Heaven's Greatest Professor

Night fell quickly inside the dungeon. When they arrived, it was barely early morning, yet within 8 hours, the surroundings were filled with darkness. Time flowed differently inside a dungeon, and so did the ratio of day and night.

They rushed themselves to the back of a mountain after hours of hunting hundreds of lizards and drakes, exhausted and worn out.

Honestly, Warden could go around for more rounds hunting drakes. Unfortunately, his companions did not have the same resilience, not to mention the increasing number of lasers as they ventured deeper into the rocky terrain. It simply was not a dungeon for one person to clear.

Now, Warden was fully aware of what June mentioned about preparation.

Jason had these little stones with rune script carved in them, calling them something like ward stones. After placing them around their resting place, the stones created a barrier, connecting together with one another. It was mostly stealth, with some alarm and defensive script in place, which might not withstand a full-power attack from a pack of drakes but could alert them in time.

Overall, the wardstones proved to be very useful on occasions such as this. Warden wondered if he could make them or how long it would take for him to make one. Jason mentioned that a set of 12 wardstones of iron grade, which provided barely enough space for a couple of persons to stay, would cost around 100 iron-grade essence gems.

So, they decided to rest for 4 hours and continue with their business. With a bunch of drake cores in his lap, Warden cracked them one by one and let all the leftover essence be devoured into his sword. He had only used cores from the lesser drakes or the other lizard-type creatures, as the matriarchs' properties would be a waste if he considered only the amount of essence.

These cores could be used to make various fire-attributed artifacts, bringing in a lot more essence gems.

After feeding a dozen beast cores, Warden checked the progress bar:

[The divider: Rare (Progress 5%) | 0/10 Unique Beast Cores]

He probably won't be able to advance it to the next rank with the loot from this dungeon, considering that raising the progress becomes exceedingly hard as the numbers go up. Initially, it only took him to a couple of iron-grade cores for a percent. Then it jumped to double. Without the help of silver-grade cores, he did not see a possible way for The Divider to reach the next rank.

"That is a nice sword you have there," Nina said as she came from behind to sit next to him. She had got out of her thick battle attire to refresh herself, now in loose clothing, showing a bit of her skin.

The fire burning before had almost warmed up and roasted their food.

"Honestly, it is better than just nice," Warden said.

"Probably cost you a Mountain's worth of money to get it," she said, laughing slightly. "But I guess it is the sort of money rich folk can afford."

"My whole wealth now amounts to about 200 gold coins and whatever we looted from this dungeon," Warden laughed. "That's not really rich."

"The loot surely is enough to leave you rich for a certain amount of time," Nina said.

"Not if I feed them all to my sword in no time.," Warden said. "While the Hearts will go into making potions for ourselves, which I will be using on myself. That's already the lion's share of the loot. As for the leftover, the potion maker will probably take more than what's left to make the potion for us. If I calculate all that, then I've already gone bankrupt."

Saying that, Wardon brought out the bags of beast cores from his portion of the loot and began crushing them to fine bits to be all devoured into the sword.

Nina watched it all with wide eyes. The sheer speed at which he was burning through them was enough for most people to go crazy over. For example, these lesser Drake beast cores could cost up to 10 essence gems for each. She had already seen him burning through dozens of them. And he was not slowing down, bringing out more and more.

"Good thing I did not have a weapon like that," she said. "I would really go bankrupt from day one."

"Well, it is only one that I can use," Warden said. His void energy would damage any weapon he used unless they were of the legendary rank. Even this sword, which was obnoxiously good for its rank, was damaged a few times. Thankfully, its soul-sucker ability restored it to its previous form.

After spending a numerous amount of beast cores, easily over 100, Warden checked the progress bar again:

[The divider: Rare (Progress 17%) | 0/10 Unique Beast Cores]

Warden let out a sigh. "Hey, do you know what could be considered a unique core?" He asked, remembering there was another criterion to raise the divider to the next rank. He would need 10 unique types of beast cores along with what it takes to get it to 99%. "Could the matriarch's core be considered a unique-based core?"

"I mean, why not?" Nina said, though she sounded a bit unsure. "As far as I know, if it has an element attuned to it, it can be considered a unique core. It is pretty hard to get them at lower ranks like copper and iron."

"Hey, Jason," Warden called up after some thought. "Do you mind if I use a core from the Drake matriarch?"

Jason rose from his resting position. "Well, more than is your loot load," he said, "but considering we only have three beast cores from the matriarch, just think about it before feeding it to your sword."

"I will need 10 unique cores anyway," Warden said. "Guess I will just use the one."

The beast core from the Drake matriarch was a little larger and similarly red in colour, though it held more essence and fire attribute essence inside. It was the size of a marble and similarly harder to crush as well.

Everyone perked up as Warden wrestled with it to crush it to find in just. The sword surged with dark and ominous smoke as it devoured all the essence and soul energy immediately.

[The divider: Rare (Progress 19%) | 1/10 Unique Beast Cores]

"Now I wonder," Warden thought out loud, "if the same type of unique cores will be counted more than once."

They looked at him as if he was a maniac. Jason seemed like he wanted to complain, but considering Warden has the highest contribution in hunting the matriarch he did not raise his voice.

Warden couldn't help but laugh. "Chill out, I am not wasting any more precious cores until we hunt more fire-breathing drakes."

"I mean if you want to--" Jason stopped whatever he was saying immediately, as the alarm scripts in the wardstones blared to catch every one of their attention. "Everyone, be prepared."

Warden jumped to his feet, the sword in his hand. The Ward did not break, however, in the darkness, he saw the outline of a figure. A lone figure?

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