Damien stood in place, essence cores in both hands.
His Subskill (Essence Devourer) was activated and Damien was greedily sucking the magic essence out of both cores. Within seconds, it was empty and Damien tossed them aside. Around him, in the midst of the forest was hundreds of cores along with a certain slime.
It had been three days since the first time he summoned the slime and formed a pact with it and now, he had enough magic essence to keep the slime around.
Damien had slowly grown fond of the seemingly weak creature. During these three days, Damien had discovered just how scary the creature's abilities were.
The (Devourer) skill was just as overpowered as Mithas had stated the first time. There was nothing Luton, the slime couldn't devour. After devouring the creatures that attack Damien, it would spit out its essence core which Damien would then absorb.
Slowly and steadily, this had gone on for three days and Damien had amassed a lot of essence.
The first day, Damien had ended with slightly over thirty essence cores and the second day, it had jumped by a lot. The second day had amounted to over one hundred as Damien actively attracted the magic beasts lurking in the Forest of Twin Disasters.
Today was the third day and while the sun had just finished setting in the sky, Damien was done with today's hunt. One hundred and fifty cores from today alone was a great haul.
Damien couldn't be more proud of his alone as well as the system that had made this a possibility. He was beginning to trust Mithas completely. After all, all the system had done since its arrival was make Damien's life better.
What made him the most pleased was the fact that he'd levelled up five times during these three days.
"Status." Damien ordered and in a split second, a panel popped up.
««««««••••••»»»»»»
Name: Damien Terrace
Race: Human
Level: 10
Exp: 240/500
Talent: E-Rank Summoner
Life Force: 650/2600
Magic Essence: 300/280
Strength: 31 Agility: 29
Stamina: 31 Endurance: 31
Intelligence: 26
••••••••••
Skill: SSS-Ranked Summons
Subskills:-
Pact of Summons
Essence Devourer
Transformation (locked)
Merger (locked)...(locked)
««««««••••••»»»»»»
Damien had studied his system during these three days and noticed one thing. For every level increase, he received +1 on all stats and +100 on his Life Force stat. As for his magic essence, it rose +20 for every level. However, when he happened to cross over to Level 10, he'd received five times what he usually received from leveling up.
While all this had taken place, there was one thing that seemed to remain stuck on his mind. His Magic Essence level. It could go beyond the limit of each level as long as he could absorb enough magic essence to surpass his cap for the respective level.
This greatly excited Damien as he planned to amass as much magic essence as possible. He didn't mind gathering it for the next summon. After all, he needed as much magic essence as he could gather for the summon.
Satisfied with his growth during the past three days. Damien dismissed the system panel and proceeded to continue with his devouring. Essence devouring was his new best thing and he needed to continue. He needed to see how far he could go with this new Subskill.
Two new essence cores appeared on his hand, falling out of the slime situated atop Damien's head. He smiled and then closed his eyes. Once again, he would devour the essence within these cores in mere seconds.
A smile graced his face as he concentrated and magic energy began to churn out of the cores into his own body with a terrifying speed.
If anyone saw him at the moment, they would be left speechless. This was because the cores in Damien's hands were cores previously owned by beasts of a higher rank than him.
As he's expected, Damien had emptied the cores within a minute.
Thud!
The two cores dropped from his hand and he opened his eyes, awaiting a new set of cores from Luton.
The slime bounced slightly on his head but Damien didn't quite understand its action.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Damien asked curiously. He was still awaiting a new set of cores but he was met with another round of bouncing from his slime.
Damien shook his head, failing to comprehend the meaning behind the slime's jumping.
[Sometimes, I wonder how you managed to accumulate that much stats in respect to intelligence despite being this dumb.] Mithas' voice was as mocking as it could be and the system's guide didn't even try to hide it in the slightest.
Damien's face darkened with a frown but before he could say a word, Mithas spoke again.
[Luton is simply saying that it has run out of essence cores and so, there isn't any more to provide.
Luton, Damien's summoned slime would instantly digest whatever it devoured while keeping whatever it desires. The essence core was an example of that.
Damien sighed as he looked around him once more. Around him lay hundreds of cores he'd emptied and he wanted more.
"I guess we'll have to go hunting tonight." Damien usually stopped hunting just before the sun completely disappeared from the sky but today, he planned to hunt into the night.
He needed as much core as he could get. Damien's eyes peered into the depths of the forest and he smiled. With his current magic essence level, Damien was sure he could keep Luton around for twelve more hours.
Since that was the case, he planned to make the best use of the creature. With this new summons, Damien felt like his growth could not be stunted.
All he saw around him was resources for leveling up. Although Luton used magic essence each time it devoured a magic beast, it recovered it after absorbing the beast it had devoured.
Although Luton couldn't devour beasts of a higher rank than it without a backlash, Damien wasn't planning on doing that.
As stated by Mithas earlier, Luton was advancing after much devouring and so, Damien planned on devouring even more beasts until Luton advanced to the next rank.
The forest was filled with resources that aided non stop growth for Damien and Luton. So, why stop?