Chapter 782: Shameless

He looked down at the troll as it struggled to rise. As powerful as its regeneration skill was, it had an obvious limit. Julius had already eviscerated the monster’s body a few dozen times.

While he did feel a little bad for the undead creature, it was a perfect opportunity to experiment with his void energy and his new Concept of Space. With its help, he was able to test his newfound void slash technique a few more times, along with some other ideas.

However, he focused most on his remote void explosion attack. Unfortunately, his new attack had one major downside. The [Phoenix’s Mark] that he used to anchor the spatial fold and void energy was destroyed each time he ruptured it.

That meant he was forced to reestablish a mark for each attack. He wasn’t able to find a way around this either. Not if he wanted to actually damage the troll in any meaningful way. Without the localized explosion, the troll would receive some void damage, but not enough to actually cause any debilitation.

Fortunately for him, he could create multiple marks. Not only that, but since he wasn’t planning to keep them active for long, he could make simpler, less powerful versions. This enabled him to create more marks than he normally could.

He had already placed one on Lily just in case. Still, this meant he had enough to place around four marks on the troll before he ran into issues.

Surprisingly, one of the issues was because of the troll itself. He suspected that he could only place so many marks onto a single target. Whether that was a limitation of the material or general size, he wasn’t sure. He’d been to experiment with that later.

As he said before, he felt bad for doing this to the beast. But to be fair, the troll’s hostility hadn’t really lessened at all. It didn’t try to run away or to stop fighting him. However, seeing the poor creature exhausted, and likely out of mana, kinetic energy, and stamina, it was time to put an end to it.

He looked over at the ragged form of the undead troll,

That all being said, he got some really nice levels out of it.

[Pseudo Void Manipulation lvl 18 -> lvl 19]

[Phoenix’s Mark lvl 10 -> lvl 12]

[Absolute Spatial Perception lvl 26 -> lvl 27]

It was nice to see his perception skill go up a level. It was always one of his most difficult skills to level up, despite it being one of his most used.

[Phoenix’s Mark] wasn’t a surprise to see an increase, though.

Still, the additional level in his newest void skill certainly made his heart happy. He didn’t really mess with rare skills nowadays, but even he knew that this level of progress was abnormal. He wondered if it had something to do with the skill itself. Or if it had to do with his spatial affinity.

Alice had talked to him about it before, and she made it clear that nothing like natural spatial mana existed. Some people were more inclined to spatial magic than others. For example, that was the reason why he had acquired the special variation of [Spatial Perception] as his first skill.

So it was possible that he was seeing this level of growth because of his unique affinity to spatial magic.

Maybe I am talented, he said to himself jokingly.

He did note that he hadn’t been able to get that last level in [Pseudo Void Manipulation] though. It had been almost an hour since he got the last level-up notification. He’d hoped he could push it past the threshold, but maybe he was being greedy.

Getting a rare skill to level 19 in a few days was already amazing. He knew most people who would have killed to get a single rare skill to that point in a year. Though he figured most people didn’t push themselves as he had over the past several days.

To be fair, they probably couldn’t even if they wanted to. His healing ability and stronger soul gave him advantages they couldn’t match, even with an army of healers or a warehouse full of healing potions. His previous experience with all of his epic and legendary skills also probably played a big part in his accelerated progression.

He heard a grunt and turned back around to see the troll still trying to get back up to its knees. Sadly for the undead creature, its knees had been blown off, and without fuel for regeneration, it was healing at a snail’s pace.

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Julius gave it a low bow.

“Thanks for your help,” he said sincerely.

All he got in response was a glare full of malice, though he couldn’t blame it. He had essentially tortured the beast for the past couple of hours just to improve his skills. He knew that this troll was just a monster created by the rift, much like the trolls he encountered in his first rift, but perhaps he had gone too far.

He was just thinking when a burst of death aura tried to hit him in the back. The sickly, disgusting aura weakened, but it still made his spine shiver.

Okay, maybe this thing is just evil, he thought, grimacing.

Seeing no reason to keep it alive anymore, he quickly activated the final mark he had placed on the troll. This one had been placed on its head, and after sending a pulse of void energy into the mark, it quickly surged with power. Purple void energy flickered around the edges of the mark and the spatial fold. But there was nothing the troll could do to remove the mark.

Then, with a massive crack, the space around the troll's head buckled and collapsed in on itself. All that was left was a smoldering crater where the head had once been. The troll’s body fell limply to the ground; no vital signs remained. Only some slight fluctuations of aura, but he reckoned that was just what remained of the troll’s aura ability.

He kept an eye on it, though; you would never know if a troll was really dead. They were monsters at regenerating from fatal wounds. Only once the aura settled and faded away did he relax. The troll was finally dead, which meant he could go over to the tree the creature had been guarding.

Like the other kinetic fruit trees, this exuded profound waves of force. However, unlike the other trees, this one was obviously more mature and hence, more valuable.

He was tempted to grab the fruit and consume it. Leander was pretty darn sure a fruit on the third level would be enough to increase his kinetic affinity, and that a fruit from the fourth floor wouldn’t give him much more benefit. At least not enough to jump it to perfect.

Perhaps if he was still at Tier 3, it would be possible. But alas, he was a Tier 4, and the fruit’s effectiveness wasn’t as potent.

Still, he planned to explore the fourth level, and so he held off. It was hard, though. The fruit looked pretty damn delicious. All of his instincts and extensive experience in the world of culinary delight told him that this fruit would be extremely tasty.

It would be a waste, though, and so with a heavy heart he left it behind.

He did end up spotting something else off in the distance. The wall had already separated this district from the previous one, but the courtyard where the troll had been created another divide.

Beyond this divide was a thick line of trees. But past these trees was a much nicer collection of buildings. These ones were almost completely intact. Their style was a little different, too. In fact, he didn’t think that this was a different district. He believed that this might have been some sort of school or sect.

All the buildings reminded him of places he'd seen at the Burning Sun Sect or at Goldencrest. He spotted banners with a blue swirling vortex inside a triangle, placed all around the buildings. He also felt a lot of kinetic energy coming from this area.

Curious, he quickly headed over there. However, as he was walking through the treeline, he came across a weird barrier. He stopped right before the barrier and realized it was the source of much of the kinetic energy he'd been feeling.

It was interesting because he had never really come across any barriers that were created using kinetic energy like this. He'd seen a few when he was at the Shattered Winter School, but even then, most of the time, it was an add-on or a secondary enchantment. From what he could sense, this barrier was almost entirely made up of kinetic energy.

He couldn’t help but wonder what it was for or how it was made.

He got closer and placed his hand on the barrier's surface. To his surprise, a message greeted him.

Would you like to enter the Fourth Floor?

Julius frowned and was about to say yes, but he held himself back. As much as he wanted to, he should probably regenerate some mana first. His experimentation with the troll had almost depleted his mana pool, and he didn’t want to use mana potions.

Not when his blanket and some snacks would do an even better job.

So he found a nice tree and some shade, then sat down on his blanket. The mana-regenerating effect was already helping him fill up his mana pool. Then he took out a few snacks. His lunchbox had so many more options now that it had evolved, so that meant he could choose whatever he really wanted.

Deciding he wanted something a little more filling, he picked out a chicken cutlet sandwich.

He cradled the warm sandwich and grinned widely. The lunchbox was truly his favorite item. It was already amazing before, but now that it had evolved, it was truly a god-tier item.

He unwrapped the sandwich and gazed at the breathtaking golden-brown crust of the breaded, fried chicken cutlet. Little specks of herbs dotted the cutlet's surface, and the smell was absolutely mouthwatering.

The smell must have been so alluring that Drasil smelled it through his soul space. The little glutton appeared right in Julius’s lap, and before he could say anything, the tiny spirit was already nibbling on the other half of the sandwich.

Julius sat there in disbelief.

“Seriously?” he asked Drasil.

The little guy looked straight up, craning his neck to see Julius.

His adorable mouth was covered in crumbs, and he let out a confused coo, as if he had no idea what Julius was talking about.

“Shameless,” he muttered, but quickly started to gobble up the other half before it was too late. He already knew what would happen if he waited for Drasil to finish his half.