Tales of the Endless Empire
Chapter 166: Power Leveling (6)

In the early morning hours, Thalion left his tower, heading toward the ocean. The portals Lucan had created were a real blessing. They would also prove more than a little helpful in the war against the undead. With countless messages coming in from council members, he had agreed to attend the meeting in a few days.

He really didn’t want to be too distracted — after all, he had to face the undead elite fighters himself. Sure, this base had strong warriors, but he doubted anyone could still match him. His armor, sword, extensive training, and body tempering gave him far too many advantages. Right now, even being at a higher level than him wouldn’t be enough to compensate for all the stats he'd gained from consuming rare plants and using the gravity array.

Body tempering didn’t directly provide stats, but the sheer power-up was worth it. On that note, he was still holding back — he had thousands of liters of blood stored, which he intended to feed to the Sanguine Thorn. He wondered how many upgrades it would gain from that. But that wasn’t all; the only reason he wanted to stop at the fourth stage was to feed it vampire blood. He was sure the Sanguine Thorn would thrive on it.

Thinking about it, what would happen if he met a vampire with a Sanguine Thorn too? Would one simply devour the other? Or maybe he could absorb it into his own body, gaining double the power? He was looking forward to finding out. There was no way his Sanguine Thorn was the only one in this tutorial.

On his way to the portal, he spoke with some water mages, who mentioned that what had happened last night was completely new. The oceans were usually just as lively at night as during the day. It was interesting, but Thalion didn’t have time to investigate. He was here to slaughter, not unravel every mystery. Time was short, and he needed to make the most of it.

Before jumping back into the now-lively ocean, he gathered more pearls, currently stored on the skyship. He needed to swallow more of them as a Tidecaller Serpent. It didn’t make much difference right now, but he had no doubt the gains in the future would be absolutely insane. His water form was behind in body tempering, and consuming those pearls could help it catch up.

In contrast to yesterday, many people were now coming and going. Water mages and shapeshifters were all eager to gain as many levels as possible before teleporting to the fourth stage.

Thalion dove into the calm surface of the ocean. After transforming into the Tidecaller Serpent, he devoured fifteen more of the tiny pearls. That should be enough for the moment. Warmth spread through his body as he looked down and saw multiple tiger sharks scavenging for pearls among the smaller floating reefs.

The surface-dwelling beasts had no chance. When one resisted, multiple tiger sharks or water mages would attack it. Thalion smiled and turned his gaze toward the depths of the ocean. Pearl farming was going well—better than expected, in fact.

Now it was time for power leveling. Thalion accelerated toward the depths of the ocean. Last time, he hadn’t even reached the blue crystals, which were around two kilometers down. He just hoped it would be as chaotic as the last time.

It didn’t take long for him to reach the area where blue crystals appeared every hundred meters, each guarded by one or more beasts. The deeper he went, the larger the crystals became.

At his current depth, over fifty crystals were scattered around. About five hundred meters further down, the bigger crystals began. There was often a gap without crystals between the smaller and larger ones. Thalion decided to start here and work his way downward.

He smiled when he spotted swarms of tiny fish and a few giant squids guarding some crystals. Surprisingly, there were almost no sharks at this level, which was unusual since they were typically everywhere. The last time he was here, the variety of beasts was high, but now it wasn’t. At most, there were ten different types of beasts, mostly fish with some squids in between.

This was almost perfect for Thalion. Some of the fish looked dangerous—mutated barracudas of some kind—but he was confident he could handle them. None of these beasts should be able to survive a Tsunami Breaker at close range.

Thalion sped toward one of the swarms of tiny fish. They rushed at him with incredible speed, greed in their eyes. To them, he was probably one of the biggest idiots they had ever seen.

The tiny fish didn’t get a chance to reconsider their actions as a Tsunami Breaker tore through the swarm, ripping them to pieces and leaving none alive.

He quickly placed the runes on the blue crystal so he could store it in his spatial ring, which was not easy as a Tidecaller Serpent. With the blue crystal safely stored, the slaughter continued. He killed the next twenty beasts until he gained the full attention of all the others. Until now, they had ignored him and his conquests. Well, not anymore—some were now fleeing, sensing that they might be next.

This made farming the crystals easier, but Thalion was here to kill beasts, not just collect resources. At least it wasn’t a complete disaster; many beasts remained confident enough to fight him.

He wondered what he should do with all the crystals. They wouldn’t all fit in his aquarium, and he couldn’t swallow them either. Wait—was he a complete moron these days? He could shrink them down! Shrunken down, they would all fit in his aquarium, and he might even be able to eat them.

Once his body tempering had progressed further, he definitely needed to perform an operation similar to what he'd done with Eagly. He was confident he could perhaps fit even more crystals into the Tidecaller’s body since it had more space.

The question was whether the body could withstand the intense pressure of integrating more than one crystal. If both crystals resonated with each other, a much stronger surge of power could rush through his body and likely destroy it.

The Tidecaller Serpent had a larger and more durable body than Eagly, but it was still a long way from being able to withstand that kind of strain. His body tempering wasn’t advanced enough yet to resonate with a crystal and handle its power.

It took four more hours to clear the last crystals and store them in his spatial ring. Now it was time to go one level deeper. The next cluster of crystals was located roughly five hundred meters below him. The beasts were a bit stronger, but the crystals weren’t much larger.

Clearing the previous level had brought him to level fifty-seven. He still had a lot of points to allocate, having forgotten to do it last night. Thalion decided that speed was the most important factor right now, so he allocated all the points from his last three level-ups to agility across all his forms.

Speed would be crucial, and he didn’t gain any naturally, while the other attributes could be boosted with plants. Maybe there was a plant that enhanced agility, but they hadn’t found it yet. Fate was another stat that baffled everyone. So far, no one knew what it actually did. Some argued that it influenced luck, while others believed it boosted experience and credit gains.

Thalion was curious but hesitant to invest in something he didn’t fully understand.

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Now it was time for more killing. The beasts on this level were noticeably stronger, but he was confident he could handle them. There were multiple sharks, squids, jellyfish, two crabs, some snake-like creatures, and a group of dolphins.

He also noted some varieties of fish, such as tiny fish swarms, barracuda-like species, and massive goliath groupers. Thalion decided to take them on one by one, starting with a large bull shark.

The beasts were all E-grade and had grown beyond level 84. That didn’t save them from Thalion’s Aqua Lance, but it ensured he gained more experience—exactly what he wanted. They also provided more credits, with each beast currently worth around three thousand credits.

The credit gains were nice but not crucial for him. As the leader of a base filled with humans, he earned millions of credits every week. With that much wealth, he could buy almost anything he needed. Killing beasts wasn’t necessary for credits—at least not right now.

He proceeded as he had with the previous crystals: first, kill the beast guarding the crystal, check the corpse for skills, and then store both the beast and the crystal in his spatial ring.

After dealing with the bull shark, he obliterated a swarm of tiny fish, the dolphins, more sharks, and the two crabs. That was when chaos erupted. Beasts began attacking each other, with Thalion caught right in the middle.

He blasted beast after beast, occasionally unleashing a Tsunami Breaker when things became too overwhelming and chaotic.

More and more beasts were drawn to the scene, lured by the scent of blood in the water. Thalion didn’t care—he killed everything in his path and grabbed all the crystals. His skills were simply too powerful; no beast could effectively counter him. He didn’t even need to activate his water shield.

Crystal after crystal found its way into his spatial ring.

Tonight, he planned to work in the forge to shrink them all down—or perhaps it would be better to let Lucan handle it. Or maybe... he should bind them all together into a single, immensely powerful crystal. That would be incredible.

Yeah, he should definitely try it. If it worked, his aquarium would accelerate his body tempering at an incredible pace.

He also briefly considered swallowing the combined crystal but had no idea what would happen if such a powerful object was inside his body.

No, it was probably best to just shrink them and toss them into the aquarium. The effect would likely be similar, and it wouldn’t require as much effort as constructing a single crystal.

One other thing he needed to work on strengthening his soul. His soul was likely the most powerful in this tutorial thanks to binding the Outsider, which had generally elevated his soul body.

However, it had also torn apart many spiritual veins.

Yes, his spirit body had recovered and was now even more powerful than when he still had spirit veins. Creating at least a few spirit veins would empower his soul to new heights. He probably wouldn't do too much, but it might be a good project to work on overnight if he didn't go hunting in the mountains.

His main reason for this was just in case the Sanguine Thorn fully awakened—it might attack him. Thalion didn’t think that was likely, but having a stronger soul just in case seemed wise.

Besides, it wouldn't take much time to create a few spirit veins; he had plenty of practice with the process. A strong soul would likely lead to better evolution options when he reached E grade too.

For now, he had to focus on winning the war raging around him, with beasts fighting one another. This wasn’t too bad for Thalion since his passive skill kept him relatively unnoticed. He wasn’t invisible, but it was enough that many beasts simply ignored him.

It might also have had something to do with Thalion suppressing his aura, something most beasts weren't doing at all. All in all, the situation was favorable, and he killed beast after beast.

The only downside was that some beasts had already been damaged by others, meaning the experience was shared. Despite that, it only took five hours and a massive number of kills to reach level fifty-eight.

He allocated all his free points to agility again since speed was still, in his opinion, the best choice.

At this level, he had already collected most of the crystals, but the beasts just kept coming. This was perfect for him. They were high level but still not strong enough to survive his Aqua Lance. From time to time, he also used Mana Slashes between Aqua Lances.

The Water Slashes didn’t kill the beasts outright, but the injuries ensured that he would still gain experience when the beasts died later. That tactic actually brought him more experience than killing them directly.

The situation grew more chaotic by the second as more and more beasts arrived. Hundreds of creatures surrounded him, ranging from massive whale-sized beasts to tiny fish.

Thalion preferred the tiny fish since he rarely had to share experience when killing them with Tsunami Breaker.

Time passed as Thalion continued farming beasts like a madman. He had already gathered most of the crystals, with ninety-four large blue ones currently stored in his spatial ring. He planned to shrink them all down and put them in his aquarium—he was looking forward to that.

For now, he needed to stay fully focused.

Being in the middle of the chaos meant that every time he unleashed a skill, it hit something—even if one beast managed to dodge. Without his title, he would have long been dead.

He kept farming to his heart's content, activating Tsunami Breaker whenever he sensed a threat from behind. It was a simple yet effective solution to deal with almost any danger.

This was the perfect place to level up. No wonder the princess had already reached such a high level, with so many beasts right outside her door.

Thalion unleashed skill after skill until he even had to pause for a moment to regenerate mana.

The crazy part was that more and more beasts kept arriving—there seemed to be no end to them. He watched as an orca crashed into a shark, while a crab devoured an octopus, which normally would have been the other way around.

This new universe was truly something else.

Thalion profited immensely from the ongoing slaughter. No beast possessed skills even remotely comparable to what he could unleash.

The only thing that absolutely couldn't happen was one of the bigshots from below approaching, but they probably sat on their giant crystals, waiting for the night for some reason.

For Thalion, it was perfect. If every day went like this, he might even reach level eighty.

He wondered if he could get close to level fifty-nine before sunset.

Until nightfall, Thalion slaughtered his way through waves of underwater beasts. By the time he decided to leave, he was already halfway to level fifty-nine.

It was frustrating how each additional level required more experience than the last. His progress might slow down eventually.

As he swam back to the surface, he allocated his free points to agility while he swam upward in long fluid motions.

He had fought all day, but he still wanted more.