Nyris was mercilessly slaughtering all the monsters around her in the dense forest.
Her perception stat had reached forty-five, which was enough to sense a 180-meter radius. If she focused intensely, she could even detect those with spark-level stealth abilities within a 5-meter radius.
Apart from the rabbits she encountered at the beginning, she had found two more rabbit nests, bringing her score to 63.
Reaching 63 points in 30 minutes was impressive even among the geniuses of the great families.
She was now facing a mid-level commander-class monster.
The monster used the water element and possessed impressive power, even among mid-level commanders.
However, Nyris was very calm. The space element, due to its nature, was one of the highest-tier attributes. Even in the kingdom, people with space attributes were highly sought after.
Every attack the monster launched was intercepted by Nyris. In fact, when she reached the second level of space dao, she felt she could easily slice through space itself in this dimension.
Blocking the attacks of a commander-level monster was like child's play.
Feeling she understood her power well enough, Nyris teleported next to the monster and decapitated it in a single strike.
The large, rhino-like monster fell to the ground with a loud thud.
Starting from the commander level, monsters had a structure inside them called a monster core, similar to the abdomen in humans where they stored their mana.
This core was spherical in shape and stored the monster's mana within it.
When the mana concentration reached a sufficient level, it would solidify and take on the shape of a round orb, containing a high amount of power.
It served as a second heart for the monster.
The core of a commander-level monster could reach a maximum diameter of 10 cm.
Of course, there were exceptions—some mutated monsters had a larger mana reservoir and required more mana to level up.
There were also such anomalies among humans.
For example, Nyris had a void body, which meant her cells naturally had a higher level of existence and required more mana to level up.
At the same time, the power within monster cores could be absorbed by humans to increase their leveling speed.
This particular monster core had a diameter of 6 cm.
It wasn't of much use to Nyris. However, the void body could convert cores into energy reserves.
To put it simply, the void body would absorb the energy from the monster core, convert it into space energy, and contribute to Nyris's development.
Nyris brought the monster core close to the star-shaped mark on the back of her hand, and the core was instantly absorbed.
Afterward, she felt a small surge of energy inside her.
She could perceive the surrounding space more clearly.
This made her even more eager for monster cores.
"From now on, I need to hunt commander-level monsters," she said.
"If possible, I want to challenge a general-level one. If I activate the void body at full power and add the space dao on top, I should be able to fight at the spark level."
She began moving quickly through the forest.
She raised her perception to the highest level and began carefully scanning her surroundings.
She ignored all soldier-level monsters; only commander or general-level monsters could catch her attention now.
About 100 meters ahead, she encountered a beginner commander-level fire monster.
Without slowing down, Nyris infused her sword with space energy and swiftly charged at the monster.
The fire monster didn't even have time to lift its head before it was sliced in half.
Its 3 cm core dropped to the ground.
Nyris quickly absorbed it as well and continued on her way.
...
"As expected of Guis, you're cutting down commander-level monsters like they're nothing," said the skinny boy.
"No need to suck up, Nois. You can take the scraps from the soldier-level ones," replied Guis.
"Thanks, Guis. What I'm really curious about is how many points that kid has gathered," said Nois.
"You're still talking about him? The strongest people in this exam are the young masters of the three great houses—people like me—and we're only at the early stage of the Spark level," said Guis.
"I know that too, but I still trust my eyes more. Even if it's impossible for him to be at the Star level, he has something special... Maybe it's his body," said Nois.
"Stop talking about him. We'll see who's better once the exam is over. Besides, we've already gathered 500 points and it's only been an hour. Reaching 5000 before the exam ends shouldn't be a problem," said Guis confidently.
…
Nyris looked at her score display and a smile formed on her face.
It had only been an hour, and she had already gathered more than 900 points. As she consumed the cores of the monsters she killed, she had reached the mid-stage of the Radiance phase.
Even though each core didn't have a great effect on its own, their accumulation had a noticeable quantitative effect.
She had now entered a colder part of the forest, where the trees were a bluish color.
The forest here wasn't dense—trees were scattered sparsely.
Ahead, there were glacial mountains and caves, and from time to time, loud roars could be heard.
Nyris continued on without losing speed, keeping her perception at its highest.
She felt a commander-level energy 50 meters ahead.
She quickly turned toward it and began infusing energy into her dagger.
It was a 15-meter-long white snake.
It was sleeping at the moment and hadn't sensed Nyris yet.
Like an assassin, Nyris silently approached and calculated her strike on the snake's head.
Just as the dagger was about to stab into its head, the snake suddenly opened its eyes and moved to the side, dodging the attack.
Without hesitation, Nyris continued her assault.
Before the snake could recover, it saw a dagger coming straight for its eye. Its sense of danger reached the highest level—it instinctively knew that if that dagger pierced its eye, it would die instantly.
Quickly, it twisted its head, causing the strike to land on the hardest scales on its body.
Still, the dagger sliced through the scales like butter.
However, it wasn't a fatal wound.
As Nyris landed on the ground, she immediately leapt into the air, dodging the snake's counterattack. While airborne, she infused her dagger with space energy and threw it at the snake's head.
Before the snake could react, the dagger embedded into its head, and the space energy erupted within its skull.
The snake's brain turned to mush, and naturally, its life ended there.
A peak-stage commander-level monster had just died like that.
Nyris absorbed the 10 cm monster core and continued moving swiftly.
She had sensed a massive amount of energy coming from the large mountain range ahead and moved quickly toward it.
Fifteen minutes later, she had reached the mountain's base.
From above, she could sense the energies of many commander-level monsters and humans.
She even sensed a higher level of energy.
There was a general-level monster on this mountain.
Although Nyris was excited, she quietly began climbing the mountain.
Ahead, several humans were fighting against commander-level monsters. She perched on a tree and began watching the battle.
Several children around Nyris's age had formed a group around one child and were killing the monsters together.
A powerful energy was emanating from the boy in the center.
He had reached the early stage of the Spark level.
He was using a high-level ice element.
Nyris guessed he was probably the young master of one of the powerful families.
There was one mid-stage commander-level water monster and two peak-stage commander-level ice monsters.
The boy stood in the center while the other five formed a formation around him.
"When one attacks, the others cover the resulting gap in defense. The boy in the center doesn't move unless a critical moment arises—very clever formation," said Nyris.
Within a short time, they had killed all three commander-level monsters.
Then, a roar echoed throughout the entire glacial region.
The ice mountain in front of them began to shake, and suddenly, the mountain's peak shattered.
A massive monster emerged from within—one with a turtle shell and a club-like tail.
The turtle-like monster roared again, and then roars began to be heard from all directions.
As the ruler of the region, it had summoned the surrounding monsters.
"We need to kill this monster quickly, or we're going to become monster food!" shouted the boy in the center.
The other children, following his order, surrounded the turtle and formed a new formation.
This time, the boy (Lui) took command of the formation and switched to an offensive stance.
Observing the new formation, Nyris was slightly surprised.
"Interesting... In this formation, Lui attacks while the others act as a defensive wall."
"Bad news for the turtle," she thought.
"If they don't kill it before the other monsters arrive, escaping will be difficult."
"Should I help? Or should I stay hidden?" she wondered.
"Ehhh… I need those monster cores—especially the one from the general-level."
"There's no helping it, I'll assist," she said and slipped like a shadow from the tree into the turtle's blind spot.
One of the wonders of the space element was how extremely hard it was to detect. And since Nyris had already stepped into the space dao, it was nearly impossible for a Spark-level monster to sense her.
She applied a space slash to her dagger and took aim at the neck.
Tak...
Shak...
Suddenly, something happened that shocked the children around—the turtle's head was severed and fell.
Even more surprising was the figure that appeared out of the shadows.
The children went on alert and gathered around Lui.
"Who are you?" asked Lui.
"Do you really think that matters right now? If you don't leave immediately, you're going to become monster food," said Nyris.
"Oh… and this monster core is mine," added Nyris.
Without waiting for a response, she took the core and vanished.
"I've memorized your face! I'll deal with you later!" shouted Lui.
And they immediately began retreating from the glacial region.