Resting on Luke's palm, the flame within the ball made out of transparent material swayed as though it was dancing to a soul or blues song. Because the fire almost covered the entire sphere from within, it appeared like a red ball at first glance, which it wasn't.
Recognizing what the item was, Enri's eyes went wide, with her pupils exaggeratedly transformed into stars as though a VFX had been applied to her.
"Oh! What a perfect monster core! As expected from the AP's seventh floor. It only gave you the best materials, which are hard to find in the real world!"
Shifting her attention from the monster core to Luke, she said:
"Is this from your kill on the cubs two days ago?"
Luke nodded. "Yeah. I was surprised when it suddenly materialized in front of me. I'd thought I needed to collect it manually."
Letting out a chuckle, Enri sat beside Luke.
"Well, looks like someone doesn't read the handbook."
Luke smiled, hiding a frown. "I guess."
"Unfortunately, there is only a little recorded information about the seventh and eighth trials. The handbook can only guide us until this floor. I'd say I was lucky to even reach here. If it is not for this group, I might fail the previous trial."
"Really?" Luke raised an eyebrow. "I mean, the previous trial didn't look that hard."
"It's because we have a nerd in our group," Enri said, glancing at Sorath. "I don't think we could beat the Earth Tortoise if it was awoken. At least not with our gear at that time."
It was just a month and several weeks ago that Fred came into living as Luke Shader. So it was understandable he didn't know many things about this Tower which he currently lived in. There were so many, although minor, differences from his.
However, his personality wouldn't let it slide. He took pride in having accumulated knowledge over the years in his previous life. And that knowledge had saved him not only once but thousands of times.
Thus, being uninformed was a trait he loathed.
Enri's voice rang in his ears, taking Luke away from his thoughts.
"So, what do you say? Isn't it better if we hunt some monsters along the way?"
He tensed up. There was no way in the world he could give an answer to that question. Not when he didn't have the knowledge about the "drop" in the first place, albeit noticing that the chance something would materialize from killing a monster was random.
And what about manually collecting the monster core? Did that even exist here, like it did in the Tower he came from?
As he thought about that, the feeling of jealousy aroused inside of him.
The inhabitants of Gaia Tower were lucky to have an automatic collecting system, unlike Aethal Tower, where everything needed to be collected manually.
And as if that was not enough, the Gaia also provided equipment, such as weapons and armor materialization from killing a monster. How pampered the residents here were.
'I guess it's because they originally didn't possess an inborn power, making them reliant on the Tower's power system like Awakening and Traces. Thus, the Tower adjusted its rule for them.'
Putting aside his thoughts, Luke answered:
"Certainly, it could improve our power..."
Enri's face brightened and hopeful as she heard that. But it soon disappeared after hearing Luke's continuation explain.
"However, can you guarantee that in several or dozens of monsters that we would slay, a better quality weapon than we have would appear? More importantly, would there be weaker monsters like the Burning Wolf cubes ahead of us? In the deeper layer?"
Enri immediately went silent.
It wasn't that she didn't have the counter-argument or an answer to that, but she, in fact, was also thinking the same. However, her desire to acquire a powerful weapon- an artifact, was clouding her mind.
Noticing Enri's sudden silence, Luke sighed and stood up.
"We all agreed for Sorath to be the group leader. So, listen to him. Who knows that the things he seeks would be much more worthwhile than the loot of random monsters."
She fell into deep thought, contemplating his words.
But it wasn't long before Sorath prompted them to resume their trip to the location where the monster tree was located.
Shaking her head, Enri got up and regrouped.
However, don't think that she has given up with her hunt-and-loot business.
An hour after they resumed the journey, Enri stepped beside Sorath and tugged at his sleeve.
"I want to say something," she said.
"What is it?"
"Don't you think it's a waste to avoid all the monsters, especially the weaker and killable ones?"
Sorath raised his eyebrow.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean what I mean. We could get a lot of resources like materials or equipment from killing monsters. Well, randomly. But it's worth it! Not to mention, we can bring them to the real world, whether we pass all the trials or fail here."
Sorath blinked twice- thrice, as though he didn't believe what he had just heard.
'What did she just say? Bringing back the resources acquired from the Awakening Phase? Is that possible? And there's even a killing loot?'
That was the first time he had heard about it. A piece of news- a variable that reinforced his theory about getting thrown out into an alternative timeline, where some things weren't aligned with what he knew.
Nor did the novel, his past life, or the author's life have this general truth.
The kill loot, resources-retrieving, weak and killable monsters on the seventh floor, none of that existed in the three knowledge sources Sorath possessed.
'Come to think of it, the goblin on the first floor dropped a map piece. The torch that didn't disappear but was brought along instead. The Burning Wolves...'
Sorath frowned as though realizing something.
'No. It's possible. If not, how can Julian bring back the hidden treasures and use them in the real world?'
That's true.
The three sources, although not explicitly mention, explain, or hear about (in the case of Sorath's past life) the resources-retrieving, did have that rule where a candidate could bring the belongings they had collected during the Awakening Phase.
However, the kill loot and the weak and killable monsters on the seventh floor were something new.
The kill loot was more believable since the thing Sorath sought was about to do so. But he had no idea that the monsters other than the tree that possessed the hidden treasure on this floor could give out a resource upon being killed.
'If what she said is true, then I really have wasted the opportunity to gain as much as... resources... resources... reso-'
Again, he realized something very crucial.
'Resources! The mineral on the first floor!'