Since, on this planet, one thought could kill many, humans didn't study nuclear reactions. Or much of the sciences that caused the revolution back on Earth possible.

Here, the world labeled those matters as inefficient and wasteful. And they indeed were when compared to the alternative available. So, they instead focused on developing methods that use this world's unique energy to alter everything else.

From the beginning, the killing didn't need some gunpowder, nor did people need nuclear power to destroy cities. And even an electrical grid wasn't necessary for quality of life improvements.

The same happened to almost everything else. In one way or another, the handy nature of Spirit Energy had made much of Earth's top technology obsolete in comparison.

However, despite his attack being inefficient, Ben still used it. And that was because such an attack was always highly unexpected.

The world focused on learning, refining, and preparing against Spirit-induced technology. So when any protective system received a pure physical blast, everyone would be surprised.

'Ha! Take that, bastards! Their heart must have at least skipped a beat. And this, throwing money away, always feels so exhilarating. Some things never change.' Ben thought as he glanced at the fortune burnt.

Perhaps his actions were wasteful, but Ben still felt much satisfaction, so a big smile surfaced as his mood improved.

'I would like to send a little eye with it to see what outcome my gift produced... But I'll never know. Alright, focus!'

He, again, started to pick things around. Then, he moved to the center of the explosion. A black pattern appeared on his hand as it moved toward the exploded device. From within the broken stuff, Ben picked a horn-like object.

'Really!?' He thought, surprised.

Even if this object was the only thing he ended up stealing, his actions would still be worth it because the black and blue horn was the remains of an apex creature.

'Remains of a Lord of Space! How could this be? The gluttons are too much! Were they using this to connect many scenes like this? What the?'

Since they were using such a high-level monster, the ritual must be much larger than Ben initially expected.

'The blast must have taken the fragile artifact by surprise, breaking the horn. But if I can pick such a thing, would that indicate that the system uses a whole head or even a complete body? No one would ever use such treasure this way if they didn't have more or weren't aiming for something catastrophic. Which apex organization is moving like that? I thought some major shift would take at least forty or fifty thousand years or need some extreme disruption to appear suddenly. But neither of those happened yet. Everything has been quite calm. Too calm. Was it only superficial?'

While giggling, Ben broke down any residues from the prior owner. Many engravings appeared around the horn, washing it from any external restriction.

With this surprise, everything else became secondary, and a shadow of worry appeared on Ben's mind.

'I should move faster.'

He stored the horn in his chest area, disconnecting it from the outside. Then, he quickly picked a few more ordinary things.

But while he wanted to sit down and rest a bit, he still kept moving.

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'Lucky no one appeared!'

When coming here, Ben was going to loot everything he could. But since he saw so much, he destroyed some of it to pay back the gluttons. From the beginning, Ben felt very uncomfortable due to his tight connection to nature, so when given the opportunity, he didn't hesitate.

"I want to be bored... How could I feel like this?"

Ben looked at his dirt body and stood up. Then, he moved further away while checking the new stuff on the ring.

Behind, Ben left some tiny Spirit Energy Noise Array engraved in cheap Spirit stones. While they alone would do little, linking them could diverge people's attention. Ben had prepared a lot of those after treating Eloise.

'Having a bit of expensive and useful stuff truly makes everything easier. I feel like I'll get spoiled, craving to never lose such extensive space...'

Unfortunately, the reality won't change so smoothly. If anything happened where Ben lost the ring, he would be left again with only the limited space in his chest. And he felt it was just a question of when and not if.

"Staying around that guy, I don't think things will be peaceful."

While moving out, Ben kept burning and getting rid of everything that fell off him. So he backtracked the whole way back. But he also made sure to disperse the small arrays around randomly.

The black marks on his body receded. While careful, Ben disabled some expensive techniques.

'Why do so many try to chew too much? Can they even do anything if the world ends sooner? What do they gain? Nature can only do so much...'

Questions arose one after another inside Ben's head. Although people were greedy creatures, it was rare to see such destruction.

Since everything around had lost its primitive soul-like energy core, they should all dry out over a few months. Or maybe even less. They'll all wither simultaneously, leaving nothing behind.

"A new sterile land... Doomed to become barren, maybe even forever. But I wonder why they left such a thing unguarded."

While it was outside his power to save this region, he stopped the ritual and caused some level of damage to the group behind it.

Sometimes that was all it took for an organization to lose against its peers. And if they could still make it, there was nothing more he could do.

Indeed, if they were all-powerful, the only solution was for everyone to throw their bodies at them. A single individual would amount to almost nothing. So, at this moment, Ben could only make a few bets and act accordingly later.

While Ben was spreading his Noise Array around, he suddenly stopped as he got closer to one of the pit's edges. Due to his good mood, he didn't retrieve his sense completely, and it caught something else.

< "Maybe I should rob his hair... A bit of his blood, perhaps. Or. Would they still consider me an ally if I cut one of his feet? And treat it like a rabbit's lucky feet?" >

Since the new surprise was something he was familiar with, Ben readily recognized it. Therefore, he took a nut-like seed from his ring and placed it on the floor.

Then, he stepped a bit back. Once he was a few steps away, he did the same. And a third time. And fourth.

Once he was further away, something moved from inside the lake of dead bodies.

A small animal jumped from the pit and picked the nut. Immediately, it started to munch on it. Before it even finished eating the first, it ran towards the second nut and picked it up. Then the third and fourth, before arriving at Ben's feet.

The bloodied squirrel looked at Ben while trying to munch at everything in its hand. Due to its rapid motions, a few nuts kept falling, but it quickly picked them up again and continued eating. The cycle repeated a few times, but the little animal stared at Ben, asking for more.

Ben crouched and put another fruit before it, looking at it with skeptical eyes.

"Mutated Golden Squirrel. Whatcha doin'?"

Ben was very familiar with this mutated species. He used them before as a source of inspiration. And that research helped him tremendously.

Golden Squirrel had nothing unusual going for them. They lived throughout the continent, but their population wasn't enormous. They didn't have high cultivation abilities or produce any material humans sought. At best, they had high intelligence compared to their level of power.

Nevertheless, Ben heard tales of some mutating to have impressive characteristics. Some of their mutated members could feign death to an astounding precision. And because the subject intrigued him, he decided to study the species.

After he researched them, the results became a good part of the foundation of what today was Ben's ability to manipulate his body extensively. This study case helped Ben break through the hurdle of formulating something more practical.

"You're quite good at it if you deceived the ritual. You're on my top 5 list, incredible!"

While Ben talked to it, the squirrel couldn't hold all the food given to him and began showing signs of annoyance.

"You're lucky. Since I own your species so much, I can get you a nice little place to live. How about it? Do you have nowhere to go?"