Chapter 55 - The Outlandish Undead

Adam's lips twitched.

A monkey? For real?

Sensing the confused gaze, the sage chuckled before explaining.

"The first sage had a reckless attitude. He challenged almost everything he casts his sight upon. Human, bird, beast, wind and even a mountain!

And it was this intoxication from the countless victory that caused the loss of the staff.

One day, he came across a monkey who was eating a banana. The sage immediately challenged the beast for a duel. To make things worse, he said that if he wins, the monkey will have to give him the banana. But if the monkey wins, the beast gets the staff.

All the monkey had to do was touch the staff."

The sage abruptly went silent after that.

"And?" Adam probed for the next half of the story.

"The monkey succeeded in touching the staff. The sage lost his prized possession. his intoxication was immediately replaced by despair. He demanded a rematch, but the monkey didn't budge.

The first one in the legacy was an airhead and we learnt a valuable lesson from his experiences."

In the beam of the projected light were three distinct images. One was a violet-black coloured short-staff, the second one was a long pale-green shield fashioned out of some unknown material and the last one was a tiny amethyst gem.

"Since you tamed the Deity Of Doom, you may probably come across these three objects. Don't be fooled by the sizes and shapes, they contain an endless amount of energy in them."

Adam nodded after imprinting the details in his mind. The sage tapped on the table again and the pillar of light dissipated.

"Now, let me hear what your confusions are."

Adam leaned forward and summoned his interface. "The pace at which I'm levelling is abnormally... quick."

The sage's eyes went perfect circles upon witnessing the level screen. "Since when did this happen?" the old man probed.

"Every time I kill something, the XP goes up by leaps and bounds."

The sage frowned and began to rub his chin after hearing the explanation. His eyes stared at the table before him as he pondered thoroughly.

After a few minutes, he raised his head and uttered. "I think I found the reason."

The earthling immediately leaned forward in curiosity.

"There are many kinds of entities in the world. But what remains constant is that every existence has its contradictory realities.

Fire and water are opposites. One reign over the other or both nullifies equally. They don't have a consciousness to act so but it is their nature that guides them to exhibit such behaviour. Though there are other elements present in nature, these two are the worst matchup to each other.

The same logic applies to exanimate beings. As undead, skeletons and zombies tend to attack the living beings just to satiate their indescribable desire. They avoid mechanical devices and artificial constructs as they don't find joy in dealing with lifeless objects, not because they are tough and sturdy.

The reason for your abnormal growth is your peculiar existence that defies the natural law."

Again, a sip of tea disappeared down the throat of the sage.

"What that lives must die one day. But the irreversible bestowal of a new consciousness to your body made you an aberrant creature even in the myriad of world.

In other words, you are actually an outlandish undead, so bizarre that even the deities couldn't find a difference.

Thus, every execution you commit is essentially an undead slaughtering a living beast bound to the natural order. Even if your existence is deeply concealed, the truth regarding your entirety is reflected in your deeds. You may not know, but every cell in your body rejoices when a soul is cleaved in half."

Adam's eyes widened as he comprehended the reason behind his strange behaviour back in the Stygian Realm. Somehow, slicing down fiends and tarragons was exhilarating to him.

"So that is the reason why the XP increases significantly?" asked the earthling.

Sage nodded nonchalantly.

"But what about spectres? Aren't they ethereal and existing beyond life and death?" There were doubts still lingering inside his heart.

The sage agreed to his statement and nodded in accord. "It is true that the spectres are unnatural beings. But they are somehow bound to the rule of disintegration. That's why spectres don't recover from damage."

Adam bobbed his head after comprehending the shackles binding the spectres.

So that's how things are.

After recollecting his thoughts, the earthling verbalised the second distress.

"I met a few people as soon as I left the preserve last time. They all had a line of information that seems to be missing in my interface."

"Oh, what is it?" The sage exhibited his pleasant surprise.

"Skills."

"Ahh, that..." The sage seems to have remembered something when Adam mentioned the name.

"It was just after you left that I remembered about the potential anomalies. Since I've made a vow not to allow the beasts to roam outside the preserve, I could only hope that you'll come back."

The term 'anomaly' stirred a slight discomfort in the earthling's mind. Witnessing the unconcealed expression, the sage added. "When I was creating the Art of Ascension, I had long known the existence of other dimensions and much more powerful races skimming through the void. So, I installed a hidden function that detects the origin location of the host. If the system finds the origin somewhere beyond the continent's boundaries, then a random line of information will be taken out of the interface.

And when I calculated the probability, I found that your interface will be missing the 'Skill'."

The bewildered face reverted back to relaxed brows and Adam nodded in understanding. But there was something still haunting him.

"Wondering whether the 'Skill' data can be retrieved, eh?"

To the old man's query, the young one replied. "Yes."

"Then there is. Worry not." The cup was lifted and a last bit of tea disappeared down the sage's throat. "Place you both hands on the table."

Adam immediately followed the instructions and placed both hands flat on the table. At once, he felt a tingling sensation in his limbs.

Raising his eyes, Adam saw the sage staring at his interface. After gazing at it intently, the old man raised his finger and tapped on multiple random locations on the surface.

Blip~

An odd mechanical noise originated from the interface and a new line appeared.

"Skills."

Adam was joyous upon witnessing the line that he unconsciously muttered the name with a bright smile. The sage who was performing the final touchup to the screen was amused by the berserker's childish side.

With a wave of his hand, the screen disappeared. Instantly, Adam felt something climbing up his arms.

"Try summoning the status."

Adam nodded and pronounced in his head. 'Status.'

/◄▫◆▫◇▫◆▫◇▫◆▫◇▫◆▫►\

▹ Name: Adam (26/M)

▹ Race: Zoomorph

▹ Level: 31 [2,099/19,840]

▹ Class: Berserker

▹ Innate Skill: Auto-Healing

▹ HP: 9,914/9,914

▹ MP: 81/81

▹ STR: 109

▹ AGI: 69

▹ INT: 40

▹ A.P: 12

▹ Magical Arts: ---

▹ Martial Arts: Unarmed Combat (D), Spear Mastery (E), Axe Mastery (F), Sword Mastery (F).

▹ Skills: Scotopic Vision (passive), Sprint (passive).

\◄▫◆▫◇▫◆▫◇▫◆▫◇▫◆▫►/

The elated grin on the earthling's face only remained for a few seconds. Shortly, it was exchanged with an unpleasant sensation as Adam recalled a major problem he was going through.

"Sage, how do I increase my efficiency in extracting mana from beast cores?"

The question was out of context and totally unanticipated that the old man immediately frowned at Adam.

"Recently, I've experienced a significant fall in my ability to extract mana from beast cores. The demand for crystals spiked up before I realised what was happening. It seems that the glyphs are also affected by the issue."

Noticing Trevor's confused gaze, the earthling explained the situation.

After the account concluded, the sage kept mum with tight-knit brows. His eyes staring at the empty teacup in front of him indicated that he's pondering over the problem.

Almost an hour went by as the sage sat unmovingly. Then, he raised his sight and observed Adam.

"Can you execute a glyph?", the sage put forward a request.

The young man agreed before sketching a symbol in the air.

Torch.

A bright ball of light appeared as the glyph faded into the thin air. The illumination was on par with the light of the day around them

But the construct eventually began to waver. It hasn't been half a minute and the bright ball was already dwindling.

Sou~

And as they witnessed, it dissipated.

"Rejection." The sage's face turned grim.

Hearing the old man's deeply unpleasant voice, Adam couldn't help but feel alarmed.

'Endevil...'

[No clue, but I can tell that the issue is grave. Let's not run into assumptions and hear it from the sage himself.]

Adam gave a silent nod and peered at the sage. The elder's face had warped in ominous anticipation. Noticing the gaze, he let out a sigh and reverted his demeanour.

"I think I figured out the crux of the problem."