46 Authority for Experience

As the night dragged on, the screams and gunshots continued to echo through the city.

The city was in chaos, and the situation was only getting worse. The wall they painstakingly built was completely useless. The hunters could climb the wall without any difficulty using their claws.

In the end, the construction of this wall was a futile labor. Instead of providing protection, the walls around the city seemed to serve more as a cage, confining its inhabitants rather than safeguarding them.

Contrary to what one might expect, the walls around the city were enforced by authorities, meaning that they could almost be considered as an authority relic, as they were under the influence of an authority.

But that doesn't mean they couldn't be damaged. In fact, it was very possible to break them, but it would still require time and effort, not to mention it would undoubtedly attract the attention of hunters.

With only about 8 hours left until the beginning of the main story, it would be pointless to risk trying to escape anyway. Although running into other cities could be a good idea, they were far away without a vehicle.

Frederick was convinced that Aegis had likely shared information about hunters with other guilds, leading to a collaboration aimed at escaping. Their plan seemed to involve a forceful breach through the north wall using explosives and modern vehicles. He had seen the remnant traces of their battles.

Like modern weapons, the chronicles sometimes rewarded candidates with vehicles. However, it was usually very impractical to receive such a reward.

Vehicles were only truly valuable if they operated on conventional fuels such as oil or hydrogen, adhering to the laws of physics. But even so, those fuels were insanely rare, as they could only be obtained as a reward for a side-story.

In contrast, some vehicles were powered by supernatural elements, but these were known to be ineffective once outside the specific realm they originated from, meaning that they were just big chunks of iron without any use.

Indeed, there were instances where candidates received remarkable rewards, such as a small spaceship. However, it proved utterly useless because it relied entirely on a magical fuel source that lost all its use when leaving the realm. Even the technology couldn't be exploited. This peculiar case was often regarded as a cruel joke by The Chronicles.

Those could still be considered lucky. Some candidates would receive useless things like books about the history of a realm or a ridiculous number of useless tools. Those could be regarded as toys at most.

From this perspective, authorities appeared to be the sole supernatural element capable of functioning consistently across various realms.

Hours quickly passed, and the sky began to brighten. The night was finally over. Most gunshots and screams had long ceased, and the streets were eerily quiet.

However, Frederick knew the hunters were still lurking around despite the silence.

They were simply waiting for their prey to let their guard down, biding their time until they could strike.

Frederick's night was relatively uneventful. He encountered only a few people and obtained minimal resources. Unfortunately, he did not encounter any valuable or interesting authorities among the candidates he confronted.

Although some of them could surprisingly resist Blood Dominion's control because of their physical attribute, it was useless since Frederick could abuse his physique or pure combat experience to overwhelm them.

The only issue was that it was challenging to predict their bizarre authorities. Regardless of the candidates' weaknesses, unknown authorities were always a threat.

At least he wasn't hungry for food or blood anymore, and his body was doing more than recovering. It was gradually growing stronger.

Looking at the rising sun, he was currently resting on top of a building, his gaze observing the surroundings.

After investigating, he learned that most intelligent or powerful candidates had already left the city using the opportunity created by the guilds. They probably learned about the awakening of hunters and decided to leave the city early. 

As for the remaining weaker candidates, they were left to die. Most of them were not even informed of the forthcoming threat. They were likely used as a distraction for the escape of the stronger candidates.

During his hunt, he found most of them trying to hide in a corner.

But for now, it wasn't really worth killing them for their experience point. Most of those who stayed behind did not even go through their first side story. Their experience drop was absolutely pathetic.

Frederick knew that killing a candidate of the same or higher level would guarantee earning 100% of all their accumulated experience points. However, to his great disappointment, he discovered that the experience points earned from killing a candidate below his level would only amount to a fraction. If we add his curse, the experience he was currently earning was absolutely ridiculous.

But that did not mean that they were not worthy of his time. During this night, he found a clever way to use authority orbs that he couldn't forge.

"I still have two lesser authorities remaining. Let's use them and rest," Frederick said with a yawn, his voice contained a bit of exhaustion. Normally, he wouldn't feel so drained after such a task, but his body was still recuperating and growing. He felt like a kid that needed a lot of sleep to grow.

Taking a deep breath, he covered himself with his coat and ran down some stairs. He soon reached the ground floor and walked out of the building. Traveling through the streets, he occasionally saw large groups of hunters. They seemed to be preparing to ambush any unfortunate soul who would dare venture outside.

'This group is too big. Let's try to find another one,' thought Frederick.

He continued walking through the avenues, careful not to alert the nearby hunters. A few minutes later, he stopped in a dark alley where two hunters could be seen eating the remains of a very large woman.

Frederick observed them a bit and thought 'This should do.'

Without hesitation, he took out two green glowing orbs from his pocket and rolled them toward the creatures.

The creatures did not seem to have noticed them at first as they were too engrossed in their meal. However, their attention was soon drawn as the orbs rolled right beside their feet. The abrupt appearance of the orbs startled the two creatures, yet they seemed captivated by them, momentarily forgetting their surroundings. After a few seconds, they finally recognized the orbs as their next meal and breakfast.

"GRRUAAH!"

With a deafening roar, they abandoned the corpse they were feasting on and pounced on the orbs. As they consumed them, their bodies swelled rapidly, dramatically transforming into their second phase of evolution.

One of the creatures' skin turned red as it absorbed the orb. Its body became bulky with visible veins, and its muscles were rippling and pulsating. As for the other creature, it turned purple with thick armor-like skin.

Most importantly, they were in the process of forming their authority heart. A luminous glow pulsed within their chests, revealing the location of their heart.

However, before they could even finish the transformation, Frederick took his knife and approached them without even bothering to use his disguise ability. The creatures quickly noticed him, but they were unable to defend themselves. They were still undergoing the transformation.

Both hunters began to struggle and tried to move away from Frederick, but it was pointless as they were extremely sluggish.

With a swift movement, Frederick stabbed the heart of the purple hunter, who seemed to have a thick purple armor. The creature did not even have time to cry as its heart exploded, leaving a gaping hole.

Frederick didn't need to exert much effort in stabbing it. Since the creature was still evolving, its armor was as soft as flesh.

While the purple hunter shattered like a broken mirror and turned to dust, Frederick quickly turned his gaze to the red hunter, who was still trying to struggle.

The other one, which had not finished the evolution, was trying to move away from Frederick, but he was too fast.

Because of the creature's sheer size, Frederick knew that stabbing its heart would be difficult. His eyes turned red with Sanguine infusion as he swiftly ran toward the hunter. In a matter of seconds, he repeatedly stabbed the creature's foot.

With a crash, it collapsed to the ground. Without hesitation, Frederick delivered a quick strike, driving his knife into the hunter's skull.

The creature didn't even have time to cry before starting to shatter like a broken glass.

What Frederick just did was essentially converting authorities into experience points. Feeding a hunter with authority would trigger their transformation, evolving them into the second phase of their evolution, during which they would create a heart. However, this process took time, and this moment could be exploited very easily.

Of course, killing a hunter was extremely worthwhile. In their second phase, a hunter would be worth at least five candidates in terms of experience points.

Despite this, even if he could, he wouldn't feed hunters with medium rarity authorities. Although it would indeed increase the experience yield, it wasn't really worth it as it could probably make some items if he ever finds an item smith. But that was of little importance at the moment.

As he stared at the pile of dust, his emerald eyes shone, and he smiled.

<Congratulations on reaching level 7. Please assign your free points to an attribute>

- Constitution + ( 18 -> 19)

- Mind + ( 16 -> 17)

- Perception +( 15 -> 16)

- Dexterity + ( 15-> 16)