Chapter 64: Leaderboards

Surrounded by five giant treants with ugly faces and vines wriggling about, I quickly summoned Yuri out of the battle to assist me.

"Master~ It's been a while since I got to taste your mana, give me a little please?~"

"Yeah, yeah, just help me get rid of these annoying trees!"

"Okay~" Yuri winked and released a charm attack and all of the treants started to stop in their tracks.

"You can use them on trees too?!" I looked at her in shock.

"As long as they are animate objects, they can be charmed, whatever they are! Be it rock golems or wooden puppets, they can all be charmed by my powers!"

"Well, that is reassuring and since they are monsters, I guess killing them is the only option and I need to do it in quick precision!"

I grab the gloves in my pocket and put it on my hands. The only thing is that my Skull Knuckles are left behind on my bag and the bag is left behind too in my locker. Damn, this is so frustrating and I will be relying a lot on Yuri and my magic on this one since I have no weapons at all.

"Blaze! Burn to the Ground!"

With a single swipe in the air, flames started to burst out of the gloves. The treants are still under the charm status and so they can't do anything to this. Grabbing the flames, I throw it to the direction of the treants. Most of them had dry wood on their bodies and the attacking treants have vines attached to each other with some that have already wilted.

When the fire hit one of the treants, it didn't need another fireball for the flames to go bigger. The unlucky treant ignited.

"Let's get away master before everyone gets caught up to flames!" Yuri said and dragged me out of the area.

The flammable parts of the treant were easily caught on fire and didn't take too long for them to burn like firewood. All of them are swaying their branches and screams in a weird way before they became ashes one by one.

"Well, that was a bit easy I guess?" I scratched my head and grab the Hologram Ball in my left pocket on my pants. I fiddled on it a bit and found the right button to display the number of points.

Name: Kazuma Fukuyama

Status: Alive

Points: 2,500

Wait, did I have a starting amount already and managed to get a lot of points already? But that is illogical since this would be exchanging items with points and giving out free points would be like giving out freebies. You can just quit and still get items. Or this is the right amount of points I earned by killing those treants?

"From my analysis, the Treants give out 500 points per kill. Since you killed five, that means this would be the exact amount," Blue said.

"Wait, so they give out this many points?"

"Most likely."

"So does that mean that they are strong?"

"No, actually, Treants can be considered as low tier mobs here on this area that you are dropped in but they gave out plenty of points which is pretty generous. Most of the time, magicians who have the affinity of fire farm points here until there would be a few dozen left. Of course, it would be a different story if you have no ability to use flames. Treants are not easy to kill and they needed a severe amount of time just to kill one without using fire magic by newbies."

"I see. So since I used flames, I get plenty of points. I will take that and that isn't bad for starting the hunt. Even though I started solo, I already gained a lot of points."

"Also, from the looks of it, Nekoyama forgot about it but since there is a database about the past training, there is one function of the Hologram balls that Nekoyama forgot to mention but for those veterans already, they already know this function."

"A function that I don't know?" I fiddled once more to the Hologram Balls and one function I didn't expect appeared.

It was a ranking board. My name is displayed as number 5 in the ranking already. Wait… what? This is being ranked?!

"Looks like you found it, yeah. The additional function of it would be the rankings. Since you are already in the top five, magicians would be aware of you more and will try to find you."

"Huh? Find me? What, are they trying to take my points? That is impossible right?"

"Unfortunately, you hit the mark Kazuma. This is one of the things that veterans knew and a surprise to the newbies. Newbies are the ones easily screwed up on this unless they can handle themselves fine. Since you are a newbie, I will tell you this. The points can be earned by defeating monsters but the easiest to gather them is by defeating the said holder of points. Once defeated, dead or alive, all of the points you earned so far would be sent to the victor and will leave you barren of points. This can be called a dirty way of earning points."

F*ck, and here I thought this kind of thing won't occur. Basically, many other magicians who want to earn points without engaging in monsters are to defeat a magician who already has a good amount of points. I only read and found these kinds in RPGs and some stories in manga and cultivation novels. Who would have thought that even this magic oriented novel would use that kind of crap! Seriously, I would roast the writer for making this kind of crappy plot which is making it dangerous for me!

"What are you muttering there master? Did you get hit in the head while being teleported here or something?"

"Ah...don't worry about it."

"So what is your plan here Kazuma? You have a variety of magic skills but that doesn't mean it is enough to defeat a magician who practiced magecraft for years."

"I guess I have to lie low for now. Avoid showing up to other magicians unless being discovered while hunting for points. I need to get that item that can lessen bloodlust right now."

"You won't trade for the seed of life?"

"No, I don't think I will trade for one and if I did, that means I have excess points but I doubt it if that item is one of the expensive items being traded. I am content of my own lifespan at the moment and it is not something I really need. What I need is something that can help me in fights rather than an increased lifespan. As a magician, fighting enemies would mean that I am risking my life on the line. That extended lifespan won't really help if I died from battle so that would be a useless investment."

"I see your point."

"Anyways, I need to get out of here. The smoke coming from the Treants will attract others here soon so I need to get away as fast as possible."

"Kazuma, take all the drops that the Treants dropped after death. They can be sold or used as materials if collected."

I nodded and ordered Yuri to collect the drops as we retreat from the area. This is a training but this is also a battle that stakes your life. Without my friends here to help, I have to survive on my own means and survive the entire month here in this Phantasmal whatsoever it was and get back to the real world. My struggles had only just begun…

"Ah… Kazuma, can't you just shut your monologue once in a while? You are getting cringy as time goes by…" Blue quickly said.

"Shut it, let me do my only job."