Victor took a deep breath, steadying himself as he prepared to test his new power and abilities. With a swift motion, he extended his hand and chanted, “{Gap Hole},” summoning a small rift in space that began to swallow the creature.
“GRAA!” The Abyssal Bear roared in agony as the rift slowly consumed it from its hind, deconstructing the flesh and bones that touched it. Despite the excruciating pain, instead of retreating from the rift, the bear defiantly opened its mouth and prepared another attack.
Anticipating that it was going to be another dark purple fireball, Victor stayed still, his eyes locked onto the bear. But then—
“{Blink}!” Victor’s body was instantly teleported twenty meters away from his original location. In less than a second, a searing purple laser blasted through the spot where he had once been. As he was flying at the time, the laser continued its trajectory, carving a massive hole into a distant hill.
“Holy crap! Is that a laser?” Victor exclaimed, his eyes wide with shock. Despite being stronger, getting hit by the laser could still potentially threaten his life. He realized that this Abyssal Bear possessed sheer destructive power that was far greater than the Queen Lesser Hiveborne Arachnid, whose different advantages were of a different nature.
Deciding to finally get serious, Victor activated his sigil. A burst of infused mana gathered on his left hand, resonating with pulsating energy as he began to cast a spell. Soon, dozens of spatial rifts appeared at 360 degrees around the bear, and one materialized directly in front of Victor. The spell {Gap Hole} not only worked as an offensive attack but could also be utilized as a gateway between two locations. While traversing the gateway physically would almost certainly kill him, this restriction did not apply to other magical spells, especially those imbued with the Cosmo element.
“Die!” Victor cast {Warpblade} continuously, sending out dozens, if not hundreds, of ethereal blades into the spatial rift before him. Instantly, the blades were projected from every spatial rift encircling the Abyssal Bear, inflicting a myriad of small but significant injuries.
The bear tried to nimbly escape the encirclement, but no matter where it moved, the spatial rifts around it followed like an unrelenting shadow. Little by little, the bear’s vitality was sapped away as countless ethereal blades stabbed into its massive body like needles into a pincushion. No matter how large it had become, it would eventually succumb to its injuries as more and more blood spurted out from its numerous wounds. In fact, its increased size only made it a bigger target. Finally, with a thunderous crash, the bear fell to the ground, lifeless.
The fight was over in minutes. Victor stood before the corpse of the Abyssal Bear, panting slightly from the overuse of infused mana. The power of his new sigil was beyond anything he had experienced before, with his control over the Cosmo element becoming precise and overwhelming. However, the intense exertion had quickly exhausted him as well.
“It’s quite impressive,” he mused, examining his handiwork. The Abyssal Bear lay before him, its once humongous body now returned to its original size and resembling a grotesque beehive riddled with wounds. “But I don’t think the sigil should be used unless absolutely necessary…” He noted the toll it had taken on his mana reserves and found that it wasn’t sustainable for long.
“Now what to do with this corpse?” In spite of returning to its original size of about three meters tall, it was still a bit too large to fit into his interspatial ring. Fortunately, he brought along Graviel’s interspatial ring as well. Although not as spacious as his own, it was more than sufficient for the task. With a few precise cuts, Victor dismembered the bear, taking only the most valuable parts — its fur, claws, and particularly its heart, which he knew contained potent magical properties and bloodline essence.
Next, Victor turned his attention to the Abyssal Bear’s den. Other than the bony remains of some unknown creatures, including three unfortunate players who had met their end earlier, there was not much else…
“Wait, why would this thing be here?” Victor stared at the pile of pale blood-colored crystals at the back of the den, dumbfounded. These crystals, known as bloodline marrow, could purify the bloodline of magical beasts as well as Bloodline Magi. Although its effectiveness was lacking for beings above the Initiate Attunement rank, it was still a precious treasure.
Not only that, but there were also magic ores mixed in the pile, such as moonsilver, shadowsteel, and even mithril. Each of these ores alone was worth a fortune and could be crafted into magical weapons and armor.
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Victor concluded that since the Abyssal Bear had a trace bloodline of an Abyssal Dragon, it had inherited some characteristics of its original race. And what were dragons known for, if not hoarding treasure?
After carefully storing everything in his interspatial ring, Victor continued to search for more treasure around. Unfortunately, other than some remnants of creatures-turned-feces, there wasn’t much else to find. Humans would never venture this deep into the forest, and acolytes rarely did either. He couldn’t hope to find trinkets of fallen mages here. Nevertheless, this trip had been incredibly rewarding. Not only had he tested his new powers, but he had also uncovered a valuable stash of bloodline marrow and magic ores that would greatly aid him in his future endeavors.
As he prepared to leave, a thought struck him. “If there’s one Abyssal Bear here, there might be more of these mixed-bloodline creatures around.”
The idea of encountering other such beasts, each with their own hoards, was tantalizing. But regardless of such an alluring idea, if he hunted down every interesting and rewarding magical beast in the area, then what would the players hunt?
Satisfied with his experiment and haul, Victor flew back toward the academy.
***
At dusk, Victor arrived back at his office. He had ventured late in the afternoon, and the Abyssal Bear’s den was quite far, even by flying. It was quite a wonder how players had managed to reach that deep into the forest. Perhaps if there were settlements nearby, they would have found them quite easily, though Victor doubted there was one other than Thornwood Village.
As for settlements outside the Thornwood Forest, Victor had intentionally put restrictions on their Shadowlink Marks. So, whenever they tried to venture to other villages or cities beyond Thornwood Village, they would receive a warning. And if they still tried to force their way forward, they would be instantly logged out. Thankfully, his players were pretty obedient and would turn around when they unintentionally ventured too far. Besides, the players got their hands full with the new dungeon, and the forest was large enough to be their playground. Too large, in fact.
The moment Victor took a seat in his chair, Lizbeth, the assistant fairy, flew toward him in a hurry. “Master, I got some news,” she told him. “Since you left in a hurry, I didn’t have a chance to inform you.”
“What’s up?” Victor asked, curious.
After forming his first sigil and stealing Lizbeth’s sandwiches, Victor rushed to test his new powers. As such, he wasn’t fully informed about the recent updates regarding the academy, save for the basic minimum.
Speaking of which, ever since players were given the freedom to roam freely in the village, they had begun trading with the money he had provided them. This allowed some players, who didn’t particularly enjoy combat or manual labor, to pursue other ways to earn money. Auralise, being the shrewd businesswoman that she was, took this opportunity to establish a chamber-of-commerce-like workshop focused on trading with the village to supply goods to the academy that Victor had no choice but to approve as it was quite interesting. Naturally, most players were unwilling to become her underlings or be subjected to a monopoly, so they banded together to seek out more trading channels. It was fascinating to see how the economy developed in this so-called “game.”
“Well, I don’t feel like telling you after you snatched my food. Humph!” She crossed her arms and pouted her cheeks. Stealing her food must have struck a nerve.
“Um, I’m sorry?” Victor scratched his cheek. He’d been very hungry at the time and had forgotten to store some food in his interspatial ring, so he grabbed whatever was on his office table. “How about I compensate you with some other delicious food later?”
“Teehee, that’s more like it.” She smiled and fluttered close, landing on Victor’s shoulder, her former pouty expression gone to who knows where. “Anyways, the first ten players have gone to challenge the new dungeon yesterday morning — about ten days since the last version update. You see, since you were still in the basement, I was the one to give them permission and entrusted one of the keys to open the pocket dimension.” The twin overseers had previously lent him a few keys for his players to get a chance to explore the pocket dimension.
“Oh, that’s interesting. Must have been Zero and the others.” Victor held his chin in thought, then a realization hit him. “Wait, how long have I been gone?”
“Glad you finally asked that question. You were there for exactly nine days, seven hours, and thirty-two minutes.” Lizbeth gave an unnervingly accurate time estimate.
“What?!” Victor was almost unable to hold his face from contorting in shock. He had lost track of time while on the verge of a breakthrough, initially thinking it wouldn't take more than a day or two. No wonder I’ve been very hungry…
By subtracting the one-month agreement time from the days that had passed, Victor’s imminent duel would commence ten days from now. How the time had flown…
“Crap, I thought I still had a lot of time, but it passes quickly when you least expect it.” Victor sighed. The days had slipped away faster than he anticipated, leaving him with much less time to prepare than he had hoped.
Be that as it might, Victor found it useless to be crying over spilled milk. What he had to do now was to make the most out of the remaining time he had left. It couldn’t be helped that he was worried over the upcoming battle, as it would decide his very own fate… Truly a duel to the death, it seemed.