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Chapter 46 – Greed

Adam hastily looked at his skill card.

Besides all the usual Painting and lines of text, A few new lines had appeared underneath.

Class Card: Adam

'Dual class body of a Ranger/Monk: (Passive Skill)

Level – 16

Exp to next level – 4160/51000

Elements activated: Air and Earth

Title - Conqueror of the Children of heaven.

Unique skill – Gluttony: stage 1- Hunger (Passive: Greed)

Subsidiary (gluttony) acquirable skill – 1- n/a 2- n/a 3- n/a'

'Woah! I went up a whole level and then some in the last fight.' His level had directly gone from being capped at level 15 to surpassing level 16 in one fight.

He had never realized this before because he had never fought a monster that was more than 2 level's higher than him but now it was made very clear. The experience was not an acquirable value that was determined or fixed.

The higher level a monster you fought, the higher the amount of experience you would get. The bigger the gap in the level's between the slayer and the slain, The higher the value would multiply.

'Experience value's vary a lot when fighting monsters above your level. Most of the monsters we killed provided random amounts of experience points. Maybe strength is another factor? I have seen mutated monsters that do provide a more consistently higher value of experience.' He hit the nail on its head. Stronger monsters were stronger exactly because they were able to store more magicules in their body. Magicules were directly linked to experience points.

This would show up in various ways on the creatures like increased stamina, strength, intellect or just straight up different physical attributes and abilities.

Mutated monsters were the best example of this.

Adam took a quick look at the two other cards to check on the level progression of the girls.

Class Card: Elaine

'Body of a Tank: (Passive Skill)

Level – 16

Exp to next level – 2080/25500

Element activated: Fire'

Class card: Luna

'Body of a Mage: (Passive Skill)

Active skill: Skill 1 – emission, Skill 2 – Territory

Level – 16

Exp to next level – 2080/25500

Element activated: Ether'

Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he was attracted back to the changes In his. The first thing that caught his eye was the line that awarded him a title.

'Title - Conqueror of the Children of heaven' He was ecstatic. 'Conqueror' Just that word itself evoked such awe-inspiring images.

Very quickly though, he lost that joy. When he read the whole title a few times he realized the hidden connotation's that the title might have. He did not know if this was his sentient mind or whatever pulling his leg but he wasn't amused.

" 'Conqueror of the children of heaven'…. Are you calling me a ped… nope, I'm sure I'm just overthinking this.' He stopped himself from saying it and did not even want to foster the idea, even though the meaning's behind the title were so suspicious.

'I'm a kid too you know… I don't get it.' He felt defeated.

Luckily for him, there was no one else who could witness this title in his soul world.

'Let's never mention this to anyone…EVER!' If anyone else was here they would notice Adam pulling the age-old shtick of whistling and pretending to not have noticed anything.

'On to more important things…' He changed the direction of his thoughts quicker than a bolt of lightning that formed in the clouds and flashed its way through the skies.

'A unique skill. Gluttony? Oh!' Just as he thought of it, information poured into his head like a flood.

'No way, isn't this a little too broken?' What he found out only left him speechless.

In essence, His little stunt of tapping the core of the dungeon had led to him attracting the 'heart' of the dungeon core and stealing it. The heart of a dungeon core was its attribute inhibitor.

To put it in simple words:

Every dungeon would end up with a certain attribute after its infant stage. This attribute was defined by the personality of the 'heart'. The little snake that fused into the mind of Adam was actually the mythical 'Heart' of a dungeon core.

Most dungeon hearts would be influenced by the surroundings of the dungeon entrance and form their personality (dungeon) accordingly.

The dungeon core heart that fused with Adam was an infant that had not yet received any external influences. It as still in its absorption stage. This was a time when dungeons would absorb the power of heaven's to form. It was a natural process of whose mysteries no one was able to comprehend.

As a result of these weird circumstances, the fusion had resulted in Adam acquiring the ability to absorb the power of heaven's that was something only dungeons were capable of.

The only drawback to the whole situation was Adam's body itself. His body and the dungeon were fundamentally different. How could the absorption process of a dungeon and a human be the same? His bodies limitation's and the dungeons were on a completely different spectrum.

This gave rise to the birth of the unique skill Gluttony.

Gluttony allowed him to acquire the attributes and abilities of other creatures and assimilate them to be his own. The process to do this was very simple – Devour!

He had to eat whatever he wanted to extract from.

The skill provided him with all the tools he needed to accomplish this task. The skill allowed him to transform or to put it more accurately, morph any of his limbs into a tool to consume.

At the moment, the skill was on its first stage that allowed him to consume three abilities and retain them.

Adam, for now, could sense at the least 4 more stages. He wasn't sure if this was the limit. Every time that he tried to glean more information on the topic. His senses would feel like they were enveloped in cotton that had electricity running through it. It muffled his senses and stung him.

The stages he knew for now were: Stage 2 – Starvation, Stage 3 – Emptiness, Stage 4 – Famished and stage 5 – Ravenous. Each level increased the restriction of abilities by an additional three.

The thing that truly left Adam speechless was not this. Though gluttony was a godly skill, it did have its limitations in the form of restricting how many abilities per level one could acquire. This would inevitably lead to some skill's turning irrelevant in the future as he grew.

The truly fascinating aspect of the whole skill was actually the passive ability that accompanied it – Greed.

Greed allowed him to synthesize a completely new ability by combining an already attained ability with another of similar attributes. As the name suggested, it allowed the user to have an endless scope of want with no inhibitions.

This unlikely exchange had led to this bountiful harvest of treasures.

With great difficulty, Adam finally calmed himself down and pulled his gaze away from those words on his skill card.

Words were hard to find that could describe his mood right now. He felt guilty because of the danger that he put the girls through to get to this point but the gains from this endeavour were out of this world extraordinary. He would put his life at risk a hundred and twenty more times if he had to, just to get this result.

What had happened had happened. The past could not be changed and plus the outcome was a pretty good one. What was the point of brooding over it now? Adam bucked up and let out a relieved sigh.

He pulled himself out of his soul world. He needed to test out his new skill.

Adam was positioned right in the centre of the room where the core was. When he opened his eyes a completely different view greeted him.

Right in front of him now lay two new dimension portal's. Looking back, the portal they had used to enter this core room had also reappeared.

3 portals and Adam only knew the purpose of one of them.

He immediately became alarmed.

Any new variable in a dungeon was never a good variable. The dungeon was a place of constant danger that existed to exterminate any intruder's.

He suspiciously eyed the two new portals but nothing happened for a long while. It seemed that it was just an ordinary portal. Dangers may lay on the other side, however, this side was safe. If something was going to pop out it would have a long time ago.

He relaxed a little but maintained constant vigilance of the two portals. They were not too far apart from each other so it wasn't hard to keep an eye on them.

Walking over to the girls, he checked up on them. They were still the same with no changes.

Stepping back he created some distance from the girls. He then stood ramrod straight. Raising his right arm forward he willed it to morph.

Soundless.

His fingers came together and started melting together. His arm became one straight line with no protrusions.

With an initial pulse, his arm began pulsating. Every subsequent pulse grew faster and stronger. A red glow permeated his skin.

The glow turned maroon. With that shift in colour, his arm's end began growing wider. It grew and grew.

The end of his arm was now as wide as a small bucket.

Just as soundlessly as all the previous action's his bucket wide arm's end began separating at the centre.

A beastly rhinoceros-like maw took shape. The jaw slowly lowered to reveal a toothless mouth that exhaled a white mist of steam.

Adam watched the whole process with his eyes open. It was the strangest feeling.

He felt nothing out of the ordinary. As if this beastly mouth on his hand was completely normal. Weird was not enough to describe what just happened.

Adam felt like the maw was the equivalent of his fingers. He felt like his fingers were imitating a mouth's shape. His fingers were the upper jaw while his thumb was the lower. When he opened and closed the mouth, it was the same as moving his thumb up and down.

There was nothing else on his hand other than the maw.

He then tried morphing his left hand and feet. The same weird sensation, especially with his feet followed as they transformed into a beastly maw.

As he was experimenting with his new found ability, he felt a gaze land on him.

At first, he thought it was one of the girl's who had awoken and was about to call to them. The girls were placed right in front of him so before he could follow through he realized that they hadn't moved an inch.

They still lay there, one unconscious and the other meditating.

Adam was about to switch into battle mode but then he realized the gaze that fell on him had no killing intent so he calmed himself down and pretended not to notice any changes.

The gaze that fell on him was an inquisitive and curious one. It was like a bunny staring out of its rabbit hole. Whatever was looking at him was more scared of him than he was of it.

Looking through the corner of his eye, Adam saw a small light floating right next to one of the portals. This was the origin of the gaze.

Swish.

Adam's speed was in no way considered slow. In two leaps, he had already emerged into the front of the light and his swift and nimble hand cupped and captured that light within.

Whatever it was that he caught, did not even have the time to understand what happened let alone counterattack or scream.

Slowly opening his hand, Adam took a look at what he had captured.

A little person stood there, shocked, in his palm. With a quick motion, the little thing was now pinched in between Adam's fingers. Completely immobilized.

A high pitched voice of a young boy yelled out in alarm.

In Adam's fingers was a 5-inch tall young boy. He was dressed in strange clothes that seemed to be made out of shimmering and vibrant green leaves. Two tiny swords were holstered at his waist along with a few hanging books.

A valiance emanated from the boy. Four wings made from triangles of light jutted out from his back.

"You dare to sully this mighty one with your hands! Hurry! Release me now and I shall forgive you and let bygones be bygones. I will make your sentence lenient and only cut off one hand as payment for your transgression." The voice of the boy called out in a stern tone that emphasized the 'benevolence' he was offering.

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