Aetherios System [Slow Build OP MC, Isekai LitRPG/Cultivation] Chapter 45: Chapter 41: Arcane Beasts

Read chapter 45 of Aetherios System [Slow Build OP MC, Isekai LitRPG/Cultivation] by TTReynolds on NovelPedia.

Chapter 41: Arcane Beasts Chapter 41: Arcane Beasts “That’s new.” Alex muttered. “ Oh, that really is interesting. You should go carve into that thing and see what you find.” “Look, Pebble-” “ That’s not my name, I’m Obsidian, remember.” “Not gonna happen. I’ll call you… Obby. Best I can do.” Alex crossed his arms and smirked. “ You are truly evil. You know that?” “What can I say?” Alex leaned against a tree, still happy to take a minute to torture the sentient rock a bit. “I’m as stubborn as a… rock.” “ Alright, you can call me Obby. That will be our little nickname between each other. Everyone else has to use my real name though. Deal?” “ We’ll see.” Alex tucked ‘Obby’ away and approached the den mother corpse. As he got closer, he could see that the faint azure glow was indeed focused at the center of its body. Something, apparently, was inside the den mother. Alex was interested in what it could be, but he was more interested in how he was seeing this azure glow. “ Probably that [Aether Sight] ability you got from shattering your core? This isn’t my doing, that’s for sure.” “Oh yeah.” Alex nodded. He did remember that ability. It was also what had let him see the aura around Obby back in the cavern as well. It looked as if the ability had a bit of a mind of its own. Showing him the rock and whatever was in this corpse. But Alex was sure there was ambient aether energy all around him inside this forest, and it wasn’t showing him that. “Concentrated aether only then maybe?” He guessed. “ Certainly possible. Something you will have to practice and experiment with later. For now, please pry open the decaying carcass of your previously fallen foe and extract from it our unknown treasures.” “… You have issues.” “ Oh, so many issues. Yes.” Getting to the source of the aether was more gruesome than Alex would like to admit. He didn’t have a weapon on hand, so he had to actually use his literal hands to dig into the corpse. Lots of cursing, blood splatter, and a vomit break later, Alex found it. “What the hell?” Alex held a small marble-sized orb between his blood slicked fingers. It almost looked to be a crystalline structure with a faint opalescent glow at the center. Streaks of brown and white light nearly imperceptibly flashed within. All surrounded by a faint fuzzy blue halo in Alex’s vision. A mage core? Inside a beast? Alex thought it looked like what he would imagine a mage core inside a person’s soulspace would look like. But he couldn’t be sure. Is this what Sylvaris pulled out of that panther beast when he killed it? Alex distinctly remembered the first time he had seen magic being used. The acidic drip of the beast’s fangs as it stared him down, the flash of light and thunderous explosion of noise from the elf’s spell. The elf had pulled something from the beast’s body afterward, something small. It certainly could have been an object like this. It was a thought that brought a sense of hope to Alex. If this thing was a beast’s core, then it could hold aether. Which meant if he could implant it in his soulspace, he could have a new mage core. “Could I implant this as my new mage core then?” He wondered out loud. “ Definitely not. You couldn’t cultivate with that, its stuck at its current power. Not to mention, trying to put something into your soulspace is just begging to cause problems.” “ Wait, do you know what this is?” Alex felt a bit dumb not asking the rock, ‘Obby’, about it already. If the thing knew about glyphcrafting, it probably knew more about other magical system shenanigans. “ Yes, of course I know what it is.” Obby was silent for a few seconds. Alex fished him from his pocket, staring at the rock pointedly for a while. Once it didn’t seem to want to continue, he shook the thing in his hand. “Hello. You going to tell me what this thing is?” Alex was practically yelling at the stone now. “ Careful there. You didn’t ask what it was, you simply asked if I knew what it was. Not my fault you don’t know how to as