Chapter 118: Immediate Effects
Chapter 118: Immediate Effects
The fact that he had forcefully created sub-cores before reaching the required threshold meant his body required significantly more cosmic essence than ever before.
It was as if he had created new, deep wells that demanded separate essence of their own. His Earth and Metal magic sub-core, alongside his Thermal magic sub-core, were now actively demanding tailored cosmic essence to even remain stable.
Right now, his physical reserves were totally bottomed out and flat. His core ached violently inside his chest like a physical organ being squeezed, and it had been a severe struggle to even keep his face straight while he was placing those bounties on the heads of the ancient variants.
He knew the move had been necessary to flip the board, but now that that was done, his priority was to find a direct source of cosmic essence.
If not for the fact that his sub-core formation was now active, successfully stemming his passive essence leakage into the environment by more than ninety percent, he would have been severely worse off than he currently was.
Right now, what he was leaking into the environment was so negligible that he was effectively impervious to the barren atmosphere of the Age of Hunger trial grounds.
Uhtred waved away the glowing system notices and his updated list of titles, then carefully began to assess the physical damage his body had taken during the battle.
His skin was heavily blistered and burned by the serpent’s stomach acid in several large patches. The high-velocity sand magic utilized by the Wonambi Dune Strider in their fight afterwards had also punctured his body in multiple areas, leaving thousands of microscopic lacerations dotting his skin, particularly along his forearms.
His new black gear was completely torn in several areas, chewed away by the corrosion of the digestive juices and the direct impacts he had sustained while fighting against the giant serpent. To top it off, entire patches of hair on his head were completely bare and bald from the acid exposure.
Uhtred grimaced heavily. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how terrible he looked right now. He reckoned that if any of his crew members — either Zara, Diya, or Dennis, stumbled upon him in this exact moment, they would barely even recognize him.
"Man, it’s in moments like this I really miss having Diya around," Uhtred sighed out loud, his voice raspy in the cold air.
Speaking of his team, he pulled up the trial rankings just to check up on their current status, wanting to verify that they were still alive.
As Uhtred pulled up the ranking panel, his fingers prepared to scroll down past the top rankers, but before he could even swipe the panel, the names currently dominating the very top of the leaderboard made him pause.
"Bloody fucking hell," Uhtred chuckled, a cold glint returning to his eyes. "Would you look at that?"
The entire top ten on the trial rankings had changed dramatically within the span of a few minutes.
Krijn, the Neanderthal general who had been holding the undisputed number two rank since they landed on the continent, had suddenly plummeted down to the number eight spot.
Meanwhile, the names of the ancient variants who had previously occupied the sixth through tenth positions had shifted entirely. Specifically, the ancient variant who had previously held the number ten spot had completely vanished off the face of the leaderboard.
It wasn’t that his rank had simply dropped down into the twenties or thirties, his name was entirely missing from the register, which meant only one thing...
He was dead.
Uhtred’s bounties were already working, and it had barely been a few minutes since he had placed them.
The rest of the top ten were the same. Several ancient variants had completely dropped off the list, either erased entirely from the ranking list in totality or pushed further down to the lower ranks out of the top ten.
Even the mysterious number one ranked individual, the variant name that had sat firmly at the top above Krijn all afternoon, had dropped down to number three.
The Homo erectus general had moved up to number one in his stead, followed by a new unknown ancient variant contender who had secured the number two slot.
The rapid, chaotic reshuffling thoroughly puzzled Uhtred as he once again began to analyze how exactly the System measured and graded ranks for this trial.
What exactly is the System taking into consideration to grant an ascender a high rank?
He looked further down the list, wanting to check where his own name currently stood, especially after everything he had done so far.
As his eyes moved past the shifting top ten slots, he spotted his name sitting at the number 17 spot.
He had jumped all the way from rank 69 to 17.
But the massive jump still left Uhtred completely unsatisfied. Here he was, an ascender who had just achieved a breakthrough that the System explicitly classified as a universe-scale milestone.
Yet, that, combined with facing a Level 25 Nascent realm beast and coming out alive with his life, then also gaining a whopping 200,000 merits from multiversal entities due to his ingenuity, was only enough to place him at rank 17?
What exactly were the ancient variants inside the top ten doing that he wasn’t?
Uhtred let out a low sigh.
It seemed he still lacked critical information regarding the grading mechanics of this trial. Right now, he was practically running blind, and he thoroughly hated operating without a clear objective.
He moved his eyes further down the interface to check on the positions of his crew, which had been his primary purpose for opening the panel in the first place.
He easily spotted Zara sitting at number 33. She had also moved up several ranks over the last hour, but her increase didn’t surprise him in the slightest. In fact, he had fully expected her to be sitting even higher by now.
She was also an anomaly... that much Uhtred was completely certain of. The way she had just appeared out of nowhere, from inside a dungeon for that matter, still rubbed him the wrong way. But at least for the moment he considered her a reliable comrade, sensing no ill intent from her actions.
Scanning further down the scrolling lines of text, Uhtred located Diya sitting at rank 104, while Dennis was holding a position somewhere within the two hundreds.
It was still an incredibly good standing, particularly when considering that the total number of participants in the trials right now was more than 3.5 million, rather than the less than 100 when they had first arrived.
Still, based on their training and everything Uhtred had taught them, he expected Diya, and especially Dennis to climb even higher.
He swept his hand across the air, closing the rank interface, and let out a steady breath. At the very least, they were verified alive, and their numbers indicated they were managing well enough wherever they were right now.
He was fully confident they would all find a way to cross paths and regroup, but for the immediate present, he was entirely on his own.
Right now, his most urgent task was to replenish his dry essence reserves...
He needed to find something to hunt immediately.