[Metal Extraction]
[8 mid-level metal essence extracted.]
[Metal forged successfully.]
Viktor stared at his hand and the other remaining weapons, still in disbelief that they could be extracted just like that.
Jessie, who had been watching him from afar, had now stood up and stared at him with suspicion and curiosity.
"H-how…"
The girl looked at the metal he extracted with wide eyes. Although Viktor could see that Jessie was trying to hold herself back, she still could not hide the curiosity and suspicion she harbored.
She had seen how Viktor was able to bend and temper metal, but being able to absorb it into his body was an entirely new level of abnormality she previously did not know was possible.
A series of questions rapidly ran through her head, but after dumbfoundedly looking at Viktor and the extracted metal back and forth, she ultimately shook her head. Despite her overflowing desire to understand the matter, she decided not to say anything about it.
She promised to respect that each person had their secrets, after all. She had no right to ask him.
Viktor found it too difficult to keep it hidden from the girl, but at the same time, he was unwilling to explain as it might lead to the Djinn's existence being found out. Because of that, he decided to just act casually.
"Jessie, isn't all this supposed to be virtual? Why am I able to extract these items?"
Meeting Viktor's questioning gaze, Jessie explained that everything in the tower, aside from the tower itself, was made of energy. Even the weapons, skill books, the shop, and the enemies for the trials on the floors were made of some kind of energy. Hence, it stands to reason that even this virtual space was made of energy, which meant that hypothetically, it could be converted to something else.
The girl explained that this was the theory studied by the scribe from the Vatican; she added that this energy output was the reason every activity in the tower cost spirit stones. In order for the tower to keep functioning properly, it needed to extract some energy every time someone came and used its facilities.
After digesting the information, Viktor made an "oh" and nodded.
"Well, I guess spirit stones are kind of like fuel," he thought out loud.
"It is more complicated than that, but yes, that is the gist of it."
It was definitely not Viktor's expertise, but what was important to him was the authenticity of this information. If what Jessie told him was true, he might be able to exploit the situation and gain some benefit.
Before he started, Viktor decided to check on his core.
[Core of Anvil - Stage 4: 16.98%]
To his surprise, the previous metal extraction did not give him much, only less than 1% for a tier 1 dagger. To confirm his conjecture, he also took one of the tier 2 blades he took from the orcs and placed them all on the floor.
He took a deep breath to compose himself as this was the first tier 2 material he was going to extract.
[Metal Extraction]
[20 mid-level metal essence extracted.]
[Metal forged successfully.]
[Core of Anvil - Stage 4: 16.98% (19.15%)]
The tier 2 blade gave him an increase of around 2%. Although this was considerably more than the tier 1 dagger, he was actually expecting more from a tier 2 weapon.
Still, he was quite happy with the result, especially since the blade was a loot item.
With high curiosity, he decided to take out the tier 2 hammer he barely used and began extracting the metal in it.
[Metal Extraction]
[124 mid-level metal essence extracted.]
[Metal forged successfully.]
[Core of Anvil - Stage 4: 19.15% (34.44%)]
This time, the extraction gave him a whopping 15% increase. Although the hammer was a much heavier item, it did not have 4 times more volume. After comparing the numbers, Viktor concluded that the items in the virtual challenge gave out less essence than their real counterparts.
If his assumption was correct, the items here should give about a quarter or a fifth of the real ones.
It was quite significantly less, but this was more than enough to make his heart rapidly beat in excitement. Without wasting another moment, Viktor quickly took out all the other tier 2 and tier 1 weapons that he took from the orcs.
[Metal Extraction]
[Metal Extraction]
…
In just a few minutes, all the weapons had vanished into thin air.
[Core of Anvil - Stage 2: 34.44% (39.02%)]
Now that he found this possibility, the challenge meant more to him than just the final reward. There were approximately 2,000 of those orcs, which meant that he had more or less 2,000 metal weapons to extract.
"Hey, Djinn, let's go and hunt again!" he happily said, clearly in a good mood.
<Looks like someone's excited, kekeke!>
Viktor then checked on Eva, and realizing she was asleep, he decided to quickly head out.
"I'll be heading out for a while, don't worry about me."
Seeing the situation unfold, Jessie understood what Viktor wanted to do without any need for explanation and nodded.
"Just tell me if you need any help, I'll look after the others."
Viktor gave the girl a big thumbs up before heading out, and after making sure that he was a distance away, he finally summoned the Djinn. Just like before, the blue husky appeared in a puff of smoke.
"No no, Djinn, the bigger one."
Following his request, the Djinn turned into the huge dark blue warg and Viktor quickly rode. His target was to find more orcs, preferably a small group of them.
His current plan was to start from the group of small riders from before. After all, those groups were proven to hold tier 2 weapons.
He swiftly but carefully went back to the previous spot and the place where he fought, and with the Djinn's sensor, he could quickly tell they were still in the vicinity. In total, there were seven orcs riders with none other within the 3-mile vicinity.
Excited to get more metal toys to extract, Viktor decided to immediately proceed with his plan, prompting liquid metal to seep out from his body.
[Metal Fusion]
[Battle power increased by 12.]
Without wasting any time, he jumped out and slammed down his ax in the middle of the group, wreaking havoc within moments.
With his first surprise attack, one of the orcs in the middle was killed in one strike.
However, almost immediately, the wargs all howled at the same time.
"Let's see how much you got!"
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