[ You have absorbed the blood essence of a corrupted 'Mountain lizard king', purification in progress….. ]

[ You have received 63,569 EP! ]

[ You have leveled up! ]

[ You have reached level 20! ]

The huge lizardman collapsed as my sword (in its greatsword form) penetrated deep into its abdomen, it was just a normal boss who was even less powerful than the death knight even though it was lv35….

It didn't have any sign of elemental use like the way the shaman surprised me with, it only used the most primeval way of elemental strengthening similar to the method used by the battle apes. The only difference was that it used the versatile earth element only to form a rock solid skin, increasing its defense greatly.

Of course, its skin was torn open after I used the appliance moves that I was itching to try, and what followed simply felt like child play, so I quickly ended its life.

There was no second boss, there was no corrupted elemental crystals and there was absolutely nothing strange about this gate…

Were the accidents last time just an anomaly that we encountered by coincidence? It pretty much looked like so, but for some reason, my intuition was totally against that opinion. It didn't really matter, as the answer would surely emerge after I have dealt with the gates I planned to clear.

I looked at my level up bar, which didn't specify any number, it looked like that I was close to gaining a second level but the essence was insufficient by a small amount…

The first 14 levels I gained from half a gate were quite fast as starting levels but that was just at the beginning, the essence required for each level up increased significantly every time, meaning that I would have to go after some high leveled gates to gain levels with a similar pace, but there was no need to rush, I could slowly climb up. Aer all, simply increasing my stats without polishing my techniques was simply a foolish endeavour.

I also still didn't come to a decision about which stat should I focus into after I was done balancing the perception with the other stats….

'Oh well, but now is not the time to think about it I guess.'

I went towards the orb and held my sword high up, before slicing it into two halves…

[ You have absorbed the essence of a 'Corruption Core', purification in progress….. ]

[ You have received 90,116 EP! ]

[ You have leveled up! ]

[ You have reached level 21! ]

While I was capable of using the 'Elemental Severing' method, I simply needed more essence than money, plus the fact that I didn't want to deal with the association with me going undercover and messing their plans up, it was true that I was helping, but I doubted that the association would be happy with what I did….

By the time I exited the gate, it was 3 hours later, it was definitely an efficient gate clear especially when compared to the two days long raid, but as it was already getting late and I could hear the voices of some people searching around, I already dashed out with my disguise as soon as I was teleported outside while the gate was collapsing.

Taking out some crystals to absorb on the way, I smoothly reached my new base one hour later, I continued to absorb more crystals for a while before roasting some rabbit meat that was still preserved in my ring for dinner, then I started getting ready for sleep.

Although my fatigue was already washed away thanks to the cold desert wind, I still needed some sleep to regulate my body functions, and I wasn't hasty to finish my limited reserve of crystals at least till I knew how I could get more….

I still took the time to assign all my unallocated stat points to Perception, before closing my eyes to handle the incoming sense distortion, finally sneaking a look at my current stats before heading into the land of dreams and suppressing my anticipation for the following days.

[ • Stats :

Strength: 13.59

Constitution: 14.48

Agility: 10.81

Dexterity: 10.624

Perception: 8.84 (+4.24)

Wisdom: 10.61

Intelligence: ???

Dual-element: 4.16 ( Lightning, Thunder )

Unassigned stat points: 0 (-4.24) ]