The enormous body of the monster slowly slumped down on the ground. Its eyes stared blankly ahead.
"Even though I can only manifest a fraction of the power a skill like [Ice Razor] could potentially have, I still can take down such a big monster so quickly. I wonder how powerful it would be when I get to 50 Force." Alex contemplated.
He took a closer look at a monster he just defeated. It was called a Phase Grizzly. Its ability was to become ethereal and move very fast for a short amount of time, allowing it to catch newbie awakened off-guard. The only saving grace was that it had to gather up energy for a long time, so if you defeated it fast enough, it would have no chance to use its ability.
The monster was indeed formidable, and with a normal newbie 1-Star awakened team, they could not take it down unless they were exceptionally good.
But Alex's absurd talents allowed him to slay this mighty foe with skills that were beyond the reach of an ordinary 1-Star awakened. Alex walked up to the corpse, which was slowly beginning to dissipate.
The monster had a hard bone carapace on its back. Its legs were as thick as small trees, and its arms were quite impressive as well. Dangerous-looking claws on its paws were especially scary.
The monster's corpse finally dissipated. Unfortunately, it didn't leave a skill shard behind which would be undoubtedly extremely convenient to have, but it still left something good behind. A pale blue crystal shimmering in the moonlight still managed to bring a sense of excitement to Alex.
"A magic crystal! It actually dropped one!"
It was true what they said about magic crystals. The drop rate was abysmal compared to vitality crystals. Alex already hunted more than a hundred monsters here, and now was the first time one dropped a magic crystal.
He grabbed it and was about to crush it but stopped.
"It is 3:25 already. Should I continue hunting?"
Alex already had enough vitality crystals to get his vitality to around 40 easily. In theory, he could get enough to max it on the way back.
"I still didn't get the certificate. If I test with 50 vitality I'll just oust myself. I should get it first and then max my stats to avoid any suspicion."
The government was quite strict on those who participated in black market activities for obvious reasons, and Alex didn't want to take unnecessary risks, so he decided to turn back and catch a few hours of sleep before going back and applying for certification.
He took a different route back to increase his chances of running into a monster on his way back, simply to maximize his gains. By the time he left the forest sun was already peeking over the horizon.
Alex went straight to the hostel and immediately crashed on the bed, drifting away into the kingdom of Morpheus.
When he woke up, it was almost ten in the morning. The first thing Alex did, was wash his face to drive away the grogginess caused by a sudden shift to an irregular pattern of sleep. Then was the time to organize his gains.
"Thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven. And one magic crystal."
Unfortunately, it was extremely rare for an ordinary monster to drop a skill shard. Usually, only alpha level monsters had a chance to drop one, and even then it was not guaranteed at all. Sometimes teams of awakened would go for days without getting a skill shard, even though on average, a team could clear a dungeon twice a day.
Now, he had to decide how many vitality crystals he would sell.
Alex quickly searched the internet for the stat point gain formula to approximate how many crystals it would take for him to reach 50. For the first ten crystals, it would always give you three stat points no matter what. That meant the first thirty stat points are pretty much guaranteed. However, the next ten crystals would only give you around fifteen to twenty, which was not a problem for Alex, but quite a predicament for any other awakened, since, unlike Alex, to max out their physique they would need three times the stat points, which translated into hundreds more crystals.
Hence the specializations. Attack-type, defense-type, and speed-type fighters, sometimes also called knights, strikers, and assassins, as well as attack-type and support-type mages, usually called arcanists and spiritualists. Usually decided by one's talents or the first skill they got.
Based on empirical data, fifty vitality crystals would net you around sixty to ninety stat points, probably based on your natural talent, and then the gain would slow down to a crawl. You would be lucky if you managed to squeeze ten stat points out of the next fifty crystals.
It would probably take millions if not billions of 1-star vitality crystals to max out one's stats. But as long as you hit the 50-point ceiling in one of the stats, you could start absorbing the 2-star crystals, making it much less of an issue. As well as the fact that rarely, alpha level monsters could drop rare items that would give you a flat increase to a stat. The only thing was that these drops were even rarer than skill shards.
Currently, Alex needed a total of 42 points to max out his vitality which was easily possible with just 20 crystals, even less that than. He already used one, so he could count on a 27-point gain from nine next crystals, and then at least 15 from the next ones which was exactly how much he needed.
That meant he had seventeen vitality crystals to sell, maybe more if he was lucky and his absorption rate was higher than average. The price for one fluctuated around three hundred dollars on the black market, so while having a couple more to sell was nice, it was far from any significant amount. Maybe if it was magic crystals.
In any case, the calculations made him feel quite giddy. Just in one night, he managed to earn more money than he could in two months working at mines. Selling the crystals would net him over five thousand dollars, which placed his buying power in a striking zone of another 1-star skill, this time an intermediate one. And if he could find another one with a similar debuff that his Ice Razor had, he could probably get it dirt cheap, and still use it like normal.
And as soon as he could enter the dungeons, his rate of earning money would at least double, since it was possible for him to solo them instead of sharing the drops with others. Unfortunately, all known dungeons were in the hands of either government or corporations and finding a new undetected entrance was asking too much of his luck. And even if he could find one, a new dungeon was always accompanied by a dungeon break, which released hordes upon hordes of monsters out of the dungeon. Even if he could sneak past the horde and clear a dungeon once, he would still have to exit it and get away, which was hard without a stealth skill, and if he tried to fight the horde first, in a miracle case that he is not overrun and shredded to pieces, such a commotion will attract a lot of attention, so before he could even clear it, someone would come to stake the claim.
Alex went to the reception to return the key but before he could leave, the receptionist asked him if he would like to sell his gains here instead of carrying them back to the city. Looks like, the mayor did everything he could to attract more awakened here. He even personally set up an agency that dealt with buying the drops off the awakened, and even prices were pretty good.
The mayor himself was a high-level 1-star awakened, and his presence combined with two more awakened who took residency here was enough to provide safety to this town as long as someone would constantly go into the monster field and thin the numbers of the monsters there. The receptionist told Alex that the mayor always offers a good deal to newbie awakened, so Alex decided to at least check it out. He didn't want to sell at any kind of official stores before getting a certificate, but after meeting the mayor, Alex was pleasantly surprised.
As it turned out, the mayor didn't lie when he said he could offer Alex a 'good deal'. A quick appeal to simple human greed opened up an option of selling his drops off the books. The mayor was physically focused awakened, so getting a few more vitality crystals without paying any tax was well within his personal interests, and since it was a private transaction, even if someone found out and tried to press the issue, it wasn't anything illegal.
"Pleasure to do business with you."
Satisfied with the deal, Alex left the mayor's office. With nothing else holding him here, and a fat stack of cash in his pocket, Alex left the town.