Nawa did a quick calculation. If he had to use a bow and arrows to hunt these rabbits, it would cost him at least 2 silver coins—roughly 20,000 baht. Meanwhile, the reward for this quest was a mere 50 copper coins.
"Heh… Ploy was right. E-rank quests really aren't worth the trouble," he muttered.
Of course, any ordinary player would never choose a quest that resulted in such a loss. But Nawa was different; he possessed a long-range attack that didn't rely on any weapons. He approached a Horned Rabbit, stopping once he was within a 50-foot range.
From his previous attempts at chasing them, Nawa had learned their detection range. The rabbit continued to nibble on the grass, completely oblivious to his presence.
Nawa turned his palm upward. Suddenly, the air above it surged with intense heat until it ignited into flames. Instead of spreading, the fire was compressed and condensed into a fireball about the size of a ping-pong ball.
"Voom... voom... voom..."
With a flick of his wrist, the fireball exploded from his hand and streaked toward the Horned Rabbit like an arrow loosed from a bow.
"Foom!" A pillar of fire several feet high erupted exactly where the Horned Rabbit had been standing.
Before long, the flames died down, revealing the charred remains of the rabbit. Beside the carcass, two copper crystals had appeared.
Almost every creature in "The Oneness" drops energy crystals upon death. The stronger the creature, the higher the quantity and quality of the crystals dropped.
"Guess I was overthinking it," Nawa mumbled to himself, his face clearly showing delight.
He had originally thought such a small fireball would only heavily injure the rabbit, so he hadn't expected to finish it off with a single attack.
Even though it was a common-grade monster, the Horned Rabbit was still a monster, meaning its defense and strength were several times greater than those of animals on Earth.
I only used less than a fifth of my energy on that fireball. Maybe I could even take down a Profess-grade monster, Nawa thought inwardly.
Despite this realization, Nawa had no intention of hunting Profess-grade monsters just yet. Most monsters rarely traveled alone, and Profess-grade monsters were quite ferocious; they might swarm and attack him before he even had a chance to retaliate.
"I need to become much stronger," Nawa warned himself, refusing to get complacent with such a minor success.
He knew all too well that if The Oneness was indeed the same realm as the Himmapan Forest he once wandered into, his current strength was no more than that of an insect in a den of dinosaurs.
After testing his skill's destructive power, the next thing Nawa wanted to verify was his mana regeneration rate.
For most players, mana regeneration is incredibly slow. Even those in Mage classes, renowned for their high regeneration rates, still require several hours to fully recover their mana.
Furthermore, this process typically demands energy crystals to serve as a power source.
Without these crystals, a player might spend a week or even half a month recovering spent mana. For this reason, players must meticulously plan their skill usage and hunting strategies for every outing.
After all, if the resources consumed during the hunt outweigh the spoils from the monsters, the entire effort becomes pointless.
But for Nawa, this was not an issue. Five years ago, when he was lost in the Himmapan Forest, he had learned the art of Meditation (or Entering Jhana) from the sorcerer Alfor. It wasn't a direct combat technique, but rather a support-type discipline.
During his months in the Himmapan Forest, Nawa had mastered Meditation up to the 3rd stage out of 8. The result of this skill allowed him to absorb natural energy from his surroundings to replenish his mana. Furthermore, this entire process required no energy crystals at all.
However, the reason Nawa wanted to test it now was because his energy had been dissipated when he passed through the portal from the Himmapan Forest back to Earth. This caused his once-vast powers to diminish significantly.
Nawa needed to find out just how much his Meditation skill had weakened.
Nawa opened his status window to check his remaining mana. But as soon as he saw the numbers, his eyes widened in shock, and he couldn't help but blur out in disbelief.
"What on earth is this?"
The system window showed that his mana was at a full 100%.
He had just used his power in the fight against Somchai, and only moments ago, he had launched a fireball. It was impossible for his mana to still be completely full.
"Is my player device malfunctioning?"
Nawa muttered under his breath. Recalling the abnormally high fee for his title display earlier, his concern grew even more plausible.
His face turned slightly pale; repairing a player device was incredibly expensive, and more importantly, he wouldn't be able to enter The Oneness while it was being fixed.
Nawa cast aside his distracting thoughts and decided to test his power once more to see if his player device was still functioning properly.
With the status window open, Nawa unleashed another fireball, this time doubling the intensity. As he channeled his power, his eyes remained fixed on the status window, watching closely for any changes.
"What is this...?" Nawa gasped, his eyebrows arching in surprise.
The mana bar displayed by the system instantly plummeted by more than half the moment he activated the skill. However, in the blink of an eye, his mana surged back to 100%.
Back in the Himmapan Forest, Nawa would have needed hours for his mana to recover naturally. Even with the use of meditation to reach a state of Jhana to boost his regeneration rate, it would still take nearly ten minutes to fully replenish.
Yet here, without him doing anything at all, his mana had returned to full in a mere split second.
"Or perhaps it's because my current maximum mana capacity is much lower than before, while my Jhana regeneration power hasn't diminished."
Nawa spoke to himself, feeling he had finally found the answer. It was like Nawa used to be a large dam that required a significant amount of time for a river to fill completely; but now, his body was merely a small pond that filled up instantly when receiving water from the same river.
"I was right to learn the art of Meditation from Grandpa Alfor," Nawa told himself, his expression beaming with delight.
Now, not only did he avoid the expense of using energy crystals for mana recovery, but it was also as if he had unlimited mana at his disposal, without wasting long periods on regeneration like other players.
If this is the case, it won't be long before I can earn enough money to clear my debts easily, Nawa thought to himself.
Nawa resumed his hunt for the Horned Rabbits. This time, he dialed back the intensity of his flames to ensure the carcasses wouldn't be too damaged.
Within less than an hour, Nawa had successfully hunted over thirty rabbits. In addition to the carcasses, he had also collected energy crystals worth 70 copper coins.
While Nawa gazed at his spoils with joy, the onlookers who witnessed the scene watched him with a mixture of bewilderment and contempt.
"That guy looks like a high-rank mage, yet here he is hunting common-grade Horned Rabbits? What is he thinking? Why doesn't he join a team to hunt higher-level monsters?"
"Exactly. He could be making hundreds of times more money than what these rabbits are worth."
"I bet the guy's just a coward, sticking to Horned Rabbits like this. What a waste of talent."
As usual, Nawa didn't pay the slightest bit of attention to the gossip. He picked one of the rabbits to cook for a lunch celebrating his success. He tore off a charred leg, revealing succulent white meat with a faint wisp of steam rising from it—it looked incredibly appetizing.
"It should be well-done by now," Nawa muttered to himself before taking a large bite.
"Whoa, this is better than I expected! The meat is as tender as grilled fish."
Nawa ate with great relish. Before long, the entire rabbit carcass was reduced to nothing but bones. Shortly after, a sound echoed in his head.
"Ding!"
A status window popped up almost instantly.
[You have consumed 1 Horned Rabbit. Agility (SPD) increased by 3.]
Nawa stared at the system window, marvelling at the efficiency of the player device. In such a short time, it could monitor physical changes and quantify them into numerical data. For a brief moment, he felt as if he were inside a VR game.
Once he was full, Nawa gazed at the large pile of rabbit carcasses, lost in thought. If eating just one rabbit increases my Speed by 3, then eating this entire pile should double my stats, right?
His face lit up with joy at the thought, but it quickly soured into a frown. He realized there was no way he could finish all this meat in a short amount of time.
Although monster meat in The Oneness is much easier to digest than ordinary meat on Earth—allowing one to consume several times more than usual—finishing this entire pile would still take Nawa at least a week.
This was exactly why players preferred high-level monster meat; since the amount of meat one can consume daily is limited, eating dozens of low-level monsters simply couldn't compare to the benefits of eating a single high-level one.
"Sigh..." Nawa let out a long breath of regret.
However, thinking about the amount of money he would earn from selling these carcasses made him feel a little better.
After setting aside the 10 rabbit carcasses for the guards, he still had over 20 left. By a rough estimate, Nawa could earn at least 1 silver coin—over 10,000 baht. This was more than ten times his usual daily wage.
Nawa summoned White Snake.
By now, it had grown to the size of a large hatchling. Usually, he only fed it scraps from the trash, so he wanted to give it a proper meal for once.
With just a flicker of Nawa's thought, White Snake lunged forward and began devouring a Horned Rabbit carcass immediately.
Even though Nawa knew White Snake was a fast eater, he never imagined it would be this fast. The carcass, which was larger than a big dog, was swallowed whole in less than a minute—not even a bone remained.
At that exact second, the system's voice echoed in Nawa's head once again.
"Ding!"
[You have consumed 1 Horned Rabbit. Agility (SPD) increased by 2, Maximum Mana (MPmax) increased by 1.]
Nawa stared at the system window with sheer delight.
Although he had long known that White Snake consuming monster meat would make him stronger, he never expected the stat gain ratio to be this high. It was almost no different from when he ate the meat himself—as if he and White Snake shared the same life force.
Suddenly, a realization struck him. A pile of rabbits like this would take an ordinary player weeks to consume, but White Snake could finish the whole lot in just 10 minutes.
This meant Nawa didn't have the dietary restrictions that hindered other players.
As long as he could hunt, he could consume. His growth rate would be incomparably faster than any other player. Combined with a mana regeneration rate that required almost no downtime, these two factors guaranteed that Nawa would soon reclaim his former strength. No—it would make him even stronger than he had ever been.
At this thought, Nawa jumped into the air with pure joy.