My Bugged System Made Me Too OP!-Chapter 43: Getting a beast core

Thinking back to the attack, Noah still felt a faint chill run down his spine.

Noah exhaled slowly, rubbing the back of his neck as he thought about it.

He truly hadn’t expected the wolf to suddenly use an elemental attack.

Still, when he looked at the situation honestly, he knew the mistake had been his.

He had gotten carried away.

After blinding the pack so easily and killing two wolves so quickly, he had subconsciously relaxed. The battle had started to feel easier than it should have been.

That was the real reason the wolf had almost caught him.

His gaze shifted toward the corpse of the beast that had launched the wind attack.

Now that he looked at it carefully, the reason became clearer.

That particular wolf had never been completely blinded by the icicles.

The thin ice needles had struck the wolves’ eyes with deadly accuracy, but this one had been slightly luckier than the others. One of the icicles had only grazed its eye rather than fully piercing it.

The result was that while the beast had been partially blinded and enraged like the rest of the pack, it still retained enough vision to track Noah’s movements.

And it had used that advantage well.

While the other wolves stumbled blindly and crashed into one another, that wolf had stayed slightly behind.

It had patiently waited for the perfect moment to strike.

Then the moment Noah focused on forming another glacial spear, the beast had seized its opportunity and launched the attack.

Trying to catch him completely off guard.

Noah let out a quiet breath.

If his senses hadn’t spiked at the last moment, he might have taken that attack head on.

And judging by the crater that wind blast had left in the ground...

That wouldn’t have ended well.

What surprised him even more though, was the fact that the wolf had even possessed an elemental attack to begin with.

Up until now, not even the alpha wolf he had killed earlier had used anything like that.

That alpha had been stronger physically, faster, and far more aggressive.

Yet it had relied purely on its claws and fangs.

Noah frowned slightly as he thought about it.

Elemental attacks among advanced grade mana beasts were actually quite rare.

Most beasts at that level relied primarily on their physical strength and instincts.

Mana existed in their bodies, but very few of them were capable of shaping it into proper elemental attacks.

However, exceptions still existed.

Some advanced grade beasts were simply stronger than others.

Some possessed unique traits.

And some had mutations that allowed them to manipulate mana in ways normal beasts couldn’t.

The wind wolf he had just killed was likely one of those rare cases.

Fortunately for him, the beast had been taken down before it could fire another attack.

Noah glanced once more at the battlefield before nodding slightly to himself.

Then he turned around and began walking back toward the spot where he had left his belongings earlier.

The forest floor crunched softly beneath his boots as he moved through the trees.

A short distance away, resting near the base of a thick tree, was the bag he had dropped earlier before the fight.

He bent down and picked it up.

Inside the bag was the corpse of the snake he had killed earlier, along with the knife he had been using.

A few minutes later...

Noah was kneeling beside one of the wolves’ corpses.

The forest had gone quiet again.

The earlier chaos of the battle had faded, leaving only the soft rustling of leaves and the occasional distant cry of birds.

In front of him lay the body of one of the wolves he had killed with his lightning arrows.

Or rather, what remained of it.

The chest of the corpse was charred almost beyond recognition.

Blackened flesh could be seen beneath it, as well as a deep cut splitting the chest open.

Thin trails of smoke still slowly oozed from the wound, rising lazily into the cool forest air.

The smell of burnt flesh lingered faintly around the area.

But Noah’s attention wasn’t on the charred corpse in front of him.

His focus was entirely elsewhere.

Specifically...

On the object resting in the center of his palm.

A crystal. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

It was small.

Small enough to fit comfortably in his hand.

Its surface was smooth and faintly translucent, catching the dim forest light as he slowly turned it between his fingers.

The crystal glowed with a dim pink hue.

Mana pulsed faintly inside it, like a tiny heartbeat.

Noah stared at it for a moment.

Then his eyes slowly began to shine with excitement.

His fingers tightened slightly around the crystal as a grin spread across his face.

’Finally...’ he thought.

He had been hoping to find one since the moment he started hunting mana beasts in this forest.

But until now, none of the creatures he killed had dropped one.

Yet here it was.

Resting quietly in his hand.

A beast core.

The faint pulse of mana inside it was unmistakable.

Unlike mana cores, which were usually yellow, beast cores varied in colour.

Mana cores were the condensed mana crystals formed naturally inside the bodies of magi after reaching certain ranks.

Their colour rarely changed, and yellow was the most common hue associated with them.

Beast cores, however, were completely different.

Mana beasts possessed natural elemental affinities, and the cores that formed inside their bodies reflected those elements.

Because of this, beast cores could appear in many different colours depending on the type of mana beast they came from.

The colour also depended on the strength of the beast itself.

Stronger beasts tended to produce cores that were purer and more vibrant in colour, while weaker beasts usually had dimmer or less stable cores.

Noah lifted the crystal slightly closer to his eyes.

The faint pink glow inside it flickered gently like a tiny flame.

"In this wolf’s case..." he murmured quietly to himself.

"Pink."

Pink was the colour associated with the wind element.

Which made perfect sense considering the wolf that dropped this core had used a wind attack earlier.

His fingers tightened slightly around the core before he lowered his hand.

His gaze slowly drifted across the clearing around him.

The bodies of the other wolves still lay scattered across the forest floor.

Most of them looked almost identical in condition.

Their fur had been burnt away in large patches.

Their bodies were charred dark black.

Their chests were split open violently.

The smell of burnt flesh still lingered faintly in the air.

The corpses were the result of what Noah had been doing over the past few minutes.

Searching for beast cores.

His eyes lingered on one of the bodies before he let out a quiet breath.

"I didn’t have a choice..." he muttered.

The words left his mouth slowly as he glanced down at his other hand.

The knife he was holding no longer looked the same as it had earlier.

The blade was chipped at the top.

Small cracks had formed along the edge where the metal had been forced repeatedly against the wolves’ tough flesh.

Noah clicked his tongue softly in annoyance.

"Damn it..."

Unlike the snake he had killed earlier, the bodies of the wolves were simply too tough.

The snake had been relatively easy to cut open once it died.

But these wolves were different.

Even after death, their bodies were still extremely difficult to tear through.