Chapter 777: More Fun

Julius spent some time eating with Drasil. The little life spirit wasn’t too happy about being inside this rift. The death mana wasn’t pleasant for the little guy, unsurprisingly. But with the isolation barrier Julius set up, it was enough for Drasil to feel comfortable snacking on some life mana and life-infused snacks.

After he ate his fill, he took a small nap. He technically didn’t need it. His healing skill was more than enough to keep him going for the next few months without sleep. He shouldn't experience any serious downsides either, but sometimes it was nice to get a mental reset.

That was why he ended up sleeping for a few hours. He wasn’t worried about being attacked, though. For one, Drasil and Seraphyne watched over him. But he also had a few items that would protect him while he slept. Or at least give him enough time to react if he was attacked.

He also spent some time looking through the stuff inside his storage ring, as well as his dimensional space. It had been a long time since he had sorted it out, and it had only gotten worse.

It didn’t help that his storage capacity for his ring was already humongous. Add that to his massive void space, which had grown several times larger since he evolved his soul, and it was basically a black hole where random objects got thrown in and were lost to the void.

Most of the stuff he’d gotten from the people he killed, or honestly just stuff he had collected over the past couple of years. Which actually was quite a lot. Most of it he didn’t even need anymore. He would need to clean it out when he got some free time.

Maybe he would even donate most of it to some kind of orphanage or something. He didn’t think they had a Goodwill here, but he would have to ask Lily to find a suitable orphanage to give it to. Preferably one that didn’t mistreat or scam its children.

However, he also took out something he had been keeping tucked away. Unlike the other rabble he shoved in a corner, this had been at the front of his mind for a while.

He rolled the small aquamarine gem between his fingers with a slight frown on his face. It was the treasure he had received from Vailon and one that was supposed to be for Seraphyne. But at the tiny turtle’s insistence that she didn’t want it yet, he had been keeping it safe for her.

He didn’t know why she didn’t want it. But it sounded like she didn’t want to take it just because it was from her father. But he didn’t press her for any more details. It wasn’t like he was one who enjoyed shoving treasures down his mouth either.

He had a couple of treasures he’d gotten over the years that he still hadn’t used and honestly didn’t really plan to.

The Skill Combination Crystal and Imperium Resonance Orb were two of these things. But to be fair, both were things he wasn’t ready to use yet. He didn’t want to waste the Skill Combination Crystal and would rather not force himself to gain another legendary skill he might not be ready for.

At least with the void skill he was trying to acquire was something he was going for without any aids or external resources to accelerate the process.

As for the Imperium Resonance Orb, he didn’t want to use it until he had better affinities. He strongly suspected that affinities played a larger role in how effective the treasure was, so he didn’t want to use it if he could improve his affinities first.

His fire and life affinities were already improved. But with kinetic being a much more difficult challenge, he was prepared to wait until the time was right. Fortunately for him, that time would be pretty soon. So hopefully he would be able to use it after he consumed one of those fruits.

Speaking of the orb, he took it out and held the white sphere of compressed energy in his other palm beside the aquamarine gem.

He also brought out the note that came with the orb.

Imperium Resonance Orb

An Imperium Resonance Orb is a highly coveted treasure that enhances one's Seed of Authority. It also leaves a lasting effect that will increase gains for a short period of time. What makes this treasure so desirable is the lack of side effects.

It is a pure condensation of energy without any attributes and can be used for any type of authority.

Its maximum effectiveness relies heavily on one’s own efforts and the strength of their Seed of Authority.

As he had learned, the strength of one’s Seed of Authority wasn’t just by how cool of a name it had. But also by the affinities it was composed of. That meant even if his Seed of Ruinous Phoenix was a top-tier seed, the orb wouldn't work at its maximum effectiveness.

It would probably be even better if he waited until he got perfect affinities for all three. But given how hard it was to raise all three affinities to excellent, he didn’t think it was worth waiting while he looked for more chances to push them to perfect. Not to mention, if it would even be possible.

Maybe when he was Tier 5 he'd find a better way to increase his affinities again.

He sighed and looked back over at the aquamarine gem. Now this was something he had no clue about. Vailon had been purposefully vague about what it did and only told him to use it if he and Seraphyne were at Tier 4.

As he said before, he was fine with not using it, but he also noticed Seraphyne behaving differently than normal.

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She was always a sleeper; that wasn’t out of the ordinary. Still, she was sleeping even more frequently. Not only that, but he could sense a deep-seated fatigue from her. It wasn’t anything too bad, but if anything, he got the feeling that she was holding something back, something from within herself.

And considering that she clammed up the second he mentioned this gem, he was beginning to suspect the two might be related. He’d need to figure that out when he returned to Goldmere. While they hadn’t started out on the most positive of notes, he had begun to truly care for her as his familiar. He’d do whatever was needed to make sure that she was comfortable and safe.

He tucked those thoughts away and the gem back into his void space. At least for the time being, but he promised he'd get that figured out. However, that could wait until he finished cleaning up some of the mess inside his storage.

When he was done, he got some rest. Only once he was completely refreshed did he get up to go deeper into the third floor and continue his work on his void skills.

***

He came across a few other undead monsters. Most of them were skeletons or even the dreaded rabbits. But he was looking for the trolls. They were the strongest monsters in the rift so far, and they also took the best beatings. The skeletons were pretty strong, and there were more of them, but they often couldn’t withstand much damage from him, so they weren’t as fun to train against.

As for the rabbits… Well, they were just annoying little shits. So he created a self-imposed kill-on-sight order. He didn’t even bother to practice his void skills on them.

Luckily for him, the deeper he went into the third floor, the more he realized how much larger it was than the first two floors. It was truly enormous. Not only that, but it almost felt like the floor was purposefully making it difficult to navigate.

His sense of direction was being messed with, and he could have sworn that parts of the floor were shifting even as he explored it.

It was no wonder Leander said it might take him weeks to complete the rift. He’d already explored a lot, but he still didn’t find an end or anything that might lead to the fourth floor.

He did start to come across more troll undead, though, so he was happy about that. He hadn’t found any fruit yet, but he suspected that they would be hidden deeper within the floor. He hoped to find one on the fourth floor, but it would still be nice to see what a third-floor fruit looked like.

After several days of exploring the third floor, he finally found what seemed to be a different area. The concentration of death mana was a vivid contrast compared to the other parts of the floor.

He wiped the undead troll remains from his arms as he approached this new area.

He also took the time to look over the notifications he got over the past few days.

[Void Strike lvl 27 -> lvl 28]

[Void Step lvl 27 -> lvl 28]

[Pseudo Void Manipulation lvl 12 -> lvl 15]

His progress with [Void Strike] and [Void Step] had somewhat flattened out after those initial jumps. It seemed they still needed other insights to gain more levels. Still, another level in each of them was quite substantial. Normally they wouldn’t gain a level despite him training with the skill all night.

However, [Pseudo Void Manipulation] still seemed to be jumping through the ranks. It was leveling at such a scary speed that he was worried he was being scammed or something. He was a firm believer in “too good to be true” and couldn’t help but wonder if there was a hidden downside to receiving all of these levels so quickly.

It wasn’t like he was slacking off or being lazy about it. Far from it. He’d put in a lot of effort over these past few days. But this amount of progress was only something he normally saw if he was beaten within an inch of his life or losing said life.

It didn’t look like much, and he suspected it was only because his fine-tuned senses let him notice it so easily, but a large wall stood hidden behind a group of buildings.

Curious, he went over to examine the wall and immediately took note of the mana coming from it. Not only was there a large amount of death mana, but there were also obvious signs of other enchantments. One of them seemed to primarily focus on shrouding this area.

Though it was partially damaged, so it probably wasn’t working perfectly. Hence the reason why he was able to sense it.

One thing he noted during his exploration of this rift was that this seemed more like a ruined city than a simple village. The buildings, especially now that most of them had some form to them, were pretty well made. He knew it was a rift at the end of the day, but there was definitely more to it than he'd initially thought.

A number of thoughts went through his head as he teleported himself onto the wall. He looked down on the other side, and he was met with an intriguing sight. It was much like the other part of the floor, which meant a large number of buildings lined up along the street.

But the twelve-foot-tall beast wasn’t something he expected. He had no idea how he hadn’t sensed it from the other side of the wall with his spatial perception. It was like the trolls he had come across, but this one seemed like their bigger and meaner older brother.

Its face was also quite in good shape. The other undead all had rotten flesh dangling from their frames and faces, but this one seemed quite intact. The only sign it was undead was the heavy death radiating from it.

It didn’t look like it had noticed him yet; it was sitting silently in an open field just beyond the edge of the tall wall.

Julius wondered what it was doing, but quickly found his answer. Not far from the behemoth of a monster, a tall tree glowed brightly, tucked away in the shade.

It had bone-white branches and bright blue leaves. Each of the leaves was pulsing with barely contained surges of kinetic energy. Truth be told, Julius felt the leaves were more like small explosive nuggets of kinetic energy than simple leaves.

He packed less kinetic energy into some of his constructs than some of these leaves contained. However, he spotted what looked like a slightly larger-than-average kiwi. It was blue, much like the other fruits he had seen so far. But this one didn’t emit any kinetic energy at all.

It was inert. He wouldn’t have suspected it was a special fruit at all if not for his previous experiences with the other fledgling trees.

He furrowed his brows and crouched on the wall as he checked his mana. He had used some mana in the fight with the troll he’d just finished with, and it didn’t seem like the monster had spotted him yet.

So, as a precaution, he took out his blanket and covered his shoulders with it, then pulled out a few cookies. He munched on them as quietly as possible while his mana regenerated.

He had a feeling this monster would be a lot more fun than the other undead, and he didn’t want to cut their playtime short just because he was low on mana. That would just be rude of him to do.

And if there was one thing he learned, it was that he should never be rude to those who were helping him. And this hulking monster was certainly going to be helping him.