Stellaron influence really was a convenient excuse. Whenever one needed to make all kinds of problems seem reasonable, just blame it on a Stellaron.
Wherever such a thing existed, anything happening there would be considered normal.
Nolan calmly watched the Company employee charging toward him. He lightly shifted to the side, evading the opponent's diagonal slash, then raised the tree branch in his hand slightly and thrust it toward the weak point at the right side of the man's waist.
It was clearly just an ordinary branch, yet in Nolan's hands, enhanced by his superb swordsmanship, it effortlessly pierced straight through the Company employee.
Although the man had been turned into a puppet by the Stellaron, he hadn't become a zombie.
After suffering such severe damage, his ordinary human body was no longer capable of fighting. He collapsed, flickered once, and then dissipated into data.
[Defeated A powerful Enemy. Obtained 125 Adventure EXP.]
Seeing the notification pop up on his status panel, Nolan felt a surge of delight.
So it really was possible to gain Adventure EXP. Although it was a bit less than what a normal level-22 enemy would give, that didn't matter—there was no shortage of virtual enemies in the "Simulated Universe."
As long as the numbers piled up, leveling up was only a matter of time.
With his recent period of diligent cultivation alongside the girls, bolstered by various buffs, even without deliberately grinding Adventure EXP, Nolan's own progress had increased quite a bit:
[Level: Lv.124 (8,665,221 / 34,000,000)]
Over eight million points of progress—roughly about one-tenth of the total. Running a few more tests in the "Simulated Universe" should be enough.
At the same time, after defeating this first enemy, Nolan clearly felt the feedback from the Path.
This virtual body of his had become noticeably stronger.
At this rate, defeating just a few more enemies would likely be enough to gain another Path blessing.
Replacing the practice of the Path with defeating enemies really did result in astonishingly fast growth.
Under normal circumstances, someone on the "Preservation" Path, after just stepping onto the Path, would need to truly practice "Preservation" in order to gain further improvement—
Such as protecting the weak, guarding places from destruction, or ensuring that certain things continued to exist.
Setting aside whether such situations could even be encountered casually, even if they were, carrying them out would take dozens or even hundreds of times more effort than simply defeating enemies.
Probably even more—after all, as long as one was strong enough, defeating an enemy was something that could be done in an instant.
Nolan's spirits rose.
The Company employee had dissipated into data, but his weapon hadn't disappeared—most likely something Herta had deliberately left behind for him to use.
Nolan swapped out the tree branch for this double-headed halberd and looked toward the other Company employees rushing at him.
In less than half an hour, every Company employee in this mining area had been defeated.
By now, Nolan had already received Path feedback more than a dozen times. Not only had he obtained additional abilities from the "Preservation" Path, but the strength of those abilities had also increased dramatically.
Using his golden Eyes of Judgment to examine his virtual body, Nolan saw that under the Path's feedback, its life tier had already surpassed level fifty.
The speed of this growth was astonishing.
It felt as though, if someone stepped onto a Path that suited them extremely well, and practicing that Path was as easy as grinding monsters—
Then their growth speed might even surpass his own method of leveling up through Adventure EXP.
Pathstriders truly were extraordinary beings.
Defeating all the Company employees in this mining area had only yielded around fifty thousand Adventure EXP—nowhere near enough to go from zero to level fifty.
Of course, that was simply because the Company employees in this area were relatively low level. Now that he had reached the low fifties, he could move on to higher-level regions.
Nolan opened the map and found a mining area with an average level of fifty to sixty.
Then, using a nearby "Space Anchor," he teleported over and began a new round of experience grinding.
Adventure EXP +1532
Adventure EXP +1622
Adventure EXP +1517
By around noon at Herta Space Station, Nolan had exited the "Simulated Universe."
When he reached level one hundred, he obtained a "Resonance" ability from the Path.
(Once you get 3 Blessings of a Path, your Path Resonance ability unlocks in combat.)
With just a light slap against the ground, enemies vanished in blockbusters, dissolving into data. This caused his monster-grinding speed to skyrocket.
Later on, he deliberately focused on strengthening this ability. By the time he reached level 130, a single slap on the ground was enough to shatter everything on an entire planet's surface.
Despite being the "Preservation" Path, it possessed such absurd destructive power—this genuinely surprised Nolan.
But then again, to protect certain things, one must eliminate the threats facing them. In that sense, it did indeed align perfectly with the concept of "Preservation."
Relying on this outrageous ability, Nolan was essentially destroying one planet per strike, rapidly growing to a level that surpassed even himself—even surpassing the level of an Emanator.
He had already learned that level 150 marked the realm of an Emanator, yet within the "Simulated Universe," he had already exceeded level 180.
With a full-force shock, he could wipe out an entire star system.
Unfortunately, no matter how powerful he became inside the "Simulated Universe," it was all fake—completely without any effect on reality.
What was somewhat unexpected, however, was that even at level 180, there still seemed to be an enormous gap separating him from the level of an Aeon.
Not a single Aeon had been drawn to him.
Eventually, even Herta grew a bit impatient and had him start destroying star systems one by one, to see if that would lure an Aeon out.
This kind of extreme behavior did, indeed, attract an Aeon's attention.
When Nolan had destroyed dozens of star systems, he saw amber fragments falling from above, and then his vision instantly turned black.
As expected, an Aeon had appeared—but unfortunately, he was instantly killed before he could even see the other party clearly.
After exiting, Herta checked the recordings and confirmed that the one who appeared was the "Preservation" Aeon, Qlipoth. With a single hammer strike—
It directly pulverized the entire space Nolan was in. It was utterly terrifying.
Unfortunately, Qlipoth only appeared briefly, swung the hammer once, and then vanished. There was nothing of real value to study.
For this reason, Herta felt somewhat helpless, realizing that this round of testing had failed.
The disturbance caused by this test was rather large, so she needed to roll back the "Simulated Universe." Otherwise, if such incidents happened too often,
They might arouse the suspicion of the Aeons within the "Simulated Universe."
Herta's headaches were her own problem. Nolan, on the other hand, was in a pretty good mood.
He had destroyed dozens of star systems. Of course, taking maintenance costs into account, Herta had only allowed him to wreck randomly generated barren systems—
The kind that basically contained no virtual life at all.
After all, star systems without life required relatively little computational power to operate. Even if they were completely destroyed, restoring them at the end of the test was simple.
A planet with life, on the other hand, required computational power countless times greater than those dozens of barren systems combined.
Even reconstructing a resource planet with just a few tens of thousands of inhabitants would take a considerable amount of time.
Since the goal was merely to cause some cosmic destruction to see whether an Aeon could be drawn out, Herta naturally wouldn't let him ruin star systems that actually contained life.
If everything were destroyed, then the next test wouldn't even have enemies left to grind for practicing the Path.
In other words, despite destroying dozens of star systems, the only enemies Nolan actually fought were the few tens of thousands on the initial planet.
Even so, it still provided him with an enormous amount of Adventure EXP:
[Adventure EXP: 52,850,082]
Before this round of testing began, Nolan's status panel showed just over one million Adventure EXP. Now it had surged to over fifty million!
(End of Chapter)
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