Courtney rushes over to Jason and pulls out a quartz crystal with black streaks of some mineral. The quartz had been mostly rounded into a sphere except for one bit that sticks out in a point. She kneels down next to him and places the point of the quartz right at the start of the cut. Then after she pools some mana in the crystal so it glows, she pulls it along like a zipper. Color drains from her face as her magic drains her but just like a zipper the wound closes up and the bleeding stops.

+10

She settles back on her heels and sighs, “Well, that takes it out of me! I don’t think that would have worked without the focus. Gross physical injury like that tends to be harder to heal. Now let me see about fixing up under the surface now that you aren’t spewing blood everywhere.” Courtney’s hand glows black and she places it where the cut had been.

+5

+5

+5

A minute passes as Jason’s health slowly ticks upward. Courtney frowns, “you don’t seem to be injured underneath anymore. You’re just low on health at this point. Don’t know why. I was just trying to do a slow heal to get more bang for my buck. Should have been healing in increments of one or maybe two.”

+5

+5

+5

+5

+5

+1

Another couple of minutes go by before Jason is back to full health. This is enough for the System to give him the stat rewards for the fight. Overall, he goes up five hp, one stamina, and one toughness. He stands up and stretches, “woof, leastwise my health is getting closer to what it should be at this level.”

Courtney shrugs, “not our fault you chose the hard way. I didn’t even know you could give up on stat points. How did you do that anyway?”

Jason shakes his head to clear it, “sorry, System backed non-disclosure with my first teacher not to reveal it. Well, now that I think about it, I am not prevented from telling you how I did it. Rather, I can’t tell you what I did it with so once you reach that point it should be fine.”

Rosha claps, “Oh, I think I know! Daddy got me a tutor once who taught me a few secrets. Though I had to promise not to try anything with it till level 50. Impressive that you got one this early if it is what I think it is.”

Courtney facepalms, “Right, of course. Yeah if it is that you’re a stupid, lucky idiot. We can’t come at it directly but you should be able to tell us if it is the level 100 secret.”

Jason takes a moment to realize what she meant by that. Then he remembers that anyone without a core forms one automatically at level 100, and so he nods that it is. “I had almost forgotten that you got it at that level. I technically had mine at level zero.”

Courtney rubs the bridge of her nose, “are you insane? That is an excellent way to ruin your character. Many people who find out about it still wait to receive one from the System. If you fail when forming it the level one hundred bottleneck becomes your end point. Sure being level 99 is quite the achievement but anyone with the potential to get there wouldn’t want to stop there.”

Jason slow blinks, “huh, didn’t know that. I had some special knowledge which pushed me towards it. Well, it worked out so no point worrying. Instead, let’s get down to looting. The ghasts probably aren’t worth a thing, but that lord should be stacked if he was a noble before death.”

They turn to the corpses and it is at this point that they notice the one ghoul they had downed is gone. Where it had been laid are just a few claw marks from it dragging itself away. Once the marks reach the trees, though, it seems to have stood up and made a run for it.

Rosha cocks her head to the side, “Well, I guess we were a bit distracted there with the healing. At least the lord is still where we left it.”

Jason kicks the body over and reveals a coin purse on the lord’s belt. “Sucks that they don’t use weapons but hey, I would rather not use undead sourced gear if at all possible.” He picks up the purse and dumps the contents out. 28 gold and 36 silver coins fall out into his palm.

His eyes go wide, “well, we hit it rich with this guy. Nine gold for me and Rosha, Courtney you get ten for holding down your side despite us front liners not keeping the enemies at bay. Besides that 12 silver to each of us as well. No copper though, I guess he was one of those nobles that didn’t deign to use peasant coins.”

Rosha nods, “that, or he just got money in from his father. I almost want to look up what happened to his family after he got killed. The guy seemed like the type that would have ruined them.”

Courtney examines the buckle on the lords belt, “we can totally do that, it seems this buckle has his family crest on it. Must have been a very low rank noble family not to have an actual signet ring.”

Jason laughs, “that buckle isn’t even a precious metal. God, what a poor fool. Either his family was the bottom of the barrel or he was sent out here to die. While I am sure the common people didn’t have a clue what would happen, the nobility should have gotten a warning before things truly hit the fan. Something as big as the forest’s core doesn’t pop up out of nowhere. They might not have known how bad it would be, but they should have expected something would happen. I would be willing to bet not a single important heir from any decently connected family was within a hundred miles of the forest line.”