Chapter 41: Good Deeds are Rewarded
The first attack almost failed, causing Leon's expression to become serious. He understood that this was not an ordinary battle like before; now, he was facing an elite monster on its own turf.
Realizing this, Leon jumped to his feet and leaped to the side of the Lava Worm, thrusting his spear forward.
At the same time, Victor's attack landed. Unlike Leon, Victor wielded a hammer, specifically a heavy two-handed hammer.
Victor had already determined his professional path from the start. He was on the path of the Soul Imprisoner, a profession that strengthened itself by devouring souls.
This profession, when fully developed, would result in his body becoming gigantic, even reaching the size of a giant. Thus, hammer-type weapons were his best choice.
At the moment, Victor held his best weapon—a square-shaped two-handed hammer that emitted a ghostly flame with every swing.
Compared to Caden Emberhart, Victor's attacks, whether skill-based or physical, could actually harm the Lava Worm. After a few strikes, he successfully drew the Lava Worm's attention, which had been focused on Leon.
By this time, Leon had already familiarized himself with the terrain and the Lava Worm's fighting style. He didn't attack often, but each time, he carefully selected his position before thrusting his spear.
Every time the spear struck, it hit a spot the Lava Worm couldn't retaliate against. Although the force of each thrust wasn't great, the impact was enough to grab the Lava Worm's attention.
Thus, as soon as he thrust his spear, Leon would immediately jump back, running along the path he had planned from the start, giving Victor and Caden Emberhart the opportunity to strike the Lava Worm from behind.
Only when the Lava Worm felt it was too heavily injured would it turn to attack Victor or Caden Emberhart.
In this situation, the Lava Worm, being an elite monster and not a boss, didn't have any kind of berserk phase triggered by losing a certain amount of health.
Soon, the Lava Worm stood in the magma, unable to rise again.
Seeing that the Lava Worm was killed, Caden Emberhart reacted the fastest. He jumped directly onto the Lava Worm, ignoring the red blood and magma, and used both hands to carve into the Lava Worm's body. In a short while, a heart-shaped red gemstone fell into his hands.
Carefully transforming the red gemstone into a card, Caden Emberhart finally took out two shares of cards to give to Leon and Victor.
Leon took a look and found that it was exactly as Caden Emberhart had said—ten units of standard sulfur. He nodded and then looked toward Victor.
At that moment, Victor stood by the Lava Worm's corpse, seemingly calculating something. It was clear that he was very interested in this giant worm, but he wasn't sure how to ask Leon, especially since they had already agreed to split the spoils.
In fact, Leon also wanted to give the Lava Worm to Victor, as they had a good relationship, and Victor always considered him when there were tasks.
However, he couldn't say this too bluntly, as it might make Victor feel looked down upon. After thinking for a moment, Leon said, "Senior Victor, do you want the things underneath?"
Victor turned his head and saw that Leon was pointing to the spot where the Lava Worm had crawled out, probably indicating that there were some things below.
With this in mind, Victor shook his head. "Those things are of no use to me. If you want them, you can have them all."
"Thank you, Senior Victor. I'll take those things then, and the Lava Worm is all yours." After speaking, Leon didn't wait for Victor's response and jumped directly into the pit from where the Lava Worm had crawled out.
Seeing Leon act this way, Victor clearly understood his intentions. He thanked Leon in the direction he had jumped and then began processing the Lava Worm's body.
Initially, Leon just wanted to give Victor some face, but when he jumped into the hole from where the Lava Worm had emerged, he realized that he had stumbled upon a huge treasure.
This was the Lava Worm's lair. To protect this spot, the only place it could receive sunlight each day, the Lava Worm lived and ate here.
Living was one thing, but the leftover materials from its meals accumulated over the years had filled its lair.
After jumping down, Leon felt as if he had landed in a mountain of bones.
Of course, this bone mountain wasn't quite like a typical one. There wasn't much good food here; most of it was debris that had fallen from above.
Thus, most of the bones were made of chitin, the exoskeletons of various insects, and there were also some fragments of electronic devices caught in the sandstorms.
Under the influence of the Lava Worm's magma, almost everything here had a fire attribute. After carefully observing, Leon discovered at least ten units of fire-attribute bones.
Such materials were extremely valuable to Leon. Generally speaking, the resources he could obtain, whether common materials or high-end ones like magical mercury or standard gems, would only have a single attribute.
Dual-attribute materials, like these, were typically exclusive to players above Level 1. On the player market, the exchange rate between dual-attribute materials and common ones was around ten to one. Some rare dual-attribute materials were even priceless.
In the category of undead materials, sun-attribute bones and fire-attribute bones were the rarest. After all, even after death, sun- and fire-attribute creatures were difficult to convert into undead.
The things here were only what Leon had discovered at first glance. Who knew what other treasures might be hidden if he took his time?
Feeling fortunate, Leon didn't hold back. He continued converting the dual-attribute bones he found into cards, and after finishing, he moved on to processing the common bones and electronic fragments.
As Leon saw it, since there were already so many dual-attribute bones here, there might be even more valuable materials hidden in the remaining debris. Missing out on any of them would be a shame, so it was better to take everything back and process it later.
With this mindset, Leon practically dismantled the entire Lava Worm's lair. The final haul didn't disappoint him.
In total, Leon collected 17 units of fire-attribute bones, 69 units of common bones, 43 units of common electronic fragments or components, and 11 units of fire- or shadow-attribute electronic fragments or components.
Additionally, Leon found a curved knife made from boar tusks and a seemingly lifeless Lava Worm egg at the bottom of the lair.
When he touched these two items, the system gave a prompt indicating that they were quest items. Perhaps someone at the Aurelia Pinehold base might recognize or need them, so instead of converting them into cards, Leon simply carried them out.