Chapter 89 - On Their Own

[Ding. You have been empowered by the nether]

[Ding. All your stats are increased by 10%]

[Ding. Experience Points gained are increased by 10%]

[Ding. Your pet1 is inflicted by the nether]

[Ding. Your pets stats are decreased by 10%]

[Ding. Your pet2 is inflicted by the nether]

[Ding. Your pets stats are decreased by 10%]

Liam waited for all the notifications to roll in one after the other. He had expected some of these but he hadn't expected his pets to get affected by the nether debuff.

But now that he thought about it, everything made sense. One pet was the common type and the other pet was the spirit type. Both didn't have an affinity to the nether energy as he did.

"Well. It doesn't matter. My experience points should transfer over without any problems so you both can still level up."

As he looked around, wondering which direction to head in first, suddenly small skittering noises sounded behind him. Liam instantly turned around and unsheathed his sword by habit.

But when he looked at what was making the noise, he relaxed a little. It was just a horde of demon larvae passing by. 

[Demon Larvae]

Level 4

Health: 400

Liam glanced at their stats and they were just ants in front of him. "You two want to try fighting them?" He looked at the fox and the bird. He wanted both to be more accustomed to fighting.

And that was something that needed to be learned and trained the hard way. There were no shortcuts. 

Otherwise, they would simply just be glass cannons leeching his experience points and nothing more.

Kyuuuu! The fox excitedly jumped up and down.

The bird was even more excited eying the demon larvae that had the potential to become powerful demons as simply mere food. It liked that they looked like wiggling worms.

Liam did not have to tell them twice and they quickly jumped into action. In the meantime, he continued to think about where to move next.

But he also paid attention to what they were doing from the corner of his eyes. After all, there were about 50 or 60 demon larvae wiggling towards them.

He didn't plan on intervening unless things became very bad. Nevertheless, he still kept an eye on the two.

The fox did not approach the horde yet and started sending out fire blasts one at a time, aiming for the horde.

Kyuuu! Kyuuu! Kyuuu!

It jumped up and down in joy as if it was playing an 'aim and shoot' video game. 

Liam was actually having trouble focusing on his thoughts as the adorable thing was putting on a good show for him. 

It was like fireworks and the attacks wreaked havoc amidst the previously coordinated and orderly horde.

The bird, on the other hand, used this chaos to pick up the pieces. It swooped in and pecked the injured larvae that were trying to run helter skelter.

"You guys even know how to work together!" Liam nodded in approval and for a change, he was getting experience points from their efforts.

This was not much so when he spotted a nearby group of poisonous scorpions, he started tossing fireballs at them. 

He didn't want to just simply stand while waiting for the two to learn fighting. He also had a lot to learn and figure out.

Aiming for the scorpion at the front, Liam tried to focus on the mana flowing inside his body and cast a fireball, when he abruptly stopped in his actions without casting anything.

He didn't know why but the mana inside his body at the moment felt a bit different. It wasn't anything bad but rather it felt more chaotic and restless.

Liam used both his hands to better picture the image in his mind and then again conjured a fireball in front of him. 

Now he had no doubt. This was definitely different from the other times he had cast the same spell. Was it because he was in the nether realm?

Liam did not know if this was why he also had received notifications about his attack boost. "Since when did I become so sensitive to mana to spot such small changes?"

Something was different and he pondered about it as he sent the fireball flying towards one of the scorpions. 

These were Level 15 beasts and considering that Liam's stats were already enhanced because of his body cleansing and this coupled with the nether realm boost… the beast was completely overpowered!

The flames roared as they destroyed the scorpion's shell in one clean hit, thereby killing the beast along with it.

[Ding. 75 Experience points have been rewarded]

The experience points were rather low as there was a significant level difference but Liam was excited nevertheless. 

He was slaughtering beasts that were only 5 levels below him as if he was slaughtering Level 1 demon larvae. 

He was also gaining a better and better sense of the mana coursing through the body. Perhaps he was influenced by the joyful look on the fox's face, Liam also had a big smile on his face.

It felt truly nice to not be weak and powerless, scrapping just to get hands on leftovers.

[Ding. 75 Experience points have been rewarded]

[Ding. 75 Experience points have been rewarded]

[Ding. 75 Experience points have been rewarded]

...

...

After killing the five scorpions, Liam stopped for a moment. There were a few more ahead of him but he didn't move to attack them just yet.

[Awaken]

He tried casting the only undead spell he had learned so far. 

If he could feel so much difference when casting a fire magic spell, then how would he feel when casting an undead spell?

"No. I have to get it this time." He clenched his fists.

Liam closed his eyes and carefully paid attention to the changes in his body, while he muttered the spell and then tried to sense everything to the fullest that he could.