"Are there still monsters around here?" Ciel asked the Dark Crow.

The bird answered while gazing at the dune that was taller than the others. "Behind the dune there is a valley, there are many Monsters there!"

"Then we'll be there," Ciel said.

He entered his shadow before moving up the dune.

After having experience moving using shadows, he finally knew that it was much more convenient, efficient, and fast. He would prefer it that way if no one was around.

Climbing the dune did not make him feel tired at all. It only took a few minutes before he arrived at the top of the dune.

His head popped out of his shadow, surveying the valley below.

There is a small lake in the middle of the valley. Various types of monsters consisting of dogs, pigs, ostriches, kangaroos, surrounded it and drank the water.

Ciel counted their number, which turned out to be over thirty. Some looked stronger than the previous lizards.

"So many, I don't know if I can kill them all," Ciel said.

He approached stealthily and stopped beside a boulder, hiding there.

Dark Crow didn't hide at all, it landed on the boilder.

Even though the monsters were aware of its existence, they didn't care about it at all.

Ciel only needed a moment to decide which monsters he would attack first.

At this moment, a bone tip appeared on each finger of his hands, looking ready to slide.

Whoosh!

Ciel waved his hand.

The Shadow Lizard jumped out and dashed towards the horde of monsters.

They looked surprised and confused when they saw the body of the lizard.

However, when the lizard suddenly jumped up while opening its mouth, they were immediately alert, knowing that this one was coming to cause trouble.

Among monsters, conflicts were not uncommon, even more so than humans.

Ciel came out of his shadow as the attention of the monsters focused on the Shadow Lizard.

Each of his fingers then pointed at the shadow of each monster he targeted.

Swish! Swish! Swish!

The bones in his fingers immediately slid, fast enough to keep up with the wind.

Each headed towards the heart of the shadows.

In just a few seconds, they penetrated them.

Ciel smiled faintly as he heard the screams of the monsters. He said, "ten in one fell swoop!"

Even though his energy was drained quite a bit, the results were just as satisfying.

'Ten is definitely not enough to reach the first rank, but what about twenty or thirty?' Ciel wondered because he wasn't sure about the other members.

Two hours might be a long time, but no one could kill a monster as easily as him.

Roar! Roar!

Several monsters roared at Ciel the moment they saw him.

The deaths of some of their friends clearly left them confused.

Whoosh!

Ciel responded by lunging towards them. A long bone that looked like a spear appeared in his hand in a position ready to be thrown.

Guok!

A yellow dog came forward while barking at Ciel.

It is twice as fast as Ciel.

When it arrived about 3 meters from Ciel, it jumped into the air. Its fingernails came out which turned out to be long enough to penetrate Ciel's body.

"Hmm!" Ciel stabbed his bone into the dog's face which it easily dodged.

However, it caused its direction to deviate slightly from Ciel's.

Another bone appeared in Ciel's hand, he quickly stabbed the bone into the dog's shadow.

"Ouckkk!!!" It immediately screamed before falling.

Once again, the other monsters were confused.

Taking advantage of their carelessness, Ciel jumped into the air.

His gaze moved left and right, searching for the most vulnerable shadows.

After that, he threw ten more bones, just like before.

This time, some of the monsters moved quickly to dodge so that some of the bones didn't manage to hit the heart area. In the end, only five died, three only visibly injured as Ciel only managed to strike in non-vital areas. Two even managed to survive unharmed.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Both are kangaroos, which do benefit quite a bit from their long jumps.

Just as Ciel landed after he unleashed an attack, a yellow snake suddenly burst out from underground and lunged at him. It was quite large, about five meters long.

On its fangs, Ciel saw a clear yellow liquid, which somehow made his eyes sting.

However, he chose not to dodge.

The Shadow Lizard not far from him spat out sand, forming a wall beside him.

The snake's head finally hit the wall.

Since it was too fast, the impact of the impact was obviously very strong. It looked dizzy.

Whoosh!

The lizard pounced, biting its body, which was instantly cut under the clasps of its teeth.

Ciel was amazed at the movement of the lizard, making him want to make another one.

But he knew that he needed to hold back. The next Shadow Slave he made had to be from a fairly unique monster.

...

1 hour later, Ciel had already managed to collect 30 Monster Life Cores.

He could have gathered more if it weren't for the fact that he was already exhausted.

In a small cave formed from a rock array, he sat leisurely, looking at the Life Cores he had gathered one by one.

After a moment of thought, he finally threw one Core into his mouth.

Immediately after that his body emitted light, which was then absorbed again by his body.

He then looked at his stats, which unfortunately didn't increase at all.

"I've improved too much, the Life Core of an ordinary monster doesn't work anymore." He sighed.

"By the way, do you want it too?" He looked at the Dark Crow while showing him a Core.

However, the black bird suddenly shook its head, looking disgusted.

"What's wrong with this?" Ciel was confused.

“I eat ordinary food, but as for the Life Core, I will only consume the Core of a Monster King at a minimum,” it replied.

Ciel rolled his eyes hearing that.

Monster Kings were extremely rare, and of course, very hard to kill because each one was the best of its kind.

After about 15 minutes, Ciel stood up, stuffed all the cores into his pouch while the Dark Crow entered his body. He then stepped out of the cave, staring at the sky that had not changed at all.

Beside the cave, he even made a sign of where he should go to return.

Forgetting the way is possible and it's definitely dangerous, especially in a Dungeon which is very large.

Ciel took a step following the sign he made.

He was just walking leisurely, deliberately slowing down so he wouldn't arrive too soon.

However, when he finally made it back, he found that many people had already returned.

Almost all of them looked exhausted.

He was quite attention-grabbing because when he came, there was no one else around.

Anna went straight to him, she asked, "how many Cores have you collected?"

Ciel had consumed one Core, so he replied, "29!"

"You?" Anna froze and her lips parted.

Several people near them also showed the same reaction after hearing what Ciel said.

The latter only paused for a moment, he then stepped towards the portal because he saw people showing the Cores they collected to the Soldiers there.

Meanwhile, Anna who continued to follow him spoke again. "Do you know, the current number one only collected 11 Cores, how did you collect so many?"

"A bit of luck," he answered purposely so that people could speculate on their own.

After hearing that, some said, "perhaps he has found a pile of monster corpses whose essence is still left behind!"

That's the widely agreed opinion because it seems like that's all that's possible.

However, some people feel that it is unfair.

"Will that count too?" They wonder.

"I don't think there are any rules against that," replied another.

As soon as Ciel arrived in front of the portal, one of the soldiers there approached him. He said, "show me all the Cores you've collected!"

Even though only the soldier's eyes were visible, Ciel found that he also looked curious.

He nodded lightly, stuffing his hands into his pockets before taking out all the Cores.

The soldier took them and counted them one by one.

After confirming their number, he handed them over to Ciel again.

"You're currently in first place," he said, taking out a piece of paper and writing something on it.

Ciel guessed all the Cores collected would still belong to the collector, so he kept them again in his pocket.

A few moments later, several more people came.

Surprisingly enough, the last one to arrive turned out to be Bella.

The condition looks very bad. Although she didn't have any serious injuries, many parts of her clothes were torn off, exposing her white skin.

She gave up all the Cores she got, but despite returning last, she only managed to collect 5 Cores.

People don't make fun of her for that. Some even seemed to praise her. She was clearly a rookie, so being able to gather 5 Cores in less than 2 hours proved that she was more determined than the others.

"Okay, now all of you can get out," said the soldier in charge of gathering the Cores.

In the previous basement, Erik was still waiting. He sits relaxed, smoking while playing ball games on his cell phone.

Seeing the people returning, he casually signaled the soldiers to approach.

The paper that recorded the rankings of the people was handed over to him.

As he read the paper, he looked surprised. His gaze quickly fell on Ciel.

"Interesting," he said in a low voice.

Ciel showed no concern because even if he opened his thought notes again, he would only find notes written by Dark Crow.

"You've won with a result far above the others, maybe I need to give you an additional reward," he said.

It made some people stare at Ciel with envy.

After that, Erik took out a bottle, filled with a slightly transparent black liquid.

"This is the additional reward, it will be very useful later," he said.

Whoosh!

He threw the bottle at Ciel.

The latter stared at the bottle while listening to Dark Crow's voice.

'Boss, this is the antidote!'

'I shouldn't need this anymore, right?' asked Ciel.

'Yes!'

"What's that?" Anna suddenly asked.

Unfortunately Ciel didn't give her a chance to observe, he put it in his pocket.

His gaze returned to Erik, waiting for him to give the competition prize.

Apart from him, there are also Jhon and Liem.

The former won second place while the latter won third.

Even though they couldn't be said to be special and fell into this organization due to a very disgraceful thing, they had experience above the rest.

Erik took out three aluminum suitcases from under his chair.

This time, he approached Ciel and handed over one of the suitcases directly. He did the same to John and Liem.

Under the gazes of the people, the three of them opened the suitcase.

Inside Liem's suitcase was a knife, silver in color, which gave off a faint glow. It's the same for John's suitcase, but the knife is a little longer.

As for Ciel's suitcase, there was a pistol.

It was transparent, appearing to be made of glass.

Inside the barrel, there was a mass of light that seemed to condense.

"Wow." Anna beside Ciel let out an amazed voice. She said, "The G-723 Laser Pistol, the latest imported item that is said to be able to penetrate even the walls of Military Spaceships. A lot of big shots want it only to fail."

Not everyone knew what pistol it was, but Anna's words took them by surprise.

It should be known that Military Spaceships can withstand nuclear explosions, so the gun's power is really far above nuclear even though its attack zone is only a speck of dust compared to nuclear.

No one thought that it was a gift that Erik would give.

Jhon and Liem showed expressions of regret for not fighting harder.

Even though the knifes they got were also external, they couldn't be said to be rare items.

For Liem who was from an Elite Family, buying one wasn't really a problem.

Of course, Ciel didn't think he could use the gun at any time because each use would require a lot of energy.

"Let's go!" Erik waved his hand.

He walked back to the previous hallway.

Ciel and the others followed him again.

The first one felt a little uncomfortable because he was still being stared at by many people, including Bella who obviously just found out that he was in first place.