Venn speechlessly looked down on the lamp in his hand. Except from the green glow of light that was emitted from the flame, the lamp looks no different from any other ordinary lamp, making him sceptical about her words.
The magic lamp he was given didn't particularly give him much confidence to be onboard with the idea of running head first right into a wall at full speed.
Nevertheless, seeing the sincere expression on the old lady's face prompting him to try, Venn doubted there was any other way around it. He doubted that a NPC would play a practical joke on him, especially one that he had intimidated just a while ago.
Thus, after saying his prayer, he prepared himself mentally. He just hoped that it would turn out like the century old movie he watched with Rena when they were still kids. He barely remembered the name of the movie, but he remembered that it was something related to the kidney stone of a sorcerer.
Else he would be the first person in Heaven Descent's history that died because he banged his head into a wall per a NPC's instruction.
Holding the lantern in his hand, Venn quickly picked up speed because of his high agility and collided into the wall with his eyes closed. Much to his surprise, there wasn't any pain associated with the collision. Rather, the whole experience felt like breaking through a barrier of air.
And when he opened his eyes to survey his surroundings after some time had passed, he found himself in a completely different place from the orphanage. The children and the old granny were gone, and his surroundings were replaced.
The place he was currently in looked sort of like a cavern, and he seemed to be in a passageway judging from the bumpy terrains and the slippery dirt path around him.
Multiple brightly lit medieval torches were placed in metal candle holders by both sides of the wall illuminating the dark passageway. Judging from the human activity, Venn deduced that he was on the right track.
After carefully observing the place, Venn followed the dirt path forward when suddenly, multiple game notifications sounded crazily like a fire alarm.
[Ding]
[Hidden Dungeon: Congratulations, you are the very first player to discover the Headquarter of the Blood Serpents]
[Reward: 2500 experience points received. +3 to all stats]
[Strength increased by 3 points. (+3 STR)]
[Agility increased by 3 points. (+3 AGI)]
[Stamina increased by 3 points. (+3 STA)]
[Wisdom increased by 3 points. (+3 WIS)]
[Charisma increased by 3 points. (+3 CHA)]
[Fame increased by 100.]
[Title received: Junior Dungeon Explorer (Upgradable)]
[Effect: Equipping the title will grant a 10% increase in experience point gained and item drop rate from monsters when hunting in a dungeon for all members of your party. The effect of this title is stackable with other titles' effects.]
[A job well done! Be the first to discover more dungeons to increase the rank of the Dungeon Explorer title! Go forth and march on, progress on to the frontier of exploration!]
[Ding]
[You've leveled up!]
[You've leveled up!]
[You've leveled up!]
[You've leveled up!]
[You have reached level 10. You are now eligible to unlock up to 5 branches of monster cores.]
[Note: For every additional core that a player chooses to unlock, the experience points needed to level up will increase by twofold.]
[Note: You cannot level up anymore until you have made a decision. Any experience point gained shall be accumulated.]
[Ding]
[Elite quest failed. You have chosen not to report your discovery of Blood Serpent's trail to Rosewell Kingdom. Instead, you decided to investigate into the meeting place where the mysterious Blood Serpents are gathered by yourself.]
[No penalty for failure of quest.]
"This is…"
Venn froze on the spot. He was rendered speechless as he looked through the bombardment of system notifications before finally letting out a muffled "Yes!".
He tried very hard to maintain his composure given his location and the uncertainty of his circumstances, but his excitement was undeniable.
Although he had failed the epic quest, the compensation for deviating from the quest was absolutely worthwhile for him. He was glad that he made the correct decision.
A total gain of 15 stats points and a stackable title was much more valuable than the promised quest rewards.
For every level up a character undergoes, he or she will be rewarded with a small bump of health and 3 stats points. Thus, gaining 15 stats points was a better outcome as it is somewhat equivalent to leveling up five times.
The stackable title was even a better reward than the gain in stats points. Combined with his sage title, the effective experience points per monster killed would increase to 2.2 times. With it, he was more confident now choosing to unlock 5 slots of monster cores. Not to mention, he could upgrade the rank of the title in the future as well. And when that day comes, his training speed would be truly monstrous.
After his initial excitement subsided, it was time to return to work. He needed all the strength he could get to deal with his next problem.
Opening his stats panel, he moved his finger towards the Monster Cores section and tapped on the words - "activate".
As soon as he selected the virtual button to activate his monster core slots, his vision blurred and a huge image of an unknown constellation in an abstract shape appeared before him, covering the entirety of his vision.
He had done this before in the past, thus he focused his mind towards the constellation sign.
As he did so, a message prompt popped up.
[Please choose the number of monster core slots to unlock. You may unlock up to 5.]
Without any hesitation, Venn chooses to unlock all 5 slots. And with his decision, out of the magnitude of stars that made up the constellation, 5 different stars shined dazzlingly for a minute before their brightness eventually died down.
Those 5 stars represented the slots that would enable Venn to absorb five different types of monster cores out of the sixteen.