Chapter 461: Hugo’s Warning

Leo just shook his head.

"Nope. I just have strength, agility, vitality, stamina, and dexterity. These are all the physical ones. And then for magic, there is only one stat, which is just mana. And I have tried it before."

Leo pointed at one of the dead snakes.

"I can use a little bit of my mana to upgrade one monster. And I can use every single bit of my total mana to upgrade another identical monster. The amount of time that I take to cast the skill is exactly the same but the output is different."

Hearing this explanation, Wang Lei just looked at Leo. He just stared silently at the guy for a few long seconds.

"So wait. Tell me one thing."

"What?"

"How much mana have you been using on these monsters whenever you use your ability to upgrade them for me?"

Leo scratched his cheek.

"Well, around one percent of my total mana."

Hearing this, Wang Lei just stared at him in complete silence for two seconds. Then he slowly raised his right hand, made a tight fist, leaned forward and gave Leo a nice, knock right on the top of his head.

Leo immediately brought his hands up to his head. He rubbed his hair and looked at Wang Lei like he had been hit for no reason at all.

"What did I do to deserve that?"

Wang Lei just glared at him.

"You fucking moron. If you are... okay, wait. Before I misunderstand something here, does the level of the upgrade increase with how much mana you use?"

Leo nodded while still rubbing his sore head.

"Yeah. The more mana I use, the stronger the upgrade is."

"Then why weren’t you using more mana?" Wang Lei yelled. "If you used more mana, you would have gotten a much stronger upgrade instead of this random crap."

Wang Lei threw his hands up in the air.

"We have been down here for almost an entire month. In fact, slightly more than a month. And I have been wasting all of this time helping you kill these monsters when you have been doing idiotic shit."

Leo took a step back. The expression on his face made it look like Wang Lei had just deeply wronged him.

"But look at it this way. There is one thing that I have already told you. The upgrades are random..."

Leo held up his hands to explain.

"I can use the skill, but I cannot specify or direct where the upgrade is going to go. So you need to understand that if I use more mana, I will need a lot of time to recover that mana. Now imagine the scenario. Wouldn’t it be better if I used my mana on multiple creatures so that I could have a better chance of rolling a better upgrade? Or would it be better if I use all of my mana on a single monster and waste all of it because of a useless upgrade?"

Wang Lei just shook his head in frustration.

"That is not the point. The point is even if you roll a good upgrade by using less mana, the upgrade isn’t going to be valuable. It is not going to be as big as the upgrade that you will get by using more mana, is it?"

Wang Lei stepped closer.

"I don’t care if you get a bad upgrade by using all of your mana once. It is not like mana is limited non renewable. You can always just sit down, meditate, and get your mana back. Yeah, sure, it will slow down our clearing speed. But if you do get a decent upgrade on a monster by using max mana, that would be highly beneficial."

He pointed a finger at Leo’s chest.

"Compare that to getting multiple good upgrades by using less of your mana on a lot of monsters. The difference in quality is huge."

Hearing this logic, Leo blinked. He thought about it for a second.

"Well, if that is what you want, then sure, I guess."

Leo shrugged defensively.

"Sorry, I am not that big into games like these."

Looking at Leo, Wang Lei just frowned deeply.

"The fuck you mean games? This is common sense."

Wang Lei let out a tired sigh and turned away.

"Let’s go out. Use the next two hours to recover your mana and then we will come back inside."

Leo nodded. The two of them turned around and walked toward the floor exit.

As Leo walked toward the glowing exit portal, Wang Lei looked around the room. It was basically just a plain, massive white room now that the fighting was over. It was pretty huge.

Looking at the wide open space, he couldn’t help but think to himself.

’It would have been so nice if I had a room like this as my own.’

Around the same time. Right behind Adrian’s mansion, the army was busy training.

Hugo stood with a small group of people as he kept a close eye on the soldiers sweating in the training field. He wore his standard medic gear now, having stepped back from the brutal frontlines he used to be in.

As lunchtime finally hit, Hugo turned around. He was just about to head over to the military mess hall that had recently been built near the barracks when a familiar face stopped him.

Hugo looked down at the guy standing in his way.

"You are Brandon, aren’t you?"

Brandon looked up at him and nodded.

"Please help me become stronger."

Hugo looked at the drafted peasant. He just thought for a while before he spoke.

"To get strong, you need to train hard. The way I got strong is by constantly breaking my body and rebuilding it over and over."

Whenever Hugo said this to anyone, they usually showed hesitation. But Brandon’s expression was firm.

"I am willing to give my life away for this," Brandon said. "Even if you break my bones, I will continue."

Hearing this, Hugo tilted his head slightly.

"Will you now?"

Brandon nodded again.

Hugo stared at him for a second.

"Okay then. If you prove yourself, I will mentor you myself."

Brandon’s eyes lit up.

"How do I prove myself?"

Hugo didn’t even look at him. He just looked past him and at the other soldiers who were happily walking toward the mess hall. He thought about it for a brief moment.

"Follow me."

Hugo walked over toward the main weapons barracks. He headed inside the armory and grabbed a hammer off the rack.

It wasn’t exactly a standard sledgehammer, but it was pretty heavy. One of the ends of the hammerhead was entirely spiky, while the other side looked more like a vicious hook. The top of the head had multiple smaller spikes on it.

This was a war hammer. Not many people liked to use them, but Hugo had tested a lot of them in the past. While he liked the impact, it wasn’t exactly too practical for general combat. It was good against heavily armored soldiers, but not a lot of people actually wore metallic armor here.

A lot of the soldiers in the surrounding kingdoms were still stuck with cheap leather armors. Most of them, specifically the peasant soldiers who were basically just dragged away from their families and pushed into the wars, wouldn’t even have any armor at all. Against those kinds of targets, standard swords were pretty much the best weapon to use.

But Hugo picked up the war hammer anyway. He walked back out and handed it over to Brandon.

"Use this hammer to break your own arm. Only then will I acknowledge you and train you myself."

For the first time, Brandon hesitated. But he still picked up the hammer. The weight of it pulled his hands down slightly. He didn’t really do much other than just stare down at the iron spikes.

Seeing this, Hugo took a step forward. He grabbed a handful of Brandon’s hair and roughly pulled his head backwards. Hugo loomed over him, casting a dark shadow over Brandon’s face.

"Without pain, don’t even dare to think that you can catch up to her."

Brandon swallowed the saliva inside his mouth.

"I got it. I understand... I’m sorry..."

Hugo finally let go of his hair and stepped back.

Brandon looked down at the hammer. He gripped the wooden handle tight. He lifted it up into the air and then brought it back down hard on his own left forearm.

The thud came, but it just wasn’t a strong enough swing to do much damage.

Brandon bit his lower lip hard to stop himself from screaming. He definitely felt the pain through his bones.

But Hugo just looked down at the arm that Brandon had basically just tapped himself on.

"Not even a mark.", he said, his voice cold.

"It has six protrusions and all of them are pretty sharp. But you didn’t even draw a single drop of blood. Do you really call that pain?"

Hugo didn’t wait for an answer. He just started walking away.

He walked right past Brandon, and as he walked out of the barracks area, he spoke without looking back.

"Octavia is like a sister to me. We met in terrible conditions, and we didn’t know each other back then, but for more than two years, we have lived together and we have trained together. I consider her as my family."

Hugo paused his steps for a single second.

"And I am not going to let a weak dog take her hand. Don’t even think about asking for her hand in marriage. Prove yourself first. Because if you don’t, and you try something funny around her, I will make sure that I kill you myself."