Capítulo 23: Exploit & Absorption

['Vital Dagger Strike' has reached lv.10]

[You have received the title 'Viper Hunter'.]

[Achievement 'Hunting 100 Vipers' recorded!]

[You have received 1 bonus stat point for your achievement.]

I didn't need to be wary of sneak attacks by the poisoned snakes and vipers anymore, as the effect of the title came to be an advantage in this case.

The snake hunt didn't take more than 3 days thanks to the latest skills I have acquired, 'Swift steps' hastened the battles to end in seconds.

However, the largest factor of this fast progress was 'Mental Map'.

The skill wasn't like other skills which had an effect of learning acceleration or more control, it was a different type of skill, as described by the system it was a 'special skill'.

It made a hologram before my eyes which used the mental image I already had in mind, which made it less mentally exhausting to view and check the map using imagination.

It was still mentally exhausting to keep the hologram working continuously, but nonetheless, it was much more efficient than normal mental mapping even with the help of my photographic memory.

>>>>

About half a month had passed since my arrival at the forest, I had already started my hunt for crocodiles which would help me acquire the dismantling skill. Reaching a good enough level of combat abilities through this hunt was a passive bonus.

But today I had a different target other than these entirely.

I wanted to do a little experiment….

A black scaled crocodile lied half-dead in front of me, I had targeted this lone crocodile in this deserted part of the swamp especially for that.

I finished it off as a much larger wave than the rabbit's red mist started flying towards the orb.

However, my target was to stop this from happening, as I put my other hand inside the red cloud.

Suddenly, as if it was a fish that got hooked by a fishing rod, the red mist got absorbed into my body through my hand in the matter of seconds.

An unknown refreshing sensation went through my body hit me, as a system alarm sounded in my ear.

[You have absorbed the blood essence of a black scaled alligator, Strength increase by 2, Constitution increases by 3.]

[You have absorbed EP under the effect of a level limiter, as such, your level doesn't increase.]

'Success!'

My gamble didn't result in a loss, which was something to be delighted about. through this, I confirmed that I could make use of the level limiter, and a very significant use at that!

During my read about hunters and fighters in this game in the books that were in the training hall's library, there was a very essential technique that every hunter had to learn, this technique was called 'Essence absorption'.

As their only method of leveling up, although it was inferior to player's absorption, it was still quite an open secret.

Most people knew the way to become stronger. However, they needed to be strong enough to kill their targets to begin with.

There was instances of people committing murder and trying to use it as an easy ladder, the result wasn't as they expected it to be. A normal person's blood essence held little to no value.

Only by killing monsters or other qualified hunters would one receive benefits, something that normal people couldn't do.

The only mean to achieve progress either from normal training, was of course, to buy blood essence. But normally that would be a method that only extremely rich individuals could use.

However, for us players, using normal essence absorption would result in a loss instead. As a downgraded method when compared to absorption that is assisted by the system, not only did it yield less stat points, but it would also lead the stat points' distribution to be out of our control unlike leveling up in the conventional way.

As such, especially in the beginning levels where leveling didn't require that much EP, only stupid players would choose to use such an inferior method.

However, in my case, it was a completely different situation, it was the absolute opposite!

As I couldn't level up normally, using this method simply allowed me to enjoy the benefit of the inferior leveling method, as a level 0 newbie, maintaining my current level!