Chương 84: The Norm Evolution

Far from the Underground Safe Spot. Boom! A glittering crystal fist landed on the hard carcass shell of a monster. The monster looked like a Hercules Beetle, possessing the size of a hundred-ton boulder. The beetle moved in a swift motion, trying to guard its carcass every time danger neared. However, it was very hard for it to do so. A total of four enemies continuously attacked without giving it a break. Before the beetle could move its sharp horn towards Arthur, Maan's door shield landed, breaking the action.

The [Shield Charge] continuously landed on the face of the beetle. The attack constantly occupied the monster's concentration, giving plenty of time for the others to attack the weak point under the shell. However, the shell was impenetrable. After Arthur evolved his Alpha Core Layer, he constantly participated in the battle with the skeletons using his crystal fist. Following the evolution, the entire way he moved was changed. He could run faster, react faster, and punch harder.

It was a truly remarkable change to his body and mind. Especially with his crystal fist, he could kill an Alpha Standard Monster in a few punches, putting holes in their bodies. With his Agility at 25, his movement speed was greatly increased. He could easily evade the attacks coming from this strange beetle, which looked like an odd monster. It was similar to the Ant King or the Lizard on the Lake. They had walked a straight line across the forest, continuously hunting until they encountered this beetle.

Although the Beetle lacked the special appearance of the Crystal Ant King, its size and strength told Arthur it was a different kind of monster. It would definitely yield unusual rewards. Thus, they decided to hunt the monster, and Arthur actively joined the battle. Stink! The Beetle dashed forward and collided with Maan's door shield. The horn on its face pierced directly through the shield. If Maan possessed a stomach, it would have already been pierced, and its innards would have spilled out.

Fortunately, Maan had no stomach, only empty space. Because the tip of the horn was reversed, it became lodged inside. The Beetle struggled to free itself. Seizing this opportunity, Coburn attacked from behind. He slashed greatsword, aiming to sever the segmented stinging tail that actively moved for its prey. The greatsword hit the target, passing through without issue and severing the tail. The cut tail dropped to the ground, twitching. Inflicted with pain, the Beetle finally realized its tail was cut down.

It started to thrash all over the place. In a frantic panic, it finally broke free from the door shield, it realized it was outnumbered. If it were to stay here, it would definitely be killed. Without waiting, it lifted its hard, unbreakable shell, trying to escape and fly away. However, Dolph had been waiting this entire time for the Beetle to lift its hard shell. Taking a few hard steps forward, its bony hands gripped the mid-section of the spear, extending it back.

It put all its effort into the last step, pushing the spear toward the soft spot. Shick! With blinding speed, the spear left the hand. Cutting through space, it directly lodged into the base of the wings. The spear easily went inside without any issue, almost disappearing into the Beetle. Hissss! The Beetle made a hissing sound as it crashed into a big tree and dropped to the ground. After a few moments of struggle, it stopped moving and died. Arthur, who stood ten meters away from the battle, walked towards it.

Although his contribution was very less on this hunt, he was not going to complain, as they had finally killed a special monster. It had taken almost ten minutes of struggle to kill. Obviously, Arthur's thought was whether he would get an Ability Card. But even after waiting for a minute, the phenomenon that happened to the Ant King's corpse did not happen to the Beetle. They had yet to find a similar kind of monster, which was their main focus. This book was originally published on Royal Road.

Check it out there for the real experience.

"Antrae, dig out the Core first," Arthur commanded. Since the Beetle was equally strong as the Ant King, he wanted to see if anything special was to be found, at least on the core. The skeleton quickly split open the head of the Beetle and took out a crystal. From a few steps away stood Arthur. His eyes landed on the core held by the bony fingers. It looked black. Although the party had started to target hunt Black core monsters, when they entered into the forest, the monsters were overwhelming.

They did not need to search for monsters. The monsters came to them. So, they had to kill anything in front of them. However, Arthur was a little surprised by the Black Core from the Beetle. It was strong enough to rival the Ant King. He was a little curious about what kind of mystery this Black Core possessed. Taking the core from Antrae, he inspected it. He immediately felt the difference in size. Other than the size, the core looked normal. It looked double the size of the normal cores he would find on monsters.

"Should I eat the core to check the effects?" he muttered. Quickly, he checked with Coburn whether to consume it or not, just in case it had a different effect. Coburn gave the answer that it was safe to consume. Being vigilant about everything was not a bad thing. Arthur gave it one more quick look and tossed the core into his mouth. As usual, it disintegrated in his saliva without any particular taste. He swallowed and waited for a while. [Alpha Standard Norm Night Crystal Core Consumed. Gained 3 Attribute points.] A shock permeated throughout his body. Three Attribute points! How was this possible? He usually got only a zero-point-one Attribute increase if he consumed a Normal Black Core. But now, this Beetle core gave him 3. Is it some kind of mutated Black Crystal? he wondered.

"Norm Night Crystal Core," Arthur muttered. What did ' Norm' even mean? Was it some kind of variation on Evolution? Dumbfounded, Arthur quickly summoned Zero the Appraiser. He asked him to appraise the carapace of the Beetle monster. [Goliath Horn-Beetle] Description: The hardened exoskeleton of a matured, Alpha-Standard insectoid. Fortified by highly condensed dark energy, this shell is practically immune to standard blunt force.

As an entity that has reached the 'Norm' stage of evolution, its physical structure has drastically condensed, making this material highly sought after for forging high-grade defensive equipment and heavy shields.

"Norm Stage of evolution?" Arthur was confused by this new term. The evolutions were called differently. Alpha, Gamma, Delta, Theta, Lambda, Sigma, and Omega; these were the standard evolutions. It was the same for both humans and monsters. But here, it said differently. Could it be that monsters with a Black Core have a different type of evolution variant? a thought arose. It made perfect sense after seeing how many Attribute points he had gotten from this Norm evolution monster.

This revelation opened a lot of doors for him. He did not need to worry about how low the Attribute points he would get were. This had almost made him abandon consuming the Night Crystal. But now, witnessing that he could gain plenty of points from a higher evolution monster, he would not worry about the scarcity of Night Crystals. He could simply find monsters that were evolved to Norm and hunt them. Even if he were to leave this place, he could easily find a gate that yielded a few evolved Black Core monsters.

He could continue increasing his Attribute points without stopping. It would definitely put him a few steps ahead of others' growth. However, the question is, is this concept of consuming Night Crystals to provide Attribute points known to everyone? This question had stayed with him since he found out about the Black Crystal's usage. It had been a long time since the awakening descended on this world. People would have encountered the core. To his guess, they would have found out its usage one way or another.

But how come it was not common knowledge to the public, or at least to awakeners?

"Am I the first person to find out the secret of the Night Core?" A thought came to his mind. There were chances that this could be possible. The Black Core should be consumed at a certain period after harvest. Which was 13 minutes. Arthur did the calculation along the way and found that the core must be consumed within that time frame. As far as his knowledge went, 13 minutes looked like a very weird time limit.

Those who found the Black Core, realizing that it could not be absorbed to increase their core points, must have thrown it away or sold it to someone. So, even those people who were curious about the crystal and tested it by consuming found no result, since the effect would become invalid at that time. His guess was that the secret of the Black Core must be known by some awakeners and kept secret, not revealing it to the world.

That would definitely put a lot of pressure on the government, since Black Cores were literally giving a small evolution, increasing the Stats.

"Or maybe I am wrong about it." He could not say concretely; it was out of his wisdom. So, he dismissed the topic. Now, the materials of the Beetle were very good. He could definitely use them to forge some good shields or weapons for his skeletons. For that, he must hire a Blacksmith with the status of Master. In that case, they would come with their own tools. Arthur swiftly opened the marketplace to check if he could afford any Master Blacksmith Skeleton.