Chapter 51 All at once (1 of 2)
After spending some time resting, everyone carried at least one bag filled with Essence crystals.
Each of them was about the size of an ordinary eraser, which meant that hundreds of Essence crystals could fit in a big bag.
However, they didn’t get to hunt that many zombies as the overall number of monsters on the first floor was less than Dilan had expected.
According to his estimate, he presumed that they had hunted a total of 1000 ordinary zombies in a matter of four hours.
They avoided killing the mutated and Bronze zombies, which took most of their time, but they cleared the remaining parts of the first floor quite fast.
‘I should have hunted the mutated and Bronze zombies all by myself. This would have saved us a lot of time…’ Dilan grumbled to himself.
But if he had gone hunting all by himself, the others might have been endangered, and only he would have gotten more Essences and Status points.
This was certainly not the most efficient way to defeat the monster on the third floor.
According to Kathrine, it was an extremely fast zombie that looked similar to a centaur.
It was also stronger than the War Krendels, which was something Dilan could hardly believe.
‘Is it level 10? Or Tier-1?’
Since his Clawed Gloves were capable of injuring the hide of beings at Tier-1 level 0, Dilan was pretty sure that one would be able to advance to Tier-1 after level 10.-.
It was probably comparable to choosing an occupation in some video games, or maybe exactly that!
Thus, he simply hoped the Zombie Centaur to be an overpowered monster at level 10!
Kathrine didn’t care about its Essence crystal either, and her only goal was to reach the fourth floor.
Everything else was negligible, and who received the crystal wouldn’t matter to her.
After understanding a few traits of the Zombie Centaur, it was quite obvious that it would take more than two people to kill the beast.
As such, Oliver, and Ailee were also required to help out.
They had to level up, needed more stats, and Ailee had to manufacture arrows out of the remaining War Krendel’s claws.
That way, it was the easiest for them to attack from multiple angles, with each attack posing a minimum level of a lethal threat.
Dilan felt that this was important because he had experienced the dangers of fighting against monsters with too high a defense.
Because of that, he was not sure what exactly to feel when Kathrine told him that her attack took a long time to be initiated, which would make her miss the intended opponent.
This simply meant that the Zombie Centaur had an unknown high defense, while Kathrine was not even able to attack it with a quick bolt of lightning.
It made her ability [Lightning strike] Tier-0 ★★★★less useful than Dilan had hoped for.
Now that her attack was deemed useless, he tried to compute a plan, but to make use of it, everyone needed to be far more powerful.
Thus, the 1000 ordinary zombies they killed would be turned into Trash treasures.
If not all, at least, the Essence crystals of Ailee, Oliver, Kathrine and Dilan, that amounted to more than 90% of their entire loot should.
In the end, Dilan had hunted most zombies, approximately close to 300, simply because he didn’t have to fear being scratched, while his Agility and Strength allowed him to slaughter his way through a large horde easily.
On the other hand, Sarah, Pierre and the new fighters were not as confident as Dilan and the others, which led them to fight less, and only one monster at a time.
Exchanging the Essence crystals didn’t take long either because their group of four threw the Essence crystals inside the Gate on the second floor, while the others returned once they absorbed their Essence crystals.
[917 ordinary Essence crystals have been given to the gate. Exchange with 18 Grade treasures, or 9 Grade treasures?]
The given choice was an unexpected one, but picking an option was easy.
However, instead of rushing things, they took two Grade treasures, and one Grade treasure first!
[Ordinary Clock]
[Robe of Strength]
[Vial of Strength]
While the Clock was simply the worst and had no special use, the Robe of Strength provided a boost of 0.2 Strength units.
This was quite decent, but far from the use of the Vial of Strength.
[[Vial of Strength] Treasure
One-time use.
Boosts Strength stat by [5] Points for 30 Seconds!]
The Vial of Strength was simply too powerful to be considered a Trash treasure making them feel happy about the loot.
Following that, the rest seven ‘Trash+’ graded treasures were quickly drawn out.
In the end, they had been extremely lucky with the Vial of Strength as the following Trash+ graded treasures were not as exceptional as the Vial, but that was perfectly fine.
They were still of great use, which was the only thing that mattered as their small group of five people returned to the center of the hospital’s entrance hall.
“Are you sure that you want to hunt 10 mutated or evolved zombies at the same time? Some of them have a really high speed…”
Kathrine suddenly asked him in an unsure voice.
She had been observing the Bronze zombies for quite a while and was pretty sure that she was not able to hunt 10 of them simultaneously.
In the end, her ability required one unit of mana and one second to charge, which meant that multiple opponents that were spread out in a bigger radius were at an advantage against her.
But Dilan seemed overly excited as he regained the desire and delight of killing, and fighting strong opponents.
Kathrine and the others had expected that Dilan would hold back on fighting powerful opponents.
After all, he was nearly killed more than a day ago.
If they were to know that Dilan was also planning to enter a near-death state on a daily basis, the others would simply call him crazy.
However, since he understood that his Stamina consumption was less than others, while it replenished faster as well, Dilan felt that it would be stupid to ignore upgrading his Origin ability!
But to do so, he had to be lethally injured!
Dilan decided to ask the nurses later about the best spot for a human body to be lethally yet not die immediately.
He didn’t want his organs to be ripped open, or something that took an eternity to be tended to.
At best, he should be able to recuperate within half a day after being lethally injured. This would make things the easiest.
But he didn’t really expect things to be easy, which was why he took the more difficult but also equally exciting path!
“If you want, I can fight all of them at once as well. I noticed that there were three Mutated Swiftness Zombies on the first floor.
As long as I take them out first, I can kill the remaining ones with my Clawed Gloves, raw strength and my active skill!”
Dilan sounded confident, but the others were not sure if he was overestimating his strength and capabilities a lot.
“Active skill?” Oliver just asked, confused, while Kathrine answered his doubt rather subconsciously,
“I think he meant this ability that causes an ear-piercing noise of a thunder.” She gave a short answer, leaving out a more in-depth explanation about the electricity currents and so on.
“That was you?!” Oliver and Ailee simultaneously blurted out, just to look at Dilan in confusion.
The thunder noises had been the most frightening for them to hear in the morning the day before.
Thus, nobody had dared to go outside, even if they wanted to find Dilan.
And now they realized that it was Dilan, who had been the source of the thunderous noises, the entire time!!
‘Why do I feel so foolish all of a sudden?!’