Undying Warlord

After Dilan collected all Essence crystals, he found something near Pyro's corpse that attracted his attention.

Dilan reached out for a small bright red gleaming object. It was terrifyingly hot and increased the temperature in the immediate surrounding by several degrees.

But even if that would be enough to scare others, Dilan picked up the searing hot marble he had found.

"Just what is that…?"

Dilan was extremely confused. He couldn't absorb the marble and didn't dare to do something foolish such as consuming it, either.

He could clearly sense that it would burn him alive if he were to try swallowing the marble.

Burning from the inside out was not something Dilan wanted to ever feel in his life.

As such, he spent a few minutes calming his mind before his focus returned to the marble.

"This marble must have dropped from Pyro…but why?"

Because the marble had been lying right next to Pyro's body, Dilan could be quite certain that it manifested after Pyro died.

There was also the low possibility that Pyro possessed the searing hot marble while he was alive but Dilan didn't believe so.

Somehow, he thought that Pyro wouldn't have died so easily if he were to be able to utilize the marble's powers, whatever they were, properly.

But that was only something his gut feeling suggested to him and it was not as if Dilan could be 100% sure.

"Is it because of the Origin ability? That's probably it.'

He nodded his head but quickly averted his focus once again.

There was no way for him to find out what exactly the marble could do. That meant Dilan was merely capable of storing the blazing marble away for now, which was also quite a hassle as it was hot enough to burn through ordinary clothes.

Fortunately, storing it worked after Dilan experimented with a few things for a while.

Afterward, he could focus on absorbing all Essence crystals which he had piled up in the center of the room.

There were only two special Essence crystals in the entire pile. One of them was Silver in color, while the other one was Golden!

A Golden Essence crystal!

It was the first time for Dilan to see such an Essence crystal and it was quite difficult for him to hide his shock.

'If I remember correctly that was Pyro's Essence crystal, right? But even if he picked an Extraordinary Ancient Path of Advancement, is that already enough to improve an Essence crystal's quality to such an extent?'

While Tier-1 Silver Essence crystals were already filled to the brim with highly potent Essence, the Golden Essence crystal he stared at was several times purer in terms of quality.

Not only was the Essence purer but there was also far more Essence compressed within the Golden Essence crystal.

'Is that also owed to Pyro's Origin ability?'

In the end, Dilan didn't know what requirements one had to meet to possess a higher-ranked Essence crystal.

If he were to be honest, it would be quite interesting to find out more about the Essence crystals' secrets.

But even if he were to know more about Essence crystals, it was not as if many things would change.

Dilan could always perceive if an opponent was too powerful for him to defeat, or if it was possible for him to fight against an opponent head-on.

For this special case, it didn't really matter whether his opponent was an ordinary Tier-1 monster at the peak of its capabilities, or a somewhat low-level Tier-1 Gold monster.

It was also the reason for Dilan to simply stop bothering about it as he absorbed the pile of Essence crystals in front of him.

[1 <Golden>, 1 <Silver>, 34 <Bronze>, and 167 Ordinary Tier-1 Essences have been absorbed→ +6.5 Strength, +3.1 Health, +2.8 Stamina, +5.4 Agility, +8.2 Mana]

[Essence pool has been filled. Host reached level 1(Tier-1)! +1.0 Status points can be allocated!]

[Essence pool has been filled. Host reached level 2(Tier-1)! +1.0 Status points can be allocated!]

Seeing how much his stats had been boosted, Dilan could clearly understand how beneficial it was to hunt down humans.

For a moment, he even forgot the fact that he had finally leveled up, twice at that! In fact, he was close to leveling up a third time as his Essence pool was already filled to 80%.

But that was not important right now!

Due to the Blessed Curse [Will of the Primordial] Dilan would only receive a tenth of the status other Ascenders received by absorbing Essence crystals, yet, the status points he gained just now exceeded 25 Units!

That meant if a single individual were to kill 200 Tier-1 humans Ascenders, they would receive over 250 status points!

Contrary to monsters, human Ascenders seemed to provide fewer status points per individual but the fact that each of them provided status points made up for this.

Chills ran down Dilan's spine as he thought about the possibility of humans hunting down their own kind just to earn status points as quickly as possible.

'Well, under normal circumstances, it shouldn't be possible for anyone to hunt 200 Tier-1 Ascenders while being a low-leveled Tier-1 Ascender by oneself. The advantages I have simply exceed the norm, making it a rare occurrence…'

Dilan didn't want to think too highly about himself. This was simply useless and would only make him overconfident. Thus, he began thinking about a few more points.

'For now, everyone's combat experience, and proficiency with abilities is low as well. That is also why it's possible for us to advance so quickly… At Tier-1, monsters are slightly more cunning and intelligent compared to those at Tier-0.

While monsters would gain intelligence, human Ascenders would gain more experience with mana, fighting, and abilities the further they ascended, and the more often they fought while risking their life…

That means the difficulty level would steadily increase the higher one advanced… and humans would be considered the best resources for monsters…and other Ascenders to gain strength."

Dilan could already imagine communities that numbered in the thousands and would be considered a perfect target to be hunted down.

He knew that Tier-0 Essence crystals were less useful for Tier-1 existences but even then, they never lost their entire value.

If a single powerful monster or human Ascender would be capable of hunting and annihilating entire human communities, their strength would increase by leaps and bounds.

This thought was frightening, even more so because Dilan had no idea how the situation outside Rian looked like.

The only thing he knew was that a temple in which two races lived was nearby, and that was certainly not something he was happy about…

Scratching the back of his head, he thought in frustration.

"What should I do?"