Chapter 218 - Great Hauls and Unstoppable Urges

After muttering those few words, Argentum soon went ahead and bent his knees to get closer to the corpse. Letting out a light chuckle, he muttered as his hands started to move, "If only the idea of extorting their knowledge of skills came to my mind far earlier, I would've gotten more skills I could grind and enhance, thus increasing my power. Then again, this current scenario is leaning towards the better side of things anyway."

"I should go ahead and remove all of the items on the corpses though," Argentum added as he removed the clothes the last human he killed was wearing. Of course, he also removed the equipment that was on the human, its primary weapon, and all of the back-up weapons on its body. Seeing the number of back-up weapons this human had on it, Argentum could not help but imitate the sound of someone clicking their tongue before muttering, "As expected. They were hiding a lot of weapons in them. I wonder if all of the stuff I get from them would fit inside the system's inventory?"

After a few minutes, all of the items on the last human Argentum killed were finally removed, leaving the faceless human only in its undergarments. He soon commanded the system to keep all of the items he looted inside the system's inventory, to which the system had no problem doing so. Somewhat realizing that the size of the system's inventory was far larger than he imagined, Argentum radiated a slight aura of shock for a short bit before letting out a light chuckle as he moved on to the second last person he killed.

Argentum had a plan in mind while he was doing this looting business. He was going to loot the last human he killed first dry of equipment before moving onto the second last human, eventually finishing with the first human he killed, the one with the shrill voice. The reason as to why he was doing it in this manner was because he was taking into consideration the amount of energy that was still in their bodies.

Indeed, he was going to go ahead and use the energy stored inside these corpses to initiate his first Power Baptism, which would increase his conversion factor by 10 times, easily increasing the power of his attacks and other stats by 10 times. He had a feeling that the amount of energy stored inside the first human he killed had already dissipated to a certain extent, giving him the idea that he should prioritize the absorption of the energy of the first human.

Of course, he could go ahead and head back to the body of the first human, loot all of its equipment, then siphon all of its remaining energy, but that would be a waste of his stamina. He was already somewhat far away from where the first three bodies he killed were. By heading back to the first three humans he killed before heading back to the final four, he was just going to use up more of his stamina in the process.

And so, he made a compromise in his mind, hastily looting all of the equipment from the final four humans he killed before hastily making his way back to the first three humans he killed. With that in mind, it did not take long for Argentum to loot all of the equipment from the last four humans he killed, with the system still accepting all of the items he asked it to store without a problem.

Just as he was about to head back to the first three humans he killed, a thought related to the previous ones he had appeared in his mind, making him ponder quite a bit. 

'Now that I think about it, I'd waste a lot of stamina and time heading back to the first three humans, looting their equipment, and siphoning their energy. Since the amount of energy inside them is gradually dissipating, I should go ahead and absorb the energy stored in these four corpses first before going ahead and heading back,' Argentum thought to himself, his train of thought eventually heading towards the topic of how he was going to siphon the energy out of their bodies.

It was then that Argentum realized that he had no skill or method related to siphoning energy from objects. In an instant, Argentum felt dejected since it seemed like the energy inside these corpses he killed would just dissipate away without anyone using them. He could not help but mutter to himself, "If I realized that I had no way of siphoning their way in the first place, I might've just gone ahead with my first choice from before, leaving them clueless as to where I am."

"But then again…the loot I've obtained from them so far is not small either," Argentum soon added as he pondered on how he was going to solve this problem. After about a couple of minutes or so, a thought that seemed to be the natural train of thought appeared in his mind as he took in a deep breath. At this moment, he felt a bit of uncertainty as to whether it would work or not.

If it did not work, then he would just leave the corpses be and be on his way, continuing on his journey to Verdant Breeze Town. This situation was just a bit of a detour for him anyway. He had already obtained quite a good chunk of loot from them, so Argentum could not say that he did not go empty-handed.

But if it did work, Argentum would have more courage and confidence in accomplishing the subtasks he had planned out in this journey of his. Not only that, but it would also increase his confidence in defending and retaliating against ambushes from humans that were eyeing him.

Letting out a short sigh, he then went ahead and asked the system as he focused his sense of vision towards one of the corpses, "System, do you have a way of absorbing the energy stored within these corpses?"

Ding!

It did not take long for the system to respond to his message as a feminine-sounding voice resounded in his mind, saying, "Unfortunately, User, the system does not have a method of absorbing energy from other objects."

Hearing this response, Argentum could not help but feel a bit glum as he let out a sigh, saying, "Even though I was expecting it, it still feels bad to hear it directly from the system. Then again, the system isn't a jack of all tra—"

Just as he was coming to terms with how the system was not omnipotent, the feminine-sounding voice of the system continued to resound in his mind from where it left off, saying, "That is only if the system had not undergone an upgrade in its OS. Right now, the system has multiple methods of absorbing energy from objects, utilizing artificial intelligence to choose the optimal method of absorbing energy for a certain object, allowing the user to obtain as much energy stored in them as possible."

"Huh…?" Hearing the continuation of the system's voice, Argentum could not help but think that he had heard wrongly, only for the system to dispel this notion in his mind as a screen displaying the reply it had just voiced out appeared in front of his field of vision. Reading through the response of the system, Argentum did not know whether he should laugh or cry, muttering, "This system should really get straight to the point sometimes."

Even though he said that, it still did not hide the happiness and elation he was feeling, seeing that the energy stored within the humans he killed was not going to waste.

Pointing towards one of the four humans he killed, he soon commanded the system, "Absorb all of the energy stored within that corpse."

Ding!

Not long after Argentum was finished commanding, the system's voice resounded in his mind, asking him, "What kind of energy would you like to absorb from the corpse?"

At first, Argentum was quite confused as to why the system would ask such a question like that, only for him to read between the lines and realize that the types of energy he could absorb from objects seemed to have no limits in possibilities. It did not take long for Argentum to articulate the thought in his mind, soon muttering, "All of the energy inside it that would allow me to undergo a Power Baptism."

"Understood. All of the energy inside the corpse shall be converted into Power Baptism Energy for the user," the system's voice soon resounded in his mind once again as a ball of blue light appeared on top of the corpse he pointed at a while ago.

Whirr…

As a faint whirring sound resounded throughout the surroundings, the ball of blue light gradually intensified in its brightness, its light eventually enveloping every part of the corpse before…

Whoosh!

In an instant, every inch of the corpse had been transformed into motes of white light, all of which made its way to the ball of blue light to be absorbed. A few seconds later, this ball of blue light soon headed towards Argentum's body before being absorbed by him soon after as a notification sound resounded in his mind.

Ding!

"The user has obtained half of the Power Baptism Energy needed to undergo a Power Baptism." Accompanying the notification sound was the system's voice informing him how much energy he had obtained from the corpse. Hearing that he had obtained half of the needed energy to undergo a Power Baptism, Argentum could not help but let out a light chuckle before going ahead and moving onto the other corpses in the area.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Thanks to the system, it did not take long for the corpses to be converted into energy for a Power Baptism. The system had also informed him that he now had twice as much energy needed to undergo a Power Baptism, asking him as to whether he was going to keep the energy in its current form or transform it into a form that he could use.

Wondering what the system meant by a form of energy that he could use, he responded to the system's question, telling it to convert the excess energy into the latter. A few seconds later, he had obtained a notification that he had obtained a decent amount of experience points from the converted excess energy, increasing the number of unused experience points he had.

"I wonder if the original body has a use for this?" Argentum could not help but ask himself this question. Due to the difference in their existence levels, the amount of experience he had obtained from killing an Animate was actually 100 times more than what it was supposed to be. At the moment, he had around 100,000 unused experience points from killing those 7 Animates.

After converting the excess energy into unused experience points, he then made his way back to the corpses of the first three humans he killed, utilizing [Tempest Awakening] to get there as fast as possible, lest any more energy dissipates in the process.

While he was heading back to their location, Argentum could not help but realize what the system had truly done, asking the system soon after, "System, is it possible for you to convert my unused experience points into energy that could be used for Power Baptisms?"

Surprisingly, it did not take long for the system to respond to his question, its voice resounding in his mind as it said, "Unfortunately, that isn't possible. Only energy coming from other objects can be converted into other types of energy."

"Hmm…" Argentum pondered over the system's words after that, feeling that a thought in his mind was stuck but wanted to surface. Unfortunately, before that thought could surface, Argentum had already arrived in front of the three corpses, his train of thought hastily changing into that of looting all of their equipment and siphoning their energy.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Due to his experience on the four corpses from before, it only took a few minutes for the three corpses to disappear off the face of Erudinia, the number of items in the system's inventory increasing while the amount of energy Argentum had for undergoing the first Power Baptism exceeding yet again. This time though, he did not tell the system to convert the excess energy into other forms of energy as he had a feeling that the excess energy he had was more than enough for him to undergo a second Power Baptism.

Nonetheless, with all of the corpses now off the face of this world, Argentum could not help but let out an inward sigh of relief as he remembered that he could be tracked by other Animates thanks to the attacks he shot at them. But with the system absorbing their bodies completely, Argentum did not have to worry about such a problem anymore, allowing him to head towards Verdant Breeze Town without the threat of Animates following him at the back of his head.

"Should I go ahead and do the Power Baptism now…or should I delay it for now and undergo it once I get stronger?" Argentum soon asked himself this question as he had no experience with Power Baptisms from his previous life. He had only heard of them from other players, with all of them telling him that it was quite difficult to clear. Even Erea, the one who transformed into a Super Animate in ISE, told Aurus, the original body of Argentum, that undergoing a Power Baptism, even the first one, was incredibly hard unless one was prepared for all possible circ.u.mstances.

With that in mind, two opinions had formed in his mind, one opinion that was the epitome of logicality and rationality, telling him that it was better for him to save the Power Baptism for later, and the other opinion that was the epitome of impulsiveness, telling him that he should at least experience the Power Baptism right now, allowing him to prepare for it in the future.

Now…guess which opinion won in his mind.

…

…

…

"System…"

"Use the energy I've amassed to undergo a Power Baptism."