"How many did they defeat?" Leon asked himself. "A few hundreds already? The current me only fought a few dozen of them… still, I guess it makes sense that new harvesters appear when others are defeated."
In a sense, that Leon was also a harvester. He wasn't destroying worlds for power, but he was using living beings to do that. Living beings that deserved death or even worse, but living beings nonetheless. Also, each time Leon and Ilyana fought together, they learned new things by watching each other. That Leon finally learned how to summon monsters.
Congratulations! You have become a Level one Necromancer!
Your mana and intelligence will increase by ten points, your stamina, health, recovery, and control will increase by five points whenever you level up your class.
…
Congratulations! You have become a Level Max Necromancer!
Your mana and intelligence will increase by ten points, your stamina, health, recovery, and control increased by five points.
However, after a while it started to get harder to find harvesters and even though they didn't find the enemies, Leon and Ilyana met each other while looking for them many times… until they decided to really work together since their goal was the same: to hunt all the harvesters.
"I was starting to think this really was the life of an alternate version of myself, but now Ilyana is appearing so much that I'm having doubts again," Leon frowned. "Well, she is anything but stupid… so, I doubt that she would use such a cheap trick knowing that I would blindly believe… so… I guess this is really the life of another me."
It was hard to know for how long I have been watching that, but he didn't feel like days have passed… Still, so much knowledge was being absorbed by him that it was also hard to believe that was the case.
"What happened to those guys you tried to protect?" That Leon asked while they were investigating some ruins that had a lot of runes.
"They died…" Ilyana answered with her head down. "While I was fighting those three, other harvesters ambushed them on another planet."
"So, you are the last of your race?" That Leon asked.
"I guess I am," Ilyana forced a smile. "I warned them so many times… but no one believed me when I said that we should prepare for the next stages of assimilation. They thought again and again that when new monsters appeared, that was just a coincidence."
Congratulations! You have become a Level one Runemaster!
Your mana and intelligence will increase by twenty points, your stamina, health, recovery, and control will increase by ten points whenever you level up your class.
…
Congratulations! You have become a Level Max Runemaster!
Your mana and intelligence will increase by twenty points, your stamina, health, recovery, and control increased by five points.
Congratulations! You have become a Level one Runecaster!
Your mana and intelligence will increase by twenty points, your stamina, health, recovery, and control will increase by ten points whenever you level up your class.
…
Congratulations! You have become a Level Max Runecaster!
Your mana and intelligence will increase by twenty points, your stamina, health, recovery, and control increased by five points.
After studying the runes of several ruins for decades, Leon and Ilyana mastered their use, but it was weird. Some of them could turn into skills, while others couldn't. That was something neither Leon nor that Leon or Ilyana could understand why. Also, after receiving those notifications, Leon confirmed that Leon didn't have the class system. So, he wasn't receiving the notifications. That was weird, but at that point in time, Leon was already used to it.
Although Leon had obtained the knowledge of how to use the runes before, the things he could do with it were limited. However, with the knowledge he obtained now, he could do many things, and his other version also began to test the things that he wanted to test. Maybe the system couldn't recognize certain runic spells because there was an equivalent that could grant him the same effect, but both Leon felt more excited in using runes than normal spells. Why? Because runes could become infinitely stronger, the more mana one uses to create it. One didn't have to level up the skill to obtain that ability. Just wish to use all the mana inside your body was enough. That being said, like skills, runes could only be used for a while, but Leon manages to replicate interesting effects with it. For example, he could write a rune that could negate gravity's effects and thus make a big rock float for quite a while.
"This kind of effect would be very useful if I still wish to create a giant robot made of mithril…" Leon sighed. "Well, I will welcome this knowledge."