The Book, The Pill, The Enlightenment, and The Reward
"I should be sleeping by now," Karsha muttered as he narrowed his gaze at the five Tier 5 Grey Scale Cabras. Two stood before him while the remaining three circled around him.
He had woken up around 5 a.m. and spent three hours concocting two different types of antidotes for the Grey Scale Cabra venom. Both were King-grade pills with 99% purity.
He didn't want to waste time making Earth-grade pills. However, during the process, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was undermining his own potential. He didn't fully understand the sensation, but since he was in a hurry, he ignored it and proceeded with the King-grade pills.
"Let me try the ice domain skill and see." Saying that Karsha swung his sword, and immediately, the 200 meters around him froze in pure ice. It happened in an instant, clearly influenced by the Red Eye Tiger skill.
The five snakes within 10 meters of him felt their movements restricted, making Karsha smile before he dashed toward the two in front of him. He had ten seconds to kill the five snakes, now akin to Tier 3 snakes, since their stats had been reduced by 50% thanks to the domain skill debuff.
With a quick slash of his sword, the heads of the two snakes fell. He then blinked and appeared beside one of the three remaining, delivering the same precise strike. The last two didn't get a chance to attack; before they could act, Karsha was already behind them, landing a lethal sword strike.
However, when the last snake fell, Karsha sensed the presence of other Tier 5 snakes within the 200-meter domain. He could even feel their movements. Some were fleeing the domain, while the brave ones were heading in Karsha's direction.
"So that's how it works. I can pinpoint the location of anything within the domain," Karsha realized. Noticing a new feature of the domain, he started moving toward the snakes within the area, and like the others, with a single slash, their heads fell.
The snakes couldn't do anything to him, even when the 50% debuff was reduced to 25%. Although some managed to shoot out their venom, Karsha, moving at heightened speed, dodged those attacks easily.
"That will be the last of them," he muttered after killing the 12th snake. "What do we have here?" Karsha said as he picked up an orb from the ground.
He shattered it just as he had with the first one, and instantly, a small book appeared in his palm. Boldly written on the cover was the title: "Know the Skills and Weaknesses of the Scalecrusher Mutant Overlord."
Karsha inspected the cover for a few seconds, but no message appeared, so he proceeded to open it. However, the moment he did, the system window appeared.
< Ding! Congratulations on acquiring 1 out of 10 pieces of the Book of Annihilation >
< Gather all ten pieces to complete the Book of Annihilation >
< Book of Annihilation >
-- The ten overlords, also known as the ten barbarians of the outer sections of Snake Island, have ruled with an iron fist for long. Gather all ten pieces and learn the skills and weaknesses of the ten overlords.
Gossip: Legend has it that killing Tier 5 mutant snakes will produce the pieces.
"This seems fun, but it has to wait for now. I need to break through first before doing anything reckless like going to all ten sections just for a piece of a book," Karsha said, storing the book in his inventory.
He then proceeded to store all the bodies while checking for other drops. However, his luck wasn't good, and he found nothing.
"It's still too early to stop. I guess I will continue exploring the danger zone. With the domain, I should be fine against a Tier 6 monster," he muttered under his breath before walking toward the east.
After seeing the effect of the domain, Karsha knew he would be able to hold his own against a Tier 6 snake. Unless, of course, there were more than one, in which case he would need an exit strategy.
After moving for about 1 km, he stopped and activated his water domain upon encountering three Tier 5 snakes. Similar to the ice domain, the water domain also imposed a 25% debuff on the snakes, which were struck by hundreds of water swords hovering above Karsha.
There was no evading it. When the water swords struck the three snakes, their speed and defenses were lowered by 25%, allowing Karsha to effortlessly dispose of them with one swift move.
"No drops again," Karsha said after inspecting all three bodies. He then stored them before moving further into the forest. But no matter how many snakes he killed, his luck just wasn't good enough. After five hours of hunting, he went back to the cave.
"I guess I will spend the next few days trying to raise the purity level of my King-grade pills," he decided. Realizing he needed to kill time, Karsha opted to use the days ahead to improve his alchemy skills. He returned to his small waterfall residence.
Initially, he thought a King-grade pill with at least 90% purity would be enough to cure June's mother. But after inspecting her condition, he realized he needed to concoct at least a Rank 5 Earth-grade pill with 97% or higher purity to completely nullify the poison.
"I need to raise my purity level to at least 98% if I want to save Elder June's mother," he muttered before retrieving the Lonely Cauldron from his spiritual space ring. He rubbed it, letting the cauldron know they were about to create pills.
After heating the cauldron for a while to ensure it was ready, Karsha retrieved the required ingredients, enough to craft three pills.
"Devil's Breath, let's surprise the heavens." He summoned the green flames, which danced on his palm, eager to show the heavens the might of its master, the youngest Grandmaster alchemist.
After heating the cauldron for a few minutes more, he threw in the ingredients and began heating it again, starting the process of extracting the medicinal essence from them. Since he aimed to raise the purity level from 94%, he made sure he didn't make any mistakes.
The extraction took him 20 minutes, which was reasonable for someone of his skill level. After all, he wasn't the Divine Alchemist, who could do it within a minute.
"Let's solidify and ensure no impurities enter this time." As if understanding his words, the cauldron and flame started reacting. The cauldron shook gently, and the flame further enveloped it.
Focused on controlling the flame, Karsha felt his understanding deepening rapidly. Tapping into this newfound clarity, he began controlling the flame in ways he hadn't tried before.
Unbeknownst to him, the taming speech wasn't solely for taming; it went beyond that. For some reason, his understanding of this speech had risen to new heights, allowing him to communicate with almost anything.
So when he asked the cauldron and the flame to help him, they listened. What was happening now was the result of his brain absorbing the knowledge from the cauldron and the flame, transmitted to him via the 'Taming Speech.'
(Authors Note: In future chapters, more light will be shed on this mysterious speech.)
The process continued for ten minutes, during which Karsha's control of the flame and cauldron rose to a remarkable level.
Two minutes after the process ended, the cauldron shook, and a white light shot into the sky. Karsha, sitting in front of the cauldron, didn't even flinch as his consciousness had left his body; he had entered enlightenment.
He remained seated in the same spot while a pure white pill hovered before him. The scent of the pill spread throughout the forest, attracting many snakes. However, most of them didn't know where to go and simply continued to enjoy the aroma of the pill.
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[Deep within the Forest]
A very large, terrifying snake raised its head as a white light suddenly appeared in the sky. It flicked its tongue for a few seconds before retreating into its cave. However, three Tier 6 Grey Scale Cobras began moving toward the light as it entered the cave.
At their current pace, they would arrive within the hour, but Karsha, sitting at the center of all this, remained motionless.
Similar scenes occurred in nine different locations, but once they discovered the light was coming from the Scalecrusher quadrant, they didn't bother dispatching their people to investigate.
After 45 minutes, the three snakes appeared a kilometer from Karsha. They stopped and gazed in the direction of the small waterfall. Once they confirmed the location of the person who triggered the white light, they started moving closer.
However, when they got within 200 meters of Karsha, a beautiful young lady appeared out of thin air. "Hiss!" The three snakes hissed, their pupils constricting as they charged at Ayarr, who had a small smile on her lips.
She had been following Karsha for the past week, per her mother's orders, only to act when she sensed Karsha posed a threat to the Purple Tail Anacondas.
After a full day of following Karsha, all she had seen was a weak human somehow killing their enemies, so she allowed it to go but kept a close eye on him.
When the light beamed up, she sensed that Karsha wasn't ordinary, so she got close to inspect what he was doing. However, her warrior side awakened when she sensed he had entered enlightenment, prompting her to stand guard.
Although she was a snake in human form, she knew what enlightenment was and how dangerous it was to disturb someone in such a state.
To her surprise, three Tier 6 cobras appeared out of nowhere. This alone added to her happiness since she would get to kill three of her enemies while maintaining her integrity as a warrior.
She faced off against the three Cobras while Karsha remained enlightened the whole time.
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[ 4 hours later ]
"What the heck!" Karsha shouted at the top of his voice the moment he opened his eyes. Lying before him were three Tier 6 Grey Scale Cobras, barely breathing.
Sensing something had happened, Karsha immediately began surveying the surroundings. After two minutes of scanning and finding nothing out of place, he turned to the three snakes with a wry smile.
"I don't mind extracting some rewards from you lot," he said. With that, he engulfed his sword in flames before swiftly moving and killing the three snakes, which couldn't even move their bodies.