Chapter 41: Friend

After killing the first cocoon, Levi didn't stop—he continued killing one after the other. However, as his hunt progressed, he encountered several problems.

Firstly, his weapon—a crude spear made from a wooden stick—couldn't withstand the power of the essence he was imbuing it with. After just two uses, the stick would snap or break, forcing Levi to search for another. This constant need for replacement slowed him down and added frustration to the already taxing task.

Secondly, his essence was meager. Levi hadn't yet formed a core, which meant the amount of essence he could store in his soul sea was very limited. Whenever he used all of it to cover the stick and attack, he had to rest for thirty minutes to recover what he had lost.

Although Levi tried to limit his essence usage, the power of the throw wouldn't be enough to pierce through the cocoon if he didn't use all of it on the stick. This forced him into a cycle of brief bursts of activity followed by long periods of rest.

Thirdly, the process of using his essence to coat the weapon and kill the cocoon was exhausting, making him hungrier by the minute. The silver lining was that the bird meat, though undeveloped and barely substantial, provided enough nutrients to sustain him.

And that's what he was doing right now.

In one corner of the strange landscape, where he had killed almost all the cocoons, Levi now sat in front of a makeshift campfire. Gathering dried wood in this desolate land wasn't hard, but making fire had taken a bit of time. Nevertheless, he now had a way to roast the bird meat.

Though the birds were underdeveloped and had little meat, Levi managed to make do because there were so many of them. As he sat in front of the fire, looking up at the red sky that didn't seem to change, he let out an exhausted sigh.

"How can my luck be this shitty?" Levi complained, glancing at the twenty or so cocoons that lay at his side. He had been hunting the cocoons for more than ten hours now, slowly becoming more proficient at it.

Using essence, which had initially seemed like a Herculean task, was starting to feel just a bit more manageable. But what worried Levi the most was the absence of even a single artifact after killing nearly twenty cocoons.

He had known his luck wasn't great; after all, even after killing hundreds of larvae on the first floor, the only artifact he had received was the Essence of Lunacy, which was consumable. But Levi was somewhat relieved—Essence of Lunacy had helped him a great deal. Without it, he wouldn't have learned Lunacy, defeated the Lunacy Incarnate, or controlled essence as he had.

Although the drop rate of artifacts seemed very low, as long as he could get another artifact as useful as the Essence of Lunacy, Levi was satisfied. But that didn't stop him from complaining. The sheer grind of the task and the lack of immediate rewards weighed heavily on his spirit, leaving him to wonder just how long his perseverance would hold out in this desolate place.

[Demonic Essence: 93/200]

Absorbing 20 demonic crystals had brought him close to halfway in filling his dormant core. With more than a hundred cocoons still hanging around, Levi was confident that fully filling his core wouldn't be a problem.

He still had a long way to go, but with each step, he was one step closer to evolving—and that thought kept him sane in this strange place.

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Bonus Chapter for 50 Powerstones!

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