Infinite Potential System

Chapter 509 Cannon Fodder

William's expert-like movements and fluid decision making were even more advanced than how he reacted in battle, the vials catching everything without letting a single drop go to waste. When one hundred vials of Solar Nectar were stored safely in his Space Ring, William returned his attention to the Boss.

Despite its best efforts to recover, the Sun Stone Golem was powerless to stop William. One by one, the Comet Pellet Spell destroyed its remaining three joints while William collected the Solar Nectar.

When the Sun Stone Golem used its vitality as a last resort, William simply allowed Atticus to phase through the Boss' forcefield and swallow it whole like it had last time. A few empowered Spatial Slashes later and the Boss was dead.

From a battle that took him several hours last time to barely a few minutes, William was ecstatic. His upgraded Talents were stronger than he expected, turning a tough battle into mere child's play. Even better, William had collected a total of 400 vials of Solar Nectar. Totaling that with the 180 he had from the last fight, William had 580 vials!

Three vials are worth 2 Spirit Jades, so... I have almost 400 Spirit Jades right here!

Of course, this was assuming William wanted to sell the Solar Nectar. With his hoarder mentality, William liked to know what an item was useful for before he tried to sell it. The Greater Fire Shards had mostly exhausted their usefulness to him, but Solar Nectar was different.

William didn't think about it too much and happily teleported to the treasure chest that had spawned, opening it to reveal fifty Quake Dungeon Gems and a single Ultimate Earth Root. There was no second Earth Root, nor was the Frozen Earth Tablet present. Seemed like a one-time thing.

Damn, the rewards aren't as good as last time. It seems there's some sort of first-kill bonus at play... William was slightly disappointed, but some loot was better than no loot.

He pulled out the Mana Gathering Staff and Cultivated, passing the night from inside the Boss Room while his Mana Reserves slowly filled up. Even after the morning came and the Potential Farms issued their daily rewards, William continued to Cultivate until ten hours had passed.

When the Cultivation session was over, William's Cultivation Base had increased by 3 billion, while his Mana Reserves had recovered to slightly over 58 million. With so much Mana stored up, William almost didn't know what to do with it all.

Well, there was one thing he could spend his Mana on. If William wanted to refine his Mana Circuits some more, he could connect another Greater Mana Point to his Mana Veins. That being said, it would cost more than 30 million Mana to do so.

Why am I being so negative? I can get that much Mana back in less than six hours! Who else in the Ascension Realm could say that? William had no reason to complain about his current situation.

He made a decision to only refine his Mana Circuits when his Mana Reserves were completely full, and only one Mana Point at a time. For the time being, the Quake Dungeon should be William's highest priority.

Let's go see what loot is on the higher floors! William stretched out his legs and started ascending the stairs to the 16th floor.

Floor 16's layout looked nearly identical to that of the five floors previous to it, though the color of the dungeon brick was now a pale purple. If William had to describe its shade, the bricks were closer to lavender than anything else.

The second thing that William noticed was a familiar orange-yellow figure shaped just like the Boss he had just fought against, albeit much smaller. Similar to the Sun Stone Golem, the smaller creature had four identical marbles for joints, each about the size of his fist.

[Bestiary] Sunny Pebblet: +1 PP

The Sunny Pebblet shambled left and right down the hall like a zombie, not noticing William's presence at all. Its Cultivation was in the Lower Stages of the Initial Deity Realm, but its perception couldn't be compared to the Sun Stone Golem at all.

Let's see if that forcefield is as strong as our big friend downstairs. William thought as he created a Comet Pellet and split it into four equal parts that fired at each joint simultaneously.

If he used this method on the Sun Stone Giant, it was sure to fail. The split Pellets were about sixty percent as strong as the original Spell, which wouldn't be enough to break the 15th Floor Boss' forcefield. But against its smaller counterpart, William felt it would at least deal some damage.

The four Comet Pellets landed on the Sunny Pebblet's body simultaneously, exploding into a shower of fragmented rock and dust that obscured William's vision for a moment. When the dust cleared enough for William to check the damage, the Sunny Pebblet had disappeared.

In its place were four Quake Dungeon Gems and a small puddle of Solar Nectar that had already started to soak into the floor. The Sunny Pebblet was destroyed in a single attack!

William gnashed his teeth and tried to recover the liquid, but it had already been contaminated with impurities. Separating the two would be more pain than it was worth, so he was forced to give up.

The sight of a second Sunny Pebblet raised William's spirits. It seemed that these were the staple creature of the 16th floor. As long as he spent enough time here, William would earn loads of Solar Nectar and Quake Dungeon Gems alike.

The fact that the Solar Nectar wasn't disappearing along with the rest of the creatures' bodies briefly crossed his mind, but he didn't care to investigate. Some questions didn't need to be answered when profits were involved.

Let the looting... begin! William used Spatial Steps to cross entire hallways in a tenth of a second while watching the Navigation Radar. Instead of following the most direct path to the 17th floor, William did what one would expect William to do: loot!

He ran through the labyrinth towards the left, killing every Sunny Pebblet he saw on the way with a Comet Pellet. In the milliseconds before the joints broke, William created a portal that sent the Solar Nectar straight into his Space Ring.

When the liquid went through the portal, it was instantly collected by a giant tungsten bucket that William created on the fly. The amount of Solar Nectar that each Sunny Pebblet dropped was nowhere near what the Sun Stone Golem had, but it was valuable nonetheless.

As William continued, he started fighting almost rhythmically, slaying one Magical Beast after another with increasingly fluid movements. His Spells quickly became a perpetual cycle, the gap between attacks so small that it would seem like constant Fusion Magic to an outsider.

Spatial Steps. Comet Pellet. Portal.

Spatial Steps. Comet Pellet. Portal. Rinse and repeat.

William reached the leftmost edge of the 16th floor in less than five minutes, so he followed each branching path to their end, hoping to find treasure chests or the like. Physical traps were hardly a threat to him, nor was the risk of being caught in an unknown Array Formation.

When projectile-related traps activated, William simply abused his Accelerated Reflexes Bonus Effect to dodge everything with ease. If it was an Elemental Spell, William had more than enough defensive ability to tank everything, while Ascended Recovery repaired the damage instantly.

If complex Arrays were involved, William was able to spot those well in advance. If they were Tier 6 or below, William comprehended the Runes and disabled the Array. If they were stronger, William simply marked the location mentally and planned to visit them later.

William spent the next two hours exploring the 16th floor like he was simply mowing his lawn. Row by row, hallway by hallway, William explored every hidden entrance and triggered just about every trap.

By the time he reached the stairway to the next floor, William had earned more than eight hundred Quake Dungeon Gems, dozens of treasures worth a total of 3 Ascended Points, and an unknown amount of Solar Nectar that he planned to quantify later.

William briefly checked his Mana Reserves, finding that he had actually gained seven million Mana during his killing spree. There was no need to rest, so he directly moved on to the 17th floor. When he spotted a group of three Sunny Pebblets just past the stairwell, William's vigor was renewed, and he went on another killing spree.

One hundred, two hundred, three hundred Sunny Pebblets were slaughtered. Their deaths became practice for William's Mana Control, improving his mastery of both Space and Earth Magic to a degree that the size of the group no longer mattered.

William's figure flashed through the hallways of the 17th floor like a ghost, storing the Solar Nectar from his victim's bodies before their knees even touched the floor. Whether it was three Sunny Pebblets, five, or even ten, all were mere cannon fodder before the loot goblin known as William.

-Title upgraded to Legendary: +50 PP