Chapter 173: Elyndra

Slash—

[You have killed Rurix the Skullcrusher]

[10,000× Reward Multiplier Triggered...]

[You have received 510,000,000,000 Evolution Points]

Kaelen exhaled softly as he straightened his back and looked around him. It was a graveyard filled with the corpses of the beasts he’d slain in the past few minutes.

He had roughly made over 20 trillion evolution points from about 30 beasts whose strength and speed were twice that of what they possessed in the daytime, but this didn’t make them any less immune to the Supreme Heaven-Splitting Twin Blades, or make them invisible from his mana perception, which felt like night-vision goggles.

He could also tell, using the Infinite Mana Talent, the positions of the candidates and what they were doing.

The short guy and the ice-blonde girl pair kept fighting to the minimum and focused on covering more ground searching for the hidden exit.

The buff man was smashing through beasts like a truck that they began running from him at some point.

While the oxblood-haired girl with the heavy backpack kept rummaging through the guts of beast carcasses like it was a treasure chest.

She was the calmest of them all and had a timid appearance, but after observing her for a moment, Kaelen could tell she had a few nuts loose in the head.

She was crazy when it came to dead bodies, most especially the gruesome ones.

Kaelen shuddered as an involuntary chill went down his spine just from the thought of it.

As for him, he had killed so many beasts that the thick stench of blood didn’t attract any more beasts, but repelled them, rendering the hunting ground useless.

He wasn’t in a hurry to find the hidden exit, and since it proved harder even with his mana perception, he decided to move to a fresh hunting ground.

After all, the mission had also stated to kill all beasts. That might be a clue to finding the exit.

The fight had also taught him his Reward System operated as always, and his Quality-enhanced loot from all kills was still accessible to him in his inventory. But this made him recall what Kelsey had mentioned about choosing Infinite Mana over his special ability.

If that special ability wasn’t the Reward System, could it perhaps have something to do with the Atreus bloodline ability?

If that were to be the case, was she insinuating the one about having the ability to create more founding successors like Emir speculated, or the one where he had the ability to create his very own system like no one knows for sure?

On a second thought, it couldn’t be the latter because there was no place for having children inside the Tower, neither could it be the former because, of course, that would immediately put a target on his back like they tried to do with his mother.

The more he thought about it, the less it made sense.

He felt a headache growing in his head and decided to push it to the back of his mind.

There was no use thinking about it now, because the questions would only create more questions with no answers.

The only way to find out was after the tenth floor, during the second ability selection. He’d have to go through his ability list and see what his system panel wasn’t showing him.

But he wanted to hope it was the ability to create a system like his mother did.

A second overpowered system for himself wouldn’t be so bad.

A twig suddenly snapped behind him, and Kaelen swiftly spun around with his blades glinting in the crimson moonlight.

He froze when he saw it was the oxblood-haired woman with the oversized backpack crouching over one of the beasts he’d just slain.

Last he’d checked, the distance between them wasn’t something he himself could cross in such a brief moment. He had only dazed off for a moment, and she was already behind him.

The woman also froze as she stared at him like a deer caught in the headlights.

They were both silent for a long moment, caught in a deadlock.

Then she finally spoke.

"If you don’t mind, can I inspect your corpses?" Her voice was much smoother and more mature than her appearance would make people think.

There was also no trace of timidity in her voice.

Kaelen frowned as he stared at her unnatural pinkish eyes.

"Why?" He asked out of curiosity rather than hostility.

Her lips curled up.

"Don’t you find it exhilarating how your blades tear into skin so beautifully and have the power to decide life or death? I find it fascinating. The gruesomeness makes my blood boil and makes me feel alive again, so I relive their last moments by studying their wounds." The woman said with eyes beaming excitedly, making Kaelen subconsciously take a step back.

What kind of psycho is this?

"Is this why you stayed behind?" He asked with furrowed brows.

"Exactly. I won’t have the opportunity to feed my lust in the lobby or higher floors where you’ll be expected to meet the expectations of everyone around you, so I wanted to indulge in this one last time before I’m deprived of my joy. And oh, I also wanted to collect items from them that I don’t have with me." She said as she pulled her backpack over her shoulder and pulled out a jar filled with a strange liquid that contained what looked like a finger.

"What the hell is wrong with you? What do you need all that nonsense for? I’m not letting you touch any of my beast corpses. Let them rest in peace!" Kaelen didn’t know when he yelled out angrily.

He wasn’t mad at the fact that she was a corpse collector, but because the large backpack he had been eyeing, thinking it was probably filled with everything one could possibly need to survive the Tower, was instead filled with trash.

The woman was stunned when he yelled at her, and for a moment, she looked confused as to what her crime was, when her eyes sparkled in sudden inspiration and she dug into her backpack and began rummaging through it before she pulled out a vial and held it out to him.

"What the hell is that?"

"This is a Fate-Rewriting Pill." She said as she gestured for him to take it.

"...What the hell is that?"

"Oh, it allows you to reroll a character’s talent or affinity. Put simply, if you don’t like the ability you have now and wish to change it to something else, this will do the trick."

Kaelen’s eyes widened in surprise and disbelief. "How did you...?"

His reaction made her smile smugly. "You won’t find a similar pill anywhere else in this universe."

"My name’s Elyndra, and I’m the greatest alchemy apprentice in the universe with over 100 original formulas that you’d never find in a Gourmet Cauldron."