My Summons Are Mythical Beasts

Landing on the ground, the Vinecrawler Caterpillar wriggled but was pierced by a sharp knife the next instant, killing the beast without mercy.

[You have killed an Unranked Grade-Unranked, Vinecrawler Caterpillar (100%): You gained 0.01 XP]

"And sixty," Lucas wiped the sweat at the corner of his forehead as he picked up the dead Vinecrawler Caterpillar and put it inside the basket.

The previous empty basket had now been filled by carcasses of purplish Vinecrawler Caterpillars that Lucas had killed.

Every time he killed one, Lucas would tally and list them inside his mind.

The one he just put inside the basket was the sixtieth Vinecrawler Caterpillar he killed. With each Vinecrawler Caterpillar rewarding him with 0.01 Experience Points, an additional 0.6 Experience Points has now been added to his total.

"Well, at least, I now have 120 Starlight Coins," Lucas\' eyes lit up as he consoled himself and forgot about the heartache of only gaining 0.6 experience points after a couple of hours hunting—if it can be called that way.

Unranked grade beasts already give one the lowest amount of experience points, and an Unranked grade with no star rank gives even worse.

This was also the reason why no summoner bothered to hunt those Unranked grade-Unranked beasts.

Heck, even a Gold Grade Grimoire user would more or less receive the same amount of experience points that he was getting now.

It was just a waste of time and effort—except for instances like this that he was rewarded for killing them, of course.

Still, who among the academy students was as poor as him, and hence, would do laborious work like this just to gain enough Starlight Coins to enter the regulated dungeon once?

Perhaps there was, but none among them was as untalented as him.

In this year\'s batch of new awakeness, only Lucas had awakened an Unranked Grade grimoire.

For those who had the same circumstances but a higher grimoire, they would probably not do this laborious work and instead would just opt to loan Unity Coins. That way, they would be able to spend most of their time inside the dungeon instead of doing laborious works like the beast cage cleaning and bug extermination mission that Lucas had done.

Lucas had considered this option as well. However, given that he only has an Unranked Grade grimoire, he guessed that no loan institution would be willing to accept his request. In fact, even loan sharks might hesitate to lend him money.

His parents also knew of his circumstances, as they had talked about it before.

At first, his parents wanted him to just ask for money from them—they said they have some extra savings—but Lucas did not buy their words and insisted that he would work for his own dungeon entrance fee.

Thinking about it, Lucas could not help but applaud his decision. If he had accepted their offer, would they have postponed buying the phone for him?

Anyway, Lucas did not give his parents more burden by letting him pay the fee for the dungeon entrance when he could just work hard for it.

"Well, time to work," Lucas remarked as his eyes went into slit once more, an indication that he was now in serious mode.

Fortunately for him—unfortunately for Teacher Christie—the Soulshade Leaves were truly infested with the Vinecrawler Caterpillars.

Each Soulshade Leaf has four to five leaves in total. The largest of them—situated at the bottom, suspended at around one and a half feet from the ground—was two feet wide and four feet in length. Their sizes grew smaller the further they were from the ground, but still, the smallest of them were half a foot in width and at least two feet in length.

In each Soulshade leaf plant, Lucas could sometimes find two to three—seldom one—Vinecrawler Caterpillars.

One must note that the Vinecrawler Caterpillars only eat the lower epidermis, so even though the leaves looked fine now, they would most likely wither and die in a few days, given that they did not get fixed or healed.

With how many Soulshade leaf plants that he had yet to inspect, Lucas estimated that he would be able to get at least 300 Vinecrawler Caterpillars out of it.

A pity for teacher Christie though, as that would also mean that she would be losing at least 300 Soulshade leaves in a few days.

These were magical plants after all; their value, Lucas could not comprehend yet, but still, he knew that each of them was very expensive.

In the end, Lucas could only sigh.

"Work! Work! Work!"

Boring and repetitive work, Lucas\' mind felt dizzy as he stared at the basket full of dead Vinecrawler Caterpillars after an entire day of work.

Anyone with lepidopterophobia would surely collapse upon seeing his collection.

Fortunately, Lucas had none of that phobia and, hence, was able to endure the harrowing sight of such creatures clustered together inside one basket.

With a sigh, Lucas stood up and stretched his aching legs and body.

Even though his body was quite strong and was even enhanced by the grimoire every time he ranked up, it still could not endure a long period of doing such minute and meticulous work.

If he had a better choice, Lucas would have already given up the moment he filled half of the basket.

Anyway, it was already dusk. He did not want to continue and just wanted to rest. His back was aching from a long period of crouching too.

At this moment, Lucas just wanted to go home and drop dead on his bed.

Fortunately for him, a figure was already approaching in the distance.

The senior was finally here.

Lucas beamed a smile as he walked to meet Ethan in the middle.

The thought of the senior bringing him the promised \'compensation\' instantly invigorated his mind.

Ethan nodded his head at him and said, "How about it? How many did you catch?"

Lucas smiled in return and stated, "Ahh, don\'t worry, senior, I caught a lot of them."

He then presented the basket full of Vinecrawler Caterpillar toward the senior.

However, the senior\'s reaction was not what Lucas had expected.

"W-what the hell is that thing!? "

As he said so, Lucas observed that his body even involuntarily shivered in disgust and even fright.

_______

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