Undying Warlord

In Dilan's opinion, it made no sense for someone to be generous enough to simply give away something without demanding something else of an equal price in return.

This was how 'fair trade' had always been, and every transaction was conducted to balance the exchange. Every action had a reaction and everything had its price, whether it was something materialistic, emotions, or anything else!

When he entered the Pagoda of Time, he had not noticed the price at first.

In fact, most people wouldn't even notice that something was off. They would probably be happy to encounter something nice and think of it as a miraculous opportunity.

But after facing the Sun temple, Dilan had grown more wary trusting anyone.

That didn't mean he wouldn't act rashly or that he would let go of some opportunities but that he wouldn't trust in things foreign to Milarn.

In his opinion, everyone and everything from outside Milarn was trying to get their hands on something from beings that called the planet their home. It included information, land, or the people themselves living on Milarn.

Right now, the price seemed to be information, specifically Dilan's combat information, including his physical condition, his limits and so on.

It was quite interesting, that was for sure. However, more important was the fact that Dilan had gained a lot in exchange for the information, which made it seem as if it was not important.

"If someone is willing to sacrifice thousands of Tierless and Tier-1 monsters and various treasures in exchange for some information, that either means this person is filthy rich and interested in turning the human race into his disciples, or that he/she wants to get to know more information about their enemies…"

There were other potential reasons for the existence of the Pagoda of Time, but it was not actually something Dilan should be bothered about.

If they wanted resources, that was perfectly fine with him. Dilan was currently in a weakened state and he had yet to go all-out.

Simultaneously, he had yet to get his hands on the extraordinary drops that had been promised by the notification he had received before entering the Pagoda of Time.

These extraordinary drops should be Ability crystals or something like that, which was why Dilan was willing to enter the dungeon, to begin with.

'As long as I can get my hands on a new source to procure ability crystals, everything will turn out to be fine.'

Ascenders could grow exponentially fast as long as they possessed just one powerful ability.

Unfortunately, powerful ability crystals were hard to find, and the demand for them was even higher.

Everyone wanted one, which was only obvious.

Thus, by entering the Pagoda of Time, he hoped to get his hands on a few ability crystals.

'Maybe I can exchange them with the Dungeon Points I will get after conquering the dungeon…wait…'

Dilan just thought of something once again, which caused him to frown deeply.

"Can I just leave the Pagoda of Time and receive my Dungeon points, or do I have to wait for who knows how many floors until I conquer the entire Pagoda?"

Dilan predicted that he would encounter Gold Tier-1 Monsters on the 15th Floor.

He was confident of defeating a few Gold Tier-1 monsters while being able to go all-out in his peak state.

However, right now, could he risk fighting and defeating more than one Gold Tier-1 monster while dozens of Silver Tier-1 monsters would support the Gold Tier-1 monsters? Forget it!

As they were bipedal monsters that could wield powerful weapons, they were far stronger than ordinary monsters as well.

Right now, Dilan was already excited at the prospect of fighting more Silver Tier-1 monsters, simply because it was challenging to defeat 50 Silver Tier-1 monsters that were around 4-5 levels below him.

Others wouldn't be able to achieve this, with the exception of Yvonne. She was probably strong enough to make this happen.

Even he was not confident in his current strength.

However, this was even more reason for him to give his all, and to test out the generosity of the being, who created the Pagoda of Time for the sake of procuring information!

'I don't know what else the Pagoda of Time could take from me, except information'

Dilan didn't feel anything odd about himself. Everything felt exactly the same as always. Thus, there was no need for him to worry too much about the price he would most pay for entering the Pagoda of Time.

Instead of worrying, Dilan entered the 11th Floor, where he encountered more than three dozen Silver Tier-1 monsters.

Their stats were still lower than Dilan's but the difference was not high enough for the young man to ignore the numerical disadvantage.

He could only give his best as always.

Upon activating [Thunder Step], he dashed toward the closest opponent, and cut his arm off in an instant.

A red flash was everything his opponents could see before the severed arm fell to the ground with a thud.

Dilan didn't hesitate as he moved as fast as lightning. His movements were smooth and agile as his hand holding the Blazing Serpentine Blade shot out.

Moving around as if he was dancing, Dilan turned his surroundings into a raging storm of blood, intestines, bone fragments, and brain mass.

His motions didn't show any signs of Dilan's weakened state. He moved as if he was flowing in the water, flying with the wind currents around him, and as if he was born to do what he was currently doing.

He was a blazing blur of destruction that was obliterating the masses of monsters. Some slashed at him with their weapons, some used their abilities to slow him down and overwhelm him through a wider variety of attacks, while some tried to protect themselves.

None of his opponents was weak, yet, all of them had one thing in common.

All of them were dead because of Dilan's blade.

Despite the huge numerical disadvantage, Dilan was far from being defeated. His Stamina decreased quickly but his high Health stat allowed him to recuperate whenever he was not overly straining himself.

If someone were to see him fighting right now, they would never ever believe that Dilan was not in a weakened state right now…they would think that he was far from unleashing his true strength, or that he was fighting monsters, whose average stats were not lower than him than 10 right now.

The bipedal monsters in the Pagoda of Time were far stronger than the monsters outside. It was easy to die in the Pagoda of Time.

However, at the same time, it was equally easy to become much stronger in the Pagoda of Time, exceed one's limits and reach new heights.

Dilan clearly noticed this as well.

Not relying on his overwhelmingly high stats allowed him to gain more combat experience, to learn more about his passive ability [True weapon specialist], and much more.

Many new things were unveiled to him in the time that passed after he had advanced to the 11th floor and continued to move upwards.

He had conquered the 14th Floor by now and was on a winning streak as he continued to defeat the same kind of monsters over and over again.

There was a high variety of monsters in the towers, however, the Ordinary, Bronze, and Silver monsters continued to appear no matter how many times he killed them, meaning that he fought against the same Ordinary Tier-1 monsters several times, while the same applied to the Bronze and Silver Tier-1 monsters.

This hadn't been bothersome, but it prevented Dilan from fulfilling his plan on filling up the gap of his missing stats. He had wanted to increase his stats with the Essence crystals he was about to collect from the monsters he had killed from the first floor onward!

'Will it be enough to conquer the 15th floor, or should I try to leave before it's too late?' Dilan wondered.

But it was not even a second later that he shook his head, disregarding the thought of leaving.

He looked at a seemingly ordinary, yet, somewhat special stone in his hand as he smiled faintly.

"If I missed these stones on the lower floors, I should definitely go back and pick them up as well. They will be my, and our group's best way to conquer this place over and over again, without the need to fear being defeated!!"