Path to Prosperity - B1 Chapter 28

The thought of selling the Monster Card was present. Using [Consume] to gain 25000 Prosperity in a single go sounded like a great deal, but the idea of earning several gold coins for the Monster Card at Erdwin’s shop was even better.

No. The Gnoll will help me gain more. 

Percy shook his head, various plans forming in his mind. The Monster Card would help him earn much more than 25,000 Prosperity could ever. Seeing the possible Augmentations he could add was enough reason to believe so.

With enough Prosperity, I can turn ordinary Monster Cards into powerful treasures.

Percy’s eyes glimmered in delight. He could use money to strengthen the Monster Card, improve their potential, and add more Augmentations until…Percy wasn’t sure how far he could upgrade a Monster Card’s potential or if there was a limit in the first place. Maybe the only limit was his lack of money and decreasing cost-efficiency 

It won't be worth it if I have to invest too much into upgrading a Monster Card.

While that was true, one thing was sure. The more coins he had, the easier it would be for him to grow stronger. It wouldn’t be challenging to unlock Monster Cards’ Augmentations, increase their potential, and maybe even open up new evolution paths. The latter wasn’t something Percy could be certain, but some remarks in the Guild’s library pointed out the possibility.

Still, Percy understood one thing better than ever.

Money was power!

He wasn’t necessarily rich yet, but his wealth had increased exponentially over the last few weeks. Percy had enough Prosperity to test something. He used [Consume] on Prosperity to check if he could unlock the Gnoll’s Augmentations. 

[Blade Mastery] would be amazing. If it works as intended, my understanding of blades would also skyrocket. But my Prosperity is definitely too low to unlock it….

Still, Percy had to test it.

The Monster Card reacted differently to Percy’s Ego than his Armaments. He couldn’t insert a small amount of Prosperity into the Augmentations or Potential first, but he had to upgrade them with one massive investment. That would have been frustrating if Percy couldn’t sense how much Prosperity he lacked after trying to invest his Prosperity into the [Blade Mastery] Augmentation.

That’s…some strong resistance… What about [Minor Strength Boost] and [A Hunter’s Smell]? The resistance isn’t strong for either of them, but [A Hunter’s Smell] has the lowest resistance. All it takes is a small push…

To prove his theory, Percy used [Consume] to transform a few copper coins into Prosperity before giving [A Hunter’s Smell] another try.

[10 Copper coins worth 10 Prosperity have been consumed.]

The resistance decreased, but it wasn’t enough.

[10 Copper coins worth 10 Prosperity have been consumed.]

[10 Copper coins worth 10 Prosperity have been consumed.]

It was still not enough.

[25 Copper coins worth 10 Prosperity have been consumed.]

Percy was getting impatient and invested more. He even considered consuming the iron dagger. Fortunately, he didn’t do that. A new interface popped up before him. [Consume]’s magic worked.

[Gnoll Card’s Augmentation -[A Hunter’s Smell⭐] has been unsealed. 1800 Prosperity has been consumed.]

Investing 1800 Prosperity into the Augmentation stung. His heart burned like no tomorrow, but Percy endured it well. He was happy to have unlocked one of his Monster Card’s Augmentations and was curious about what he could do with it and how the Augmentation affected him.

Can I smell better now? It doesn’t feel any different.

The word manifested on his Monster Card’s interface and popped up in his standard interface. Percy stared at it briefly, wondering what he was supposed to do.

『Percy 』

[Ego – Coin of Prosperity]

[Tier] – [Mortal-6]
—
[Gnoll(Common –⭐⭐) – [A Hunter’s Smell⭐]] 

『Coin of Prosperity』
Prosperity:  3
➛Consume

“Is it a passive Augmentation, or do I have to channel mana into it to activate the Augmentation?”

The answer was simple. It was neither. Percy thought about his new Augmentation, which activated on its own, draining his mana automatically to unleash its effect.

Percy could barely notice a faint suctioning force as his mana reserves decreased slowly as the world around him changed drastically. No, that wasn’t the truth, either. The world around him remained the same, but how he perceived things around him changed instead. The inconspicuous smells around him flooded Percy all of a sudden. Old sweat, tempered leather, dried blood, the Crescent Ruby Grass’ scent clinging to his leather bags, and the remains of the Berserk Rabbits that had been stored in the leather bags a while ago. Percy smelled everything, and he could distinguish the smells with shocking clarity.

He sniffed the air, and his eyes widened. Percy’s head flicked to a leather bag, and his hand reached for it. He opened the leather bag and searched it, only to find a single blade of the Crescent Ruby Grass.

“I smelled that,” Percy murmured, his voice cracking as realization struck him.

I no longer have to search for patches of Crescent Ruby Grass for hours. I can locate them quickly with this. That’s not even all. I can smell the mana in the air. Crescent Ruby Grass is not even that distinct. What if I want to search for more plants like Paresis Doom? Well, mana-infused plants like Paresis Doom but less deadly plants, if possible.

The thought of rushing out of Raewood to search for some Crescent Ruby Grass using [A Hunter’s Smell] attracted him. Percy was sure he could find some Monsters with the Augmentation as well. However, thinking back to the eerie giggling and the threat of Paresis Doom, Percy shuddered. Even if Percy ignored the demon, he obviously would die plucking the Paresis Doom flower. He could order the Gnoll to pluck them, but a Monster Card would shatter if the summoned monster died. Percy didn’t want to risk that. The Gnoll Card was too valuable to be sacrificed like that.

Thus, Percy did the only logical thing he could do at such a moment: He left the Inn, returned to the Guildhall, and went up to the second floor, where he spent several hours studying.

The hours trickled by, yet Percy’s expression didn’t improve. His knowledge improved by leaps and bounds, as did his understanding of Monster Cards, Augmentations, the meaning of Potential, and more. However, Percy didn’t find anything about a flower called Paresis Doom. 

He considered that the flower might not be called Paresis Doom in the books and had a different name. Still, Percy searched through several books revolving around the magical herbs, flowers, and all other plant life that mutated and evolved under the influence and stimuli of mana. To his misfortune, none looked like Paresis Doom or had similar effects. That was odd but not impossible. Percy was still a mere Bronze rank Adventurer. He didn’t have permission to look at the books of higher-ranked Adventurers just yet. For the records, Percy didn’t understand the logic behind that. Wouldn’t it be much better to share as much knowledge as possible to ensure every member of the Guild was knowledgeable? 

Percy was sad, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t hunt this morning. On the contrary, Percy wasn’t frustrated only because of the upcoming hunt. The Archyeas was still in the forest, but Olivia assured Percy that the vile demon had to flee in the opposite direction to run from Guildmaster Lexter’s men.

The Archyeas wasn’t going to be caught that easily, however, Percy was happy with the news. The farther the demon was, the better.

Percy filled his stomach to the brim, finishing a small feast of meat, vegetables, and several soup bowls – which further decreased his little fortune –, and left the town fully armed.

He activated [A Hunter’s Smell] right before entering the forest and nearly stumbled and flopped head-first to the ground when the vivid smells of everything around him bombarded him. The amount of information entering through his nose was horrifying, and Percy had to stay still for several minutes, doing no more than breathing in and out. He shuddered even after his body adapted to the changes. Everything was so…different.

It wasn’t necessarily a bad feeling, but it was unfamiliar. Still, Percy didn’t take longer than half an hour until he could distinguish the smells around him and pinpoint something familiar from several directions.

A few Berserk Rabbits are in front of me. But the smell is faint. There are more Berserk Rabbits to my right. Their scent is more potent. Is that because there are more of them in one pack, or they’re closer–...

The question was answered before Percy finished asking in his mind. A pack of five Berserk Rabbits charged at him, their teeth fleetched. Percy raised an eyebrow and did the only appropriate thing he could think of. He kicked the first pouncing rabbit in the head, breaking its skull and neck in one go while catching two of the remaining bunnies when they leaped at him. Catching them mid-air wasn’t too tricky at his level, but ruthlessly snapping their necks wasn’t something the old Percy would have been able to do. 

Fortunately, I’m not the same person I used to be.

The Berserk Rabbits couldn’t even squeal. Their necks broke from Percy’s iron-tight grasp before they could think of doing something. Percy looked at the slowest Berserk Rabbits while releasing the dead bunny in his right hand. He reached out for the iron dagger and dashed to the hesitating creatures. He was faster than the little beasts. They squealed and tried to attack upon sensing that their time was coming, but their resistance was futile.

Percy slashed twice and killed the two Berserk Rabbits in one go. Five interfaces popped up before Percy, and he didn’t think twice before using [Consume]

[Five Berserk Rabbits have been consumed. 33 Prosperity has been added.]

He didn’t want to bother collecting any monster carcasses today. Today, Percy would fill his leather bags with magical herbs and other plants!

His strides were full of vigor as he paced through the little forest. To others, it might look like Percy had no idea what he was doing, and that wasn’t even entirely wrong. It took him an eternity to gain a better understanding of [A Hunter’s Smell]. The Augmentation was pretty simple as it enhanced his smelling sense, but there were also some specifics. For example, Percy could never distinguish monsters from a distance through their smell alone. It was also a first for him to smell the difference between mana in the air and mana infused in the surrounding plant life and monsters.

In the first place, Percy hadn’t known it was possible to smell mana. That was something new for him, yet it helped him replenish his slowly diminishing mana reserves smoothly. Percy followed the most prominent mana streams to absorb the surrounding mana naturally at an accelerated rate while trying to pinpoint the location of special herbs and rare magical flowers.

It took eons before he found something, but it didn't take long to find more once Percy discovered the first small batches of Crescent Ruby Grass. His success rate at finding magical plants increased once he summoned the Gnoll to aid him. The Augmentation was a first for both Percy and the Gnoll, but it was innate to the monster. It was no surprise when the Goll discovered more plants and monsters than Percy. 

Since the Gnoll was loyal to him and forced to obey Percy’s orders, he handed the monster its blade. That was a good call because the Gnoll discovered some worthy prey, including a mature Hill Hog.