Elvis’s heart was pumping like a galloping wild horse, echoing in his ears alongside the roars. Adrenaline surged through his veins.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.
His breath came out in a hushed, measured rhythm as he listened, trying to discern the monster’s position while thinking of the best solution.
Suddenly, he remembered his Free Attributes, which he had been stacking to pour into his Intelligence attribute—a vital lifeline that had completely slipped his mind in the heat of the moment.
His racing heart calmed down a bit.
Adding Free Attributes should have been his first action, but it wasn’t all that bad that he had to do it in this darkness.
Opening his system status, Elvis planned to dump everything into his Strength but paused.
He made an impromptu yet well-thought-out decision—dumping all six Free Attributes into Agility.
Maybe pouring everything into Strength wasn’t necessarily wrong. There was a very high possibility that he would overpower the monster, but Elvis also considered the minuscule possibility of failing to do so despite dumping everything into Strength.
So he decided on Agility. The blue orc’s weakness was already speed, as Elvis had seen earlier when he was faster than it, if not for the sudden enhancement from [Predatory Rush].
Raising his Agility would put him miles ahead of the blue orc in terms of speed, making him even faster than it was while using [Predatory Rush].
He didn’t have time to thoroughly peruse his systems, quickly dismissing the panels. All he knew was that his Agility in the Awakener System was 11, while it was 9 in the Devourer System.
He couldn’t tell how fast he was now.
Taking a deep breath, he knew the duration of [Shadow Mist] was almost up.
He instantly ran in the direction he was facing, feeling the wind rush past his face and flap his hair.
About three seconds later, he shot out of the dark mist before sliding to a halt. He saw Luke and Caelithia a few meters ahead, with Freda and Hayden in the distance.
Snapping his head around, he saw a thick sphere of stagnant, dark mist with a radius of about ten meters.
The darkness vanished at that instant, revealing the blue orc thrashing on the snowy ground and sending snow flying around.
With a savage roar, the blue orc dashed toward them in large strides—not as fast as it had been when chasing Elvis.
Elvis turned to Luke and Caelithia, who were ready to attack. "I will be the main attacker while you guys support."
Without waiting for them to reply, Elvis sprinted ahead.
His sudden burst forward came with a speed that made the blue orc look clumsy. This extreme speed only raised his already bolstered confidence to an all-time high since entering the dungeon.
The blue orc raised its club to attack the incoming Elvis, but he had already sped past it, leaving a deep gash in its knee.
Wheeling around behind it, he hacked at its exposed back, where a few arrows and ice spears remained lodged, sending blood flying.
The orc roared in pain as it spun around, swinging its spiked club behind it.
But Elvis followed its spinning momentum, keeping himself behind the orc as he slashed three times at its other knee, spraying blue blood across the snow.
The orc roared, dropping to one knee.
Elvis punched the back of the orc’s head, sending it crashing face-first into the snow.
Then he flipped his blade into a two-handed reverse grip, leapt, and drove it down through the orc’s skull, pinning the monster to the snow. Blue blood squirted around the blade.
[You have slain a Lv. 6 Blue Orc!]
[100 Life Mana Extracted]
[1 Monster Core received]
Elvis exhaled and pulled his sword from the orc’s head as he turned around.
He looked toward his group, who were staring at him in shock—except for Caelithia, who was walking toward him.
Elvis suddenly remembered her previous action of taking his slain monster with a Monster Core, so he glared at her before shaking his head.
However, she walked toward him without a change in expression.
Elvis was already prepared to argue with her, calculating the price he could get for selling this monster with its monster core.
He had learned that Necromancers could only attempt to raise monsters with a core embedded in them.
She walked up to him and scrutinized the blue orc before turning to him.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Huh?" Elvis was struck speechless, swallowing the rants he was about to spew. "Y-yes."
"You see? Just get confident, and the monsters are as good as dead." She kicked the dead orc.
’Nope. You just need to be overpowered—not have a marginal difference in strength—to feel confident,’ Elvis thought but didn’t say aloud.
"Nice job," Luke congratulated as he walked up to them with a smile.
Elvis reciprocated with a smile, but inwardly, he mused, ’He was a tad slower when chasing the blue orc while I was on the floor. It hadn’t met the conditions for [Predatory Rush] then, so Luke should have caught up. Maybe he didn’t want to risk himself? Hmm... At least he had been accommodating, perhaps even a good guy.’
Elvis placed the body of the blue orc in his storage bag while waiting for Hayden and Freda to walk up to them. Caelithia placed the spiked club in hers, as his storage bag was already full.
"So, what’s your level?" Luke asked.
Elvis went silent for a moment.
"Sorry if that makes you feel uncomfortable," Luke quickly apologized.
Elvis waved his hand. "Level five." He had merely deliberated whether to add his levels together but settled on removing one, since his Devourer System didn’t have Free Attributes.
"I’ll introduce you to a group of friends who hunt outside the dungeon. Since eternal dungeons aren’t enough for the number of Awakeners, getting access to a dungeon for leveling up is very difficult. So, hunting outside is the fastest way to level up. Even this one will shut down when we leave and won’t reopen until the next day. What do you think?" Luke suggested.
"Sure." Elvis nodded.
He might not join them, though, as he had noticed a tightly concealed, excited gleam in Luke’s eyes.
Others might not have noticed it, but all his years in college hadn’t been a waste, even though he hadn’t been the best student.
’This kid was prepared to say more sweet words to convince me. Coupled with that excited gleam... is it my new strength that excites him?’
Hayden and Freda quickly arrived, and they left the dungeon through the portal.
When they came out, the swirling white portal went still.