Having spent two whole weeks devouring the mountain he is in, Ren Qingquan glanced at the result of his hard work. On the previously green mountain filled with tall trees and many bushes, there is currently a steep cliff caused by him devouring more than half of the mountain. Under the cliff, there is an empty patch of land filled only with grasses and flowers Ren Qingquan purchased from the system. As leaving it empty without any greenery at all will make this place stand out too much compared to the surrounding greeneries, he spent some points gained from devouring to buy a lot of ready to plant grasses. Although a patch of land without any tree is already suspicious enough, it is still much less suspicious compared to a completely bald one.
In terms of income, the amount of points he gained is already more than 200 points. If he includes the points gained from devouring some ferocious beasts, his income in these five days alone is already slightly more than 250 points. The point gained from ferocious beasts being so low is mainly due to the ferocious beasts he met are merely at Martial Master and Martial Apprentice realm. And those beasts seem to have all run away after he swallowed a third of this mountain.
[Name: Ren Qingquan
Realm: First Stage Martial Master
Point: 10
Technique: Body Tempering (Martial Saint)
Skills: Tiger Subduing Palm(Middle),
Agile Step (Middle), Iron Cloth (Low).
System function: Devour, Shop, Scan, Library, Map, Calculate, System Storage (10 cubic meters).]
As Ren Qingquan spent most of his points on upgrading [Devour], the amount of point balance shown in his system panel is only 10 which he left in case of emergency.
Although the points he has are extremely small, the strength of [Devour] has already massively increased. From the previously small range at around a palm capable of causing a small vortex , at one point in time it increased to more than one meter in radius. Not only the size, even its conversion speed has greatly increased.
Taking devouring a tree as an example, the previous speed of [Devour] is akin to eating slowly bit by bit which requires around four to ten minutes to swallow a tree depending on its size. Right now, just by activating [Devour] at the tree's bottom trunks, with the support of gravity the tree will vanish as if swallowed by a portal. The time required has been greatly decreased to around 30 seconds to one minute at most.
What a pity though as at first, the increase on the power of [Devour] is extremely significant. Just tens of points could already more than double its speed of conversion and range, but the stronger it is, the less increase he gets. Although occasionally the power of [Devour] will somehow get a much bigger increase compared to previous upgrade, but that might be him thinking too much.
Due to [Devour]'s power getting too strong, recently Ren Qingquan has even stopped it from devouring air and light which make it stop showing as a small blackhole with vortex and instead just silently causing the item around one meter of his body part, depending on which body part he use to activate [Devour] to silently disappear from existence. Which is to be honest, much scarier than a blackhole surrounded by wind vortex. At least, a blackhole will show you how those things disappeared.
Previously, when the range of [Devour] is still small. The blackhole like darkess is also extremely small which make it merely seems like a shadow in his body part due to the light. But now, having an increasingly bigger blackhole everytime he activated [Devour] is extremely eyecatching.
As for the reason Ren Qingquan stopped [Devour] to swallow air, it is due to the lack of breath he experienced. As a Martial Master, he still needs air to breathe and live. Scratch that, he thinks even Martial Emperors still need air to breath and live. Otherwise, once the radius of [Devour] reached his mouth, it will suck the air surrounding him and cause him to suffocate.
Actually not only air and light, when the radius of [Devour] had yet to reach one meter radius, it also caused a whirlwind that almost swallowed his slightly too big Martial Spirit Sect disciple's robe that came together with his residence. Which just shows how lazy the Martial Spirit Sect is in regard to their uniform as it seems they choose the one size fit all approach.
Due to the martial centric custom of peoples in the Great Azure Empire or even the whole continent. They don't have the habit of wearing sandals or shoes because it is accepted as showing a sign of weakness. Which make him failed to realize the possibility of [Devour] skill swallowing his clothings when he devoured the previous ferocious beasts corpses using his bare feet.
At first, he thought anything he used will automatically turn into exception from [Devour]'s swallowing. Just like how it couldn't swallow him as he have the will to ressist it. Now he think about it, Ren Qingquan also added the restriction in [Devour] to not swallow himself. Who knows, he might get accidentally swallowed once the ability reached higher level, which is no joking matter.
The current Ren Qingquan's robe actually has a torn sleeve and quite a big hole near his stomach after his robe got pulled by the air sucked by [Devour] causing some part to enter its swallowing range.
Learning from that lesson, Ren Qingquan stopped [Devour] from swallowing clothes and anything he wore in general.
As he already swallowed half of the mountain for two week straight, Ren Qingqian chose to spend some time resting and lazing around. Pulling his trusted 2x2x2 metal shelter from system storage, Ren Qingquan started to chat with the system while reading novels stored in system space.
'System, you called that function of yours as calculate and not skill upgrade. Does that mean there is another use for that function?'
[Ding! Yes, the calculate function could be used to calculate anything within its capability. Host may also upgrade the calculation function to increase its ability.]
'Then, could you calculate how long it would take to completely devour this mountain?'
[without increase in devour, a week. If you spend all points on increasing devour’s capability, around 5 days.]
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
After resting for a moment, Ren Qingquan continued his work with increased efficiency. This time, except for sleeping, eating, and answering nature's call, he spent all of his time working to devour the mountain.
In just slightly more than 5 days, Ren Qingquan successfully turned this mountain into a flat plain. Together with this mountain's disappearance, Ren Qingquan also gained 200 additional points which once again he spent entirely to upgrade the [Devour] function.
This time, Ren Qingquan stopped choosing a mountain based on his whim. He chose to ask the system about which mountain will have higher efficiency at devouring and will get less attention when devoured
'System, didn't you say your [Calculate] function could be used to calculate many things? How about you help me choose my target? Help me choose a mountain with higher energy content but wouldn't catch too much attention upon disappearing.'
[Ding! Calculating. For more accurate data, the host is required to walk around the area while activating the scan.]
Ren Qingquan followed the system's needs and started to wander around. After spending four whole hours circling around the mountain turned plain, a new notification from the system finally sounded.
[Calculation result is out. System has detected a suitable mountain for the host to devour. It has been marked in the system map. The mountain is located south, near a small flat area which will make it camouflage into the surrounding area upon being devoured. According to the scan, the further south it is, the higher the average energy content a mountain has.]
Alright, then let's go south!
[Warning! Please be careful to not enter the inner area of Endless Mountain accidentally as it is also located at the south.]
Alright then. Let's return to work!
Just like that, Ren Qingquan has spent two whole months traveling the Endless Mountain. Right now, his current victim count has reached a staggering amount of 4 mountains. The size of his [Devour] already reached more than four meters in range. Probably reaching five meters after he devoured the next mountain.
With the increase in his experience of devouring mountains, accompanied by the increase in the size of his [Devour], Ren Qingquan could now devour a medium mountain similar in size to the first mountain he devoured which probably had a height of less than 300 meters in less than 3 days.
To be honest, Ren Qingquan doesn't know whether that thing counted as a mountain or a hill instead. But this place is called Endless Mountain and not Endless Hill or Endless Mound so, he will stick with calling them mountains.
Following the system's advice, he walked further south and finally arrived near the border of the Endless Mountain's inner section.
With the help of his partner in crime, the system, he finally selected a mountain as his next victim. It is a small mountain that is much smaller than the first mountain he devoured. Probably less than 100 meters in height, which might only require the current Ren Qingquan to spend several hours.
While hiking the mountain to search for a comfortable area to start his journey to swallow this mountain, he actually detected a group of ferocious beasts consisting of two Martial Grandmaster beasts, six Martial Master beasts, and dozens of Martial Apprentice beasts.
Walking stealthily toward their location using Agile Step, he could see a pack of wolves with a pair of huge 2 meter tall wolves which looked like its commander.
'From the dangling thing under one of the wolves, it seems one of them is male while the other one is female?'
While thinking about some random thing, he also prepared his trusted weapon. The metal plate with a spike has increased in size and weight due to him leaving the metallic content while devouring those mountains and combining them with his weapon. As both Grandmaster Wolf are separated quite far away from each other, Ren Qingquan immediately walked stealthily toward the male wolf Grandmaster.
With a sudden dash using Agile Step, Ren Qingquan immediately jumped and released the now 20 tons metal plate spike.
Before the male wolf could sense anything, he stepped hard into the metal plate. The wolf, seemingly detecting the sky darkened above it raised its head which is the last thing it did in its life.
*Boom*
*Caw caw*
A massive explosion accompanied by the sound of fleeting birds finally made the wolf pack realize their missing leader. With a howl that spread to the surrounding mountain, the wolf quickly gathered toward their leader's killer.
*Awooo*
As the recently widowed female Grandmaster wolf howled to command her pack, Ren Qingquan quickly stored his weapon in [Storage]
Just like playing whack-a-mole, Ren Qingquan stored and released the metal plate and squished the surrounding wolves into meat paste.
*Boom*
*Boom*
*Boom*
Hearing the consecutive explosive sound, the female wolf started to sense danger and tried to escape.
Unwilling to let his points run away, Ren Qingquan quickly chased after it. But, with another howl of that female wolf, the surrounding survivors of the wolf pack quickly blocked his path.
As Ren Qingquan saw the Female Grandmaster wolf run further and further, he got angry and released his anger toward the surrounding surviving wolves. Smashing them until there is no survivor left, Ren Qingquan started to devour their corpses leaving only their hearts.
Although many of those wolves got their heart pierced by the spiky part of the metal plate or squeezed by the metal plate until it exploded. Luckily the Wolf leader's heart, which is more precious, is still intact. Storing all of them in [Storage], Ren Qingquan lost his mood to travel and started to devour the mountain right there.
Just like he expected. In just eight hours, the mountain has successfully been devoured and his [Devour] actually reached 6 meters in range due to the additional points gained from the wolf pack. With this, Ren Qingquan feels the power of [Devour] is already huge enough and will start to spend his points to increase his martial arts realm and enter the inner section of Endless Mountain to devour better mountains.
***
Consciousness Space
Actually the occasional massive upgrade in the so-called [Devour] ability is my work. I also understood the theory of spending money to generate more money. So, I also spent some of my personal energy to upgrade my [Absorb] skills which I renamed to [Devour] for Ren Qingquan because it sounds cooler. Due to that, the amount of points I currently have only increased a bit
Also, thanks to Ren Qingquan slowly upgrading the [Absorb] skill, I actually found out that its speed of energy conversion could actually increase.
In case one is confused, the points Ren Qingquan spent to upgrade the so-called [Devour] function actually goes to my [Absorb] skill before causing an increase on every [Absorb] skill I give to things anchored to me. As every anchored skill is connected to each other with me as its core, It also caused the stones I previously anchored in the rivers to have an increasingly stronger suction force. Making my daily income to actually multiply by 8.
Damn it, this whole devouring and absorbing thing makes me confused. Let's change the name of absorb skill in my panel to devour too.
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
[Name: System
Skills: [Storage], [Transfer], [Calculate], [Devour], [Scan], [Create], [Anchor]
Energy: 17 700
Daily income: 80 Energy]