Around a kilometer away from the marked location, Victor slowed the jeep before bringing it to a stop beside the remains of an old dirt road.
"We walk from here."
Leon looked through the window toward the surrounding forest. "Why stop this far away?"
"Because driving a large vehicle directly toward a monster den is generally considered a poor hunting strategy."
Leon nodded seriously. "Fair."
The four stepped outside and Victor placed one hand against the jeep. A faint light passed across the vehicle before the entire thing disappeared into his storage equipment.
Karl adjusted the Death Stick across his back before looking toward the forest ahead.
"Let’s go."
They left the road and continued on foot, with Victor leading them through the denser sections of the forest.
The terrain gradually became rougher until the trees opened around a shallow depression hidden between several rocky slopes.
Karl stopped near the upper edge and looked down.
The wolf den rested inside a low hollow surrounded by trees and exposed stone, while a large cave entrance opened along the opposite side.
Victor glanced around briefly before sliding down the slope.
"Come."
Karl followed immediately, using the loose soil to control his descent before landing near the bottom.
Mira came down beside him with considerably more grace, while Leon simply jumped the remaining distance and landed heavily upon both feet.
The moment his boots struck the ground, a howl suddenly rang through the hollow and everyone looked upward.
A large grey wolf had appeared upon the rocky ledge directly above the cave entrance, its fur rising slightly as it stared toward the four intruders below.
Karl focused upon it and activated Perception, the basic identification ability available to every awakened professional.
A small panel immediately appeared.
[Greyfang Wolf]
[Level: 32]
Karl had barely finished reading when movement appeared around the cave and another wolf emerged from between the rocks, followed by several more.
Then more appeared behind them.
Within less than a minute, Greyfang Wolves had begun spreading across the slopes surrounding the basin, some emerging directly from the cave while others appeared between the trees and rocks above.
Their Levels ranged from roughly twenty-five to forty, Karl counted quickly before giving up somewhere near a hundred.
Victor looked across the growing pack before clicking his tongue. "Tch, looks like most of them are here after all."
Leon rolled his shoulders. "That’s more like it."
Victor looked back at the three of them.
"So, what do you want first?"
He pointed casually toward the wolves.
"A fight or a kill?"
Before Leon could answer, Karl immediately spoke.
"Kill."
Both of them looked toward him.
Karl shrugged. "We can look for challenges after we stop being Level 0."
Mira nodded almost immediately. "Agreed."
Leon considered the wolves surrounding them, then reluctantly nodded as well.
"Fine, levels first."
The wolves had already begun moving down from the rocks. Several lowered their bodies while baring their teeth toward Victor, apparently recognising him as the greatest threat among the four.
Victor stared at them for a moment before laughing. "You little things actually want to attack me?"
A fraction of his power escaped and the effect was immediate.
Every wolf froze.
The hostility disappeared from their bodies almost instantly as several lowered themselves toward the ground.
Their legs trembled beneath them, while the weaker wolves visibly struggled even to remain standing.
Victor raised one hand and a dark circular formation spread across the basin.
Several black ropes immediately burst from the soil and wrapped around the wolves’ legs and bodies before they had any chance to escape.
Growls and howls filled the hollow as dozens of wolves struggled violently, but the black restraints only tightened around them.
Leon struck his gauntlets together.
"Tch, this looks pretty easy."
Victor turned toward him and laughed.
"Easy?"
He pointed toward the Level 32 wolf nearest them.
"At Level 0, you could stand there attacking that thing until tonight and probably still fail to properly break through its defence."
Leon opened his mouth before stopping, he looked toward the restrained wolf again and his expression became slightly red.
The annoying part was that Victor was right.
A powerful class and an S-rank talent gave Leon enormous future potential, but neither erased a difference of more than thirty Levels immediately after awakening.
Victor shook his head.
"Position yourselves around one each."
Karl, Leon and Mira separated without argument.
Victor waited until they were ready before several thinner black threads emerged from the formation.
They wrapped around three restrained wolves and pierced directly through several vital areas with extremely precise control.
The beasts immediately released pained howls. Their resistance weakened almost completely, but Victor deliberately stopped before delivering a fatal wound.
"Now."
Karl moved first as he stepped toward the wolf in front of him and drove the end of the Death Stick directly against its damaged skull with everything his current body could produce.
The wolf collapsed and Llmost immediately, a warm current spread throughout Karl’s body.
Several flashes of light passed across him one after another as notifications rapidly appeared before his eyes.
Leon and Mira experienced the same thing beside him.
Mira stared at her hands. "Four Levels from one?"
"Five for me."
Leon immediately grinned. "See? Natural talent."
Mira looked toward him. "Karl got five too."
Leon glanced toward Karl.
Karl smiled slightly. "Natural talent."
Leon clicked his tongue while Victor ignored them and prepared the next group, the enormous initial gain was not particularly surprising.
The Greyfang Wolves were dozens of Levels above them, meaning the experience gained from each kill was considerably greater than anything available inside an ordinary beginner hunting area.
That advantage would naturally decrease as their own Levels rose, the process repeated again and again.
Karl quickly noticed how carefully Victor controlled every attack.
The world quantified living creatures through attributes and Health, but those numbers did not make physical injuries meaningless.
A creature could still possess most of its Health and die almost instantly if an overwhelmingly powerful attack destroyed the brain, heart or another critical organ.
The same principle worked in reverse here.
Victor possessed more than enough strength to kill every wolf with a casual attack, so he deliberately controlled each strike and left the beasts barely alive before allowing Karl, Leon or Mira to deliver the final blow.
It was shameless, but extremely efficient, as their Levels increased, the flashes of light came increasingly slower.
What had given several Levels during the first kill gradually became only a portion of the experience needed for the next one, forcing Victor to continue bringing more restrained wolves forward.
By the time he finally called a stop, most of the Wolves lay dead across the basin while some had fled.
Leon dropped onto a nearby rock and immediately checked his status.
"Level 10."
Mira looked at hers. "Eleven."
Leon slowly turned toward her.
"Why are you still ahead of me?"
Mira gave him a satisfied smile. "Because the universe has good judgement."
Karl checked his own Level, Ten.
Leon immediately looked toward him. "At least someone understands my suffering."
Karl ignored him and looked across the remaining restrained wolves instead.
There were very few opportunities in an awakener’s life where someone this powerful could simply cripple monsters far beyond their Level and allow them to collect the experience without consequence.
At least, there were very few opportunities where doing so was actually wise.
Before the First Transition at Level 100, the enemies they killed while levelling did not heavily influence the difficulty of their eventual Transition Task.
That changed afterward, from later Transitions onward, repeatedly killing enemies far beyond one’s proper range could dramatically increase the difficulty of the eventual task.
Push it too far and the Transition could become so unreasonable that the professional failed completely, crippled themselves during the attempt or simply died.
This is probably the only time we can abuse something like this without regretting it later.
Leon had already leaned back against the rock as though their work was finished, while Mira sat nearby and reached for some water.
Karl immediately walked toward the nearest corpse.
Leon watched him. "Where are you going?"
"Working."
Karl crouched beside the dead Greyfang Wolf and placed one hand against its body.
Harvest.
The reaction happened almost instantly as Death Energy began leaving the corpse and flowing directly into Karl’s palm.
The wolf’s body rapidly shrivelled beneath his hand as its remaining vitality and essence disappeared.
Within several seconds, the previously muscular beast resembled little more than dried skin stretched across bone.
A notification appeared.
[Harvest successful.]
[5 Death Points extracted.]
Karl’s eyes immediately shifted toward his status interface, a completely new section had appeared near the bottom.
[Death Points: 5]
System, what exactly can Death Points be used for?
The answer appeared immediately.
[Death Points may be consumed through Infinite Evolution to strengthen and evolve undead.]
[Death Points may also be consumed to restore damaged undead.]
Karl’s steps stopped.
Restore them?
That part was far more important than it initially sounded, Undead possessed several advantages over living summons, but recovery had always been one of their greatest weaknesses.
Most conventional healing abilities were designed for living bodies and were either ineffective upon undead or completely useless.
Once a valuable undead suffered severe enough damage, repairing it could require rare death-attributed materials, specialised Necromancer abilities or enormous amounts of time.
Sometimes there was simply nothing the Necromancer could do, a powerful undead that had taken years to obtain could be permanently lost during a single battle.
So Death Points can solve that too.
That made every corpse considerably more valuable than Karl had originally assumed, he moved toward the next wolf.
Harvest.
Its body shrivelled in exactly the same way.
Mira gradually lowered the bottle in her hand.
"What is he doing?"
Leon stared at another corpse collapsing in upon itself.
"No idea."
Victor’s expression had become more attentive as well.
He had encountered plenty of Necromancers throughout his life, but he had never seen one touch a fresh corpse and drain it until almost nothing remained.
Karl ignored their gazes and continued moving from one body to another, each successful Harvest adding more Death Points to his reserves.
By the time he reached the final Greyfang Wolf corpse, nearly every dead beast behind him had been reduced to a dried husk.
Karl placed his palm upon it.
Harvest.
Death Energy flowed into him again however, this time a different notification appeared alongside the familiar sensation.
[Harvest successful.]
[Attribute extracted: Mana +3.]
Karl froze.
The increase itself was small, but there was no temporary enhancement or foreign energy remaining inside his body, the three points had truly become part of his Mana attribute.
Karl froze and immediately opened his status panel.
[Level: 10]
[Strength: 2377]
[Constitution: 2710]
[Speed: 2377]
[Mana: 3385]
Karl stared at the numbers for several seconds, even compared with the theoretical natural limit of his SSS-rank Sword Saint talent in his previous life, his current attributes were already higher.
And this was before he had used any external treasures or enhancement methods.
Twenty-one stars and a God-Tier talent...
A faint smile appeared across Karl’s face.
Just how high is my natural growth limit this time?
There was still one more thing he wanted to test, Karl stood and stepped toward the wolf corpse before extending one hand.
Death Energy gathered around his fingers.
Death Legion.
The energy entered the corpse and Karl waited for it to rise but nothing happened.
A cold notification appeared before him instead.
[Undead extraction failed.]