that he has isn't complete and the range is small. It will be difficult to find the location without a complete map.
After buying the map, Ben resumes his journey again. It takes him 8 hours just to reach the Mountains area. He decides to camp again before trying to find the location tomorrow.
The Mountains are full of danger, so he needs to be in his best condition. His MP has been drained a lot after driving the car for 8 hours, after all.
While camping, Ben tries to find his target location using the complete map. He finds it easily with AI Chip's help and then he makes the best route to go there.
"Hmm, so it's in a valley between Mt. Aires & Mt. Marnia. It's located almost in the middle of this Mountain area. That means the magical creatures there are very wild and strong," says Ben while looking at the maps.
The deeper locations always have stronger creatures and the weaker ones live in the outer areas. Ben needs to be careful while exploring the inner areas. He doesn't know the number & strength of the creatures there.
The next morning, Ben prepare himself and eat before leaving his camp. He follows the route that he has made last night. He drives through the forest with a difficult track that might break his car's suspension.
While driving, Ben keeps using his magic sense to avoid any contact with strong magical creatures. He doesn't want to waste his energy to fight useless battles with those creatures.
Unluckily, Ben gets attacked by a horde of green baboon-like magical creatures called Gobes. They're not strong individually, so Ben ignored them before. He passed their territory and it angered them, so they attack his car together by throwing stones & wood branches.
"Bastards, this is still my car even though I don't really like it. How dare you throw stones at it and make dents on it," says Ben angrily.
Ben comes out of his car and takes out his twin revolvers with Requip. Then he starts to shoot his revolvers at the Gobes.
*BANG BANG BANG*
"DIE, YOU BASTARDS!" shouts Ben with an angry tone.
Many Gobes get shot and die on the spot. It alerts the other Gobes, so they start to get panic and run everywhere. But Ben doesn't stop and still fires his revolvers at them rapidly. He stops after there's no living Gobe in the vicinity.
"Hmph, now you know who you're messing with. Tch, what a waste of ammunition," says Ben while storing his revolvers again.
Ben resumes his journey and meets with other troubles. He gets attacked time after time by groups of weak magical creatures. These creatures are weak, but they're fearless because they live in groups and they are still very wild.
Luckily, Ben has his magic revolvers and he keeps using them to attack these magical creatures. He also has a lot of ammunition, so he can save his MP for bigger situations. These weak creatures aren't worth him spending his MP.
Some creatures try to attack him again, so he just shoots at them from his car while keeps driving. The creatures will always get scared & run after he shot & killed some of them. So he just needs to shoot a few times and they'll get scared.
"Sigh, they're weak, but their number is high and they're very aggressive. I hope the creatures in the deeper area aren't as aggressive as these guys. But that seems to be impossible because stronger creatures are more aggressive," says Ben with a tired expression.
Too bad that Ben's hope isn't granted while his bad hunch is right. He gets attacked again when he just entered the inner area. The attackers are a pack of 18 Shadow Wolves. They're high B-Rank creatures individually and high A-Rank in a group.
"Sigh, they'll make me crazy," says Ben tiredly.
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