However, the two were not planning on explaining to them so they could only simmer in their own curiosity.

As if to vent, they beat down monsters as they came. Like before, while there were only sparse toughened monsters, he'd try to take them on by himself.

Finn was studying more in cases where he was exposed and if he was alone. Durgan was just there to block the other enemies for him.

He didn't want to be too dependent on the barrier, especially since from this point forward, the 'useful' enemies would only be toughened monsters and upwards. Sure, there were more toughened monsters arriving in his inn, but to get enough cores to upgrade, then those wouldn't be enough.

One year. He needed to upgrade his entire rank in one year.

Most people needed more than a decade to move from stage 1 of the toughened level to the peak. Then there were years apart from upgrading from peak to fortified, if ever at all. Plenty of people get stuck in fortified level for decades more if not a lifetime.

Now the damned system was asking him to complete all of that within a year…or he would die.

To be honest, it felt like too much of a tall task and he was unconsciously compartmentalizing in order to keep his cool.

Anyway, for the next year, he obviously had no choice but to gather as many cores as he could, and perhaps a lot of the exchanges would be through them as well. Anyway, cores were valued less here than gold, so he could actually get more cores for what they're worth.

While he had an option to just absorb hundreds times more awakened cores, the correlation of essence between wasn't actually so straightforward. The essence of a toughened individual, or monster, was different from awakened.

Although awakened could help increase a toughened stage person, it would never be able to help actually upgrade. It was the quality of a toughened essence core that one needed to upgrade.

If one were to make a metaphor, the needed energy for an awakened to rank up would be, say, a gallon of distilled water. However, what a toughened would need is probably a pool made of something similar but not entirely the same, like say, mineral water. To upgrade, one needed to condense mineral water.

Filling up a pool supposed to be for another would increase the mass, but ultimately a certain amount of toughened-level energy was still needed for a body to cross over to the next stage.

Hence, while absorbing awakened cores was not entirely useless for every day fighting, he needed to get used to the next level of monsters as soon as possible.

Finn looked at his enemy, now a bit bloody but a hundred percent more livid. He had faced the same monster before but this one was more troublesome. It was because it had a core, and this was the level equivalent of a toughened tier 3 beast, much stronger than the other monsters of the same species.

CAWWWW!!

He had no choice but to use [Feather Step] this time because otherwise there was no way he'd be able to catch up with its movements. They were also in a rocky terrain, so his [Sticky Soil] wouldn't work, sadly.

CAWWWW!!

For a few moments, he was just on defense and running away.

"I don't need help yet," he yelled when he saw Leiah pointing arrows in their direction. He really wanted to try this one on his own. Another, he was worried that their erratic movement might end up making Leiah miss her target.

He did not want to feel her arrows at all.

CAWWW!

The cradlebeak moved straight, left, or right, but it was seriously quick and could go back to and fro as needed so most people don't even notice this strict criss-cross movement.

It was awkward at first, but he soon figured out what to do. Finn just had to place himself in the awkward angles and distance himself quickly enough to avoid getting a hole pecked on his body. He used the halberd's shaft to block a lot of attacks.

At the back of his mind, he was impressed with its durability. If he was still using his old halberd, he wondered if it'd have cracked by now.

CAWWW!

As he ran around, he failed to react in time to a slight protrusion on the ground. He lost his balance for a moment and the bird's sharp beak was about to hit his face!

He even heard the others' screams, but he managed to gather himself, using both legs to propel himself in another direction.

PAK!

His eyes twitched when he saw a portion of the tree trunk smoking from the force.

The beast quickly turned to follow after him. Sadly, his [Feather Step] had entered a cooldown so it couldn't be used for a bit.

"A bit more!" he yelled. At worst, he'd just use another skill. What's the use of mana if his stamina was getting drained?

Soon, he came across a rock as he defended himself against the monster. He first blocked it with the shaft and slid it down, so the hook would hit its beak. He pushed it to the side and tried to swipe it with the halberd's axe.

CAWWW!

It bled a bit but definitely not dead. It got even angrier though.

It lunged towards him and caused it to bump on the rock again. This time, he had a better angle.

He changed his weapon into a dagger, so he could finally stab at its weakness more accurately. Changing from bigger to smaller was far easier than the other way around.

Stab!

And the next moment, the dagger became a sword, though much slower than before, impaling it completely. It was so sharp that a deep gash was made on the rock next to the monster's head as well.

[Killed! Cradlejaw (Toughened)!]

He grinned. Finally!

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