Alexander gripped his Sharp Iron Sword, feeling a deep sense of satisfaction. He couldn't wait to see how this sword would evolve further. But for that, he needed more equipment.
With that thought, he moved forward to collect the loot dropped by the Bloodthirsty Sand Crabs.
Seventeen monsters had provided him with two base attribute points, and as he had suspected, the experience points had doubled from 20 to 40 per kill.
This wave alone had given him 680 experience points, and thanks to his Beginner Hunter badge, he received an additional 1%, or 6.8 points, bringing the total to 686.8 experience points.
Alexander opened his panel to check his progress.
[Current Talent Level: D (EXP: 0.8585%)]
"Huh? Why is it so precise?" Alexander muttered, noticing the decimal points.
After doing some quick mental math, he realized that to upgrade his D-level talent to C-level, he would need a total of 80,000 experience points.
That was a 300% increase from the previous level.
The jump was significant, but as Alexander's strength grew, so would his ability to gain experience faster.
The Crimson Flame Desert was teeming with monsters, even more so than the Howling Plains. After collecting his loot, Alexander continued forward, and within a few steps, another group of Bloodthirsty Sand Crabs emerged from the sand.
This time, there were about twenty of them.
Once again, Alexander dispatched them with ease.
At first, he thought this was just a feature of the desert, but after encountering five consecutive waves of crabs, he began to suspect something was off.
The number of crabs seemed too controlled, almost as if someone was orchestrating it.
Not only that, but the environment around him felt... artificial. No matter how far he walked, he always seemed to end up back where he started.
Frowning, Alexander began paying closer attention to his surroundings.
Finally, after taking a few more steps and encountering yet another Bloodthirsty Sand Crab, he noticed something strange. In the spot where the first crab had emerged, something had briefly flashed.
With quick reflexes, Alexander thrust his sword into the ground just as the crab raised its claw.
A soft pop echoed, and the air around him shimmered before returning to normal.
The scenery was the same, and the monsters were still there, but Alexander could feel that something had been broken.
He walked forward a few more steps and waited.
This time, no new Bloodthirsty Sand Crabs appeared.
Satisfied, Alexander turned back to the spot where he had noticed the flash and knelt down, digging into the sand. After a few moments, his hand hit something hard.
Grabbing hold of it, he pulled it out with some effort.
It was a black crystal pillar.
The pillar was as thick as an adult's arm and about half as tall as a person. It was jet black and surprisingly heavy.
Curious, Alexander opened its panel.
[Material: Dark Crystal]
[Quality: B-grade]
[Attribute: By paying a certain price, you can gain an acceleration effect, lasting up to 24 hours.]
"Acceleration?" Alexander wondered aloud. "What kind of acceleration? Does it automatically grant experience?"
As soon as the thought crossed his mind, a system prompt appeared in front of him.
[Would you like to pay all your gold coins to activate experience acceleration? Once activated, you will automatically gain 1 experience point per second.]
Wow!
Alexander couldn't help but exclaim.
One experience point per second didn't seem like much, but over the course of 24 hours, that would amount to 86,400 experience points.
He could literally lie down and sleep for a day and wake up with a full level!
Without hesitation, Alexander clicked Confirm.
The moment he did, his wallet was emptied, not even a single copper coin remaining.
[You have spent 15,984 gold coins, 7 silver coins, and 5 copper coins, gaining 22 hours and 18 minutes of experience acceleration.]
[Countdown: 22:17:59]
Alexander felt a bit speechless.
So, one gold coin only bought him two minutes of acceleration?
That was expensive!
But on second thought, it made sense. Even with his Luck stat boosting his chances of encountering monsters, he wasn't constantly fighting. There were always gaps between battles, as monsters needed time to respawn.
In Oracle, most players didn't need to rest thanks to the nutrition pods, allowing them to stay in the game for extended periods. However, Alexander didn't have access to such a pod in the real world. While he wouldn't die from hunger, the mental fatigue from doing the same thing over and over was hard to ignore.
In fact, over the past few days, Alexander had taken short naps between grinding sessions to recover from the mental exhaustion.
If he could continue gaining experience while sleeping, wouldn't that make things even easier?
Feeling pleased with his discovery, Alexander's mood improved. Watching his experience points steadily increase every second, he felt more motivated as he ventured deeper into the desert.
---
Two hours later, a group of people arrived at the edge of the Crimson Flame Desert, frantically scanning the ground with a rectangular device.
"Hurry up! We need to find the Dark Crystal! This thing is extremely important to Master Robert Bradford. If we don't recover it, we'll all be punished!" shouted the leader, his voice filled with urgency.
The others quickly responded with a chorus of "Yes, sir!" and resumed their search.
But after more than an hour of searching, they still hadn't found the Dark Crystal, and the leader's expression had grown increasingly grim.
"Fuck! Damn thieves! They'd better hope I don't catch them!" he cursed.
"What are you all standing around for? Expand the search area and keep looking!"
The group, not daring to anger him further, immediately widened their search, combing through the desert with even more precision.
By the time the sun began to set, they had scoured the entire Crimson Flame Desert. Aside from a few confused players and countless monsters, they had found nothing.
The leader looked like he wanted to tear the entire desert apart with his bare hands.
But it was pointless. The device they were using was crafted by a top-tier blacksmith, capable of detecting anything buried up to ten meters underground.
No one could have hidden the crystal deeper than that.
"We can't find it, sir!" one of the subordinates reported.
"Mr. Thomas, maybe we should just explain the situation to Robert? After all, thieves are tricky, and the challenge message they left might not be reliable," another suggested.
The leader, whose full name was Thomas Bradford, was a butler of the Bradford family, responsible for looking after young master Robert since childhood.
Hearing his subordinates' suggestions, Thomas shook his head and said, "If it were any other thief, I wouldn't believe them. But if it's Edward, then his word is as good as gold."
"If he said the crystal was buried here, then it's definitely here. The only explanation is that someone else has already taken it!"