Chapter 164 - 163 A Very Hungry Egg

Running across his estate while holding his magical beast egg within his arms, Marcus was making a bee line for a secluded area that was surrounded by a number of evergreen trees.

However, as he was running his mana was being forcefully drained from him by the egg, and Marcus watched as even the foliage around him seemed to be losing their mana and shriveling up.

'What the hell is going on, the progress bar for hatching was only at eighty-three percent last time I checked. I should have had around a month and a half before it began hatching but it suddenly started demanding mana at an unprecedented rate.'

Continuing to run, Marcus felt his mana reserves which were already below half because he had been in the middle forging nearing depletion.

Hastily taking a mana recover potion out of his item box, Marcus downed the bitter liquid in one gulp while continuing to run.

Soon Marcus had made it to the spot he was looking for, a sequestered glade full of evergreen tree with a small pond in the middle.

Placing the egg down, Marcus noticed that the water in the nearby pond began to lose its luster and the plants and animals living in it began dying.

Soon even the grass and trees started to wither as the egg devoured any mana within around thirty feet of it.

Seeing this, Marcus took out every magic core he had, even the rare shadow demon and vampire ones.

As the pile of magic cores surrounded the egg, the surrounding area was no longer a target for its hunger, but Marcus watched as the egg was draining the magic cores at an alarming rate.

'Fuck why did it suddenly have to go on a binge fest. If I had known it was going to do this, I would have gotten a bigger stockpile of magic cores.'

Seeing the cores loose their luster one by one before crumbling into dust, Marcus pulled out a dozen mana recover potions and drank two quickly before pulling out a purple potion that would temporally raise his int stat.

Once this was done and he felt himself teaming with mana, Marcus began funneling everything he had into the egg that had turned into a glutton.

This went on for around five minutes before Marcus felt that he was nearing his limit.

He then backed off and began drinking more mana recovery potions allowing the magic cores he had left to appease the egg while he recovered his mana.

'What percentage is it at now… Shit only at eighty-eight percent, even after all of that it has only gone up five percent. Damn I do not know if I will be able to keep this up if it is planning on going all the way to one hundred percent.'

Gritting his teeth, Marcus prepared for the long haul hoping that the supplies he had would be enough to get through his current dilemma.

Watching his magic core supply dwindle, Marcus jumped back in as the main mana supplier using what he had recover to continue pumping mana into his magical beast egg.

However, after another five minutes Marcus was reaching his limit again and had to back off and drink more mana recovery potions.

This cycle continued for another thirty minutes as Marcus would jump in and give all of his mana before jumping out to recover.

Unfortunately, the magic cores he had placed around the egg soon vanished, as the core of the vampire was the last to vanish, devoured by the egg.

At this point the progress bar for hatching had reached ninety-five percent, and Marcus still needed time to recover but he did not have much left to offer as the egg began siphoning the mana in the surrounding area killing everything in its path.

Marcus in a desperate situation not knowing how far the egg would extend to find a suitable mana supply was about to sacrifice the weapons he had recently made, when Blitz bounded through the trees and had come to Marcus' aid.

Blitz had sensed that its master was in distress and had come to offer its aid in any way it could.

Seeing Blitz arrive, a tinge of hope appeared in Marcus' eyes as he sent a mental command to Blitz to move towards the egg and supply it most of his mana before running away.

Blitz being the loyal beast he is did just that and felt the unsettling feeling of having its mana drained.

Marcus watched as Blitz gave up its mana to appease the hungry egg doing his best to lessen the burden of the master he had grown to respect.

However, in Blitz's act of heroism he was pushing himself and soon was going past his limits.

Seeing this, Marcus yelled to Blitz, "Get out of there, you dying is not going to help me, you have already done enough leave the rest to me."

Blitz seeing Marcus approaching and having received a strong command, backed off just outside the current range of the eggs draining effect before collapsing and leaving the rest to Marcus.

'Okay Marcus one last spurt, give it everything you have got.'

"Embodiment of Light."

Activating his unique skill, Marcus began glowing with a bright light and all of his stats began raising along with it.

With his unique skill active Marcus felt the egg no longer just eating his pure mana but also the light that was coming off of him.

During this time every second felt like hours to Marcus, as he was suffering from an acute case of mana sickening from draining and restoring his mana pool over and over.

However, Marcus knew he could not waver here as the egg was close to obtaining the energy it needed to hatch.

Pushing on, Marcus felt his strength beginning to fade, even after going over his limits he was still two percent away from giving the egg the power it needs.

Sighing Marcus took out a certain item and said, "Sacrifices must be made."

Tossing the pitch-black sword he had retrieved from the vampire he had killed, Marcus watched as the egg began to ravenously devour its power.

In fact now that the egg had a strong source of light and darkness energy it began humming and its trembling began to slowly stop until the egg laid motionless.

Suddenly Marcus felt the force that was draining his energy stop abruptly and saw that the egg was now steadily letting out a soft bright and dark glow.

With there no longer being any need for him to push himself, Marcus deactivated his unique skill and collapsed onto his knees feeling the fatigue from this experience.

Staring at the glowing egg in front of him Marcus' gaze fell of the black sword and saw that it was half dissolved and was certainly ruined.

Nevertheless, as Marcus looked at his companion status panel and saw the one hundred percent mark, he could not help but feel a sense of exception for what was going to hatch.

Except nothing seemed to be happening for a minute, then two, then three, until a full ten minutes had passed.

Wondering what was going on Marcus walked up to the egg and picked it up and when he did, he received a notification.

'Would You Like To Hatch Egg of… data downloading.'

'Data downloading, what the hell. Wait this is the child of the administrator's friends, so of course they know what it is and just did not put it in the system to keep me in the dark. Whatever, I am going to find out as soon as I hatch it, so yeah go ahead and hatch the egg.'

The system then gave Marcus a conformation and the glowing egg suddenly released a torrent of light and darkness enveloping Marcus in and immense amount of energy as he felt the egg in his hands begin to shake and crack.

"Crik, Crik, Crack!"

The egg after shacking a few more times fully cracked open, and the burst of light and darkness slowly receded as Marcus felt something warm and fluffy inside his grasp.

Looking down the last dregs of light and darkness faded away from the beast in Marcus' arms and now he could see the form of his companion.

'It is a puppy. Wait why did a puppy hatch out of an egg?'

As Marcus was wondering about how a warm-blooded animal could hatch from an egg, even though since he had been transferred to another world as a ghost this should have been mundane, Marcus could just not get over it.

'How could this even be possible, here I was expecting a dragon, or some type of legendary bird, or maybe even a turtle. But a puppy? I suppose I could have accepted it if it was a platypus, since they also lay eggs, but I am pretty sure dogs give live births. Ah whatever, I did not design this world and if the administrator wants ever beast to hatch from eggs who am I to stop them.'

After having his internal debate about egg realism in a fantasy world, Marcus finally took a good look at the little fluff ball in his arms seeing that it was pure white on its right side and pitch black on its left.

Observing the magical beast that hatched out of the egg he had obtained quite some time ago; it was not long before it took a big yawn and its eyes fluttered open and looked up at Marcus.

As the puppy stared at Marcus, he suddenly heard a voice inside his head that said, 'I am hungry.'