Undead Desert Ants!

A single bite from an Undead Desert Arts would result in getting seriously poisoned. You would lose at least 5 HP per second for a minute.

If even ten of those Desert Ants bite you at the same time, you would not be able to even last one minute. It would not be different, even for dwarves, who were known for their high HPs, including strong warriors like Goonto.

But I was different. The Undead Desert Ants" teeth could not pierce through my reinforced toughness. That meant that I was the only one who could defeat these monsters.

"Goonto! Go into the secret room! Bernard! Fire Wall! They are Undead Desert Ants!"

Although Bernard was over 100 years older than me, I did not have time to use respectful speech right now.

"I"m sure Bernard will understand."

Either way, my message was received, as a fire wall was created as soon as Goonto rushed into the secret room. It was an extremely hot fire wall.

Bernard was, after all, one of the strongest magicians on the continent.

No Desert Ant should be able to make it into the secret room, as long as that fire wall is maintained.

I just needed to go and take care of them.

The real question was how strong these Knights of the Church of the Sun were in comparison.

Even if they used spirit energy, it should not be unlimited. It might not be bad to test that out right now.

I ignored the Desert Ants and rushed straight toward the Knights of the Church of the Sun, whether they stuck to me or not.

Taaat!

They seemed to be very surprised by this decision of mine. All of the knights looked shocked as they retreated backward.

"W, what? What is going on? Why is he fine?"
"The Desert Ants don"t work on him?"
"Who is this guy?"

"Ask that question when you get to your favorite place! h.e.l.l!"

I quickly approached them and swung Goonto"s Twin Blades.

Papat-

"He"s fast!"

All of the Knights of the Church of the Sun still looked shocked.

But they were also unbelievably fast. It made it difficult to create a combo. Even if I managed to create one, it continued to get cut off before I could even reach a 10-hit combo.

But, thanks to that, the Knights started to rush toward me. After feeling the effects of the twin blades, the knights were starting to get confident.

"He is not that strong. Do not retreat, go kill him."

The knights, who used to retreat a couple steps each time I rushed forward, quickly started to fight me instead.

"Yes, this is what I want."

I first focused on dodging them. Maybe it was because of the spirit energy, but the movements of the Knights of the Church of the Sun were very fast.

But, as expected, it did not last very long. After less than 1 minute, their movements suddenly became much slower.

All they could do was continue to rip open more scrolls. Each time they did, even more Undead h.e.l.l Ants rushed out of the summoned Demon Caves.

But it could not do anything to me.

"Time to finish this! I am a busy person!"

Papat-

I created another combo and approached the knights.

Now that their movements were much slower, I managed to land a critical hit every time I attacked. In less than five seconds, I managed to defeat the first Knight of the Church of the Sun.

"Ugh!"

At the same time, I heard a message in my head.

[Spirit of the Elemental Sync Rate 1%]

"Spirit of the Elemental?"
This was a reward I had never heard about in the game.

"But sync rate? What would happen once I raised the sync rate to 100%?"

It made me think about the skills of the Knights of the Church of the Sun. All of them showed superhuman abilities for a short duration of time.

"I wonder if the, "Spirit of the Elemental," is what allows them to move like that."

Anyways, I had a good feeling about this. Since it was a reward with the word, "elemental," in it, it should have a positive influence on Jewel Alchemy.

While I was processing things in my head, the Knights of the Church of the Sun were urgently talking to each other.

"He is not normal!"
"Dodge!"
"Rip open a Gold Scroll!"

One of the Knights of the Church of the Sun took out a scroll. As the name described, it was a completely golden scroll.

"A Golden Scroll! It must be a Demon Cave scroll that can summon a strong Golden Monster."

"Sorry, but I will be ripping that for my own use later."

I aimed for the one with the Golden Scroll first. He tried his best to dodge my attack while ripping the scroll, but, now that he had used up all of his spirit energy, he could not dodge my attack.

I instantly approached him and shoved Goonto"s Twin Blades into his neck.

Paat!

"Ugh!"

My combo was currently close to a 30-hit combo. Just a single attack was all it took for him to scream and die. The Golden Scroll fell to the ground once he died.

"Quick! Grab that and rip it!"

The Knights of the Church of the Sun rushed to grab the Golden Scroll.

But, thanks to that, the hunt became even easier.

I did not pick up the Golden Scroll on the floor because I wanted it to be used as bait to draw the rest of the Knights of the Church of the Sun toward me.

There were thirteen Knights of the Church of the Sun, but I managed to kill all of them in less than 5 minutes.

I also got the message that I gained a "Spirit of the Elemental," every time I killed one of them.

That made me disappointed that there weren"t any more of the knights. I could have gained so much more Spirits of the Elemental if there were about 50 of them.

The more disappointing part was that I had failed to capture any of them alive. I tried my best to make the last one faint, but, no matter how hard I tried, he would not faint.

But there was no way for me to make someone who was stronger than me faint with my strength alone.

I increased the strength of my attacks little by little to make him faint, but he died in the end.

Oh well. There"s nothing stupider than lamenting upon something that was not possible.

It was time to get the rest of the party back now.

I took out a ton of fire marbles from my bag and threw it around the room. There were at least 50 of them.

Undead Desert Ants were scary creatures, but they were not invincible. They were especially weak to fire, so they all sizzled and died as soon as they touched one of the pillars.

I threw myself into one of the fire pillars.

Once I did that, all of the Desert Ants on my body quickly died.

"Much better now."

I got rid of the rest of the Desert Ants as well. The group inside the secret room threw out a lot more fire marbles, and Bernard used his magic to create some more Fire Walls to destroy the ants.

The, "sync rate," continued to rise as I did that.

[Spirit of the Elemental Sync Rate 87%]

The sync rate raised at a fixed rate. It did not speed up or slow down based on whether I collected Spirits of the Elemental or killed a knight. It seemed to be going up at a steady rate of 1% every five seconds.

While that was going on, Harrison, Bernardo, Goonto and crew came out of the secret room.

"Are you okay?"

Eruni was the only one to worry about me. Harrison"s mind control magic seemed to still be in effect, as she was able to overcome her fear and look through my injuries.

There were only minor injuries though. They were so small that I didn"t even need to use any potions.

The rest of them looked toward me as well, but they soon saw that I didn"t have any major injuries and thus stopped caring.

"Let"s head out first."

"Right. Let"s go."

Goonto started to walk forward as if he had been waiting for my suggestion. He was probably worried about the condition of the dwarves who were watching the entrance.

Harrison was the same way. The dwarves were guarding the pathways inside the headquarters, while Harrison"s group was guarding the outside.

"Let"s go."

But we had to stop moving after only a short time. When we entered the large hall, we heard a lot of voices.

"Intruders!"
The Knights have been defeated! They are not normal!"
"Open the Demon Caves!"

These believers were wearing the red robes, which meant that they were just regular believers.

There had to be secret paths around the area, as the dwarves would not have lost to these regular believers.

That was the case, even if they opened up Demon Caves.

But there was quite a large number of them. They were rushing toward us from two different directions while ripping open a bunch of scrolls.

I wanted to ignore them and quickly leave, but we could not do so. They just happened to be blocking the only path we knew about.

We needed to first open up a path.

I looked to the left and right quickly.

To the left was the path we needed to take. The Demon Cave that opened there was at least a level 400 C-grade cave. Death Trolls poured out like a herd of dogs as soon as the Demon Cave opened.

But the right Demon Cave was a bit odd. The thick color and strong demonic aura coming from it made it obvious that it was over level 500, but nothing was coming out of the cave.

Suddenly, a large foot appeared out of the Demon Cave and slammed down onto the ground.

Boom!

"s.h.i.t! A Stone Golem."

It was a monster that was over level 550.

Of course, level 550 was not that difficult.

The issue was that this monster"s defense is extremely high. Without raising up my combo to a high hit combo, I have no way to kill it. Forget critical hits, I wouldn"t be able to even damage it at all.

And there were five of them.

The even more difficult part was that there were no monsters around them. Only Stone Golems came out of this Demon Cave.

Which meant that there were no stepping stones to create my combo.

Even Bernard"s magic was not very useful against the Stone Golems.

That meant there was only one group who could take on the Stone Golems.

"Goonto! Take the rest of the dwarves and fight the golems! I"ll take this side!"

"d.a.m.n it. That side looks more entertaining!"

It probably seemed that way because there were a lot more monsters here. No matter who was looking at it, they would think this side was the main while the Stone Golem were just extra.

But we have to be logical. I can easily take care of this side because of the stepping stones for my combo, but I am unable to hunt that side.

"No time! Hurry up and start!"

[Spirit of the Elemental Sync Rate 93%]

I first threw out a fire marble.

Crackle-

Bernard used his strongest attack, the Fire Wall. But that did not help me at all, since it would just kill the weaker monsters that I needed for combo.

This is why teamwork is important.

"Bernard! Please use point attacks!"

I urgently shouted.

Bernard understood my intent and started to use Lightning magic attacks like Electric Bolt instead. This type of magic was used to target strong monsters instead of attacking many monsters at the same time.

We finally seemed to be on the same page.

"Then shall we play a bit?"

Papapat-

It was a large Demon Cave, but this was my world. Since there was not much room to move, the monsters were all gathered in small areas.

The monsters were not able to see me clearly because of, "Stealthy Approach," and my combo quickly rose every time I swung my twin blades.

The monsters that happened to get by me every so often were taken care of by Harrison"s crew.

Thanks to that, we were able to get rid of all of the monsters without any casualties.

The sync rate that had been going up in front of my eyes reached 100% while I did that.

[Spirit of the Elemental Sync Rate 100%]

[Spirit Energy 50]

"Huh?! What is this?"

The sudden information in front of me surprised me so much that my 40-hit combo was interrupted.

Spirit Energy!

I kind of expected it, since the Knights were using Spirit Energy, but seeing the words, "Spirit Energy," actually pop up in front of me still shocked me quite a bit.

But would it be the same as the Spirit Energy I had read about?

My question was quickly answered. My Spirit Energy went up every time I hunted a monster.

[Spirit Energy 53]
[Spirit Energy 59]
······

The draft plan described in detail how the Knights of the Church of the Sun used Spirit Energy.

The knights who were very sensitive to their surroundings could absorb Spirit Energy directly from nature, while the others absorbed it by hunting monsters.

Which made it obvious that this was the Spirit Energy I had read about.

That was why I had even more questions.

"This is odd! I thought it said you can only gain it through the Altar of the Sun. What is going on?"
(PR: Has he already forgotten that the draft plan is not the actual plan for the game?)

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Translator : Miraclerifle

Proofreader :Borderline m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t