Half an hour later, John arrived in the eastern district of Novice Village.
It was a festering swamp—
and also the most unsuitable area in the wilderness for beginners to grind.
The reason was simple: the monsters here gave little experience, and even the coins they dropped were scarce.
Their only real purpose was to disgust players.
The monsters looked like sticky sacks drenched in black crude oil.
They had no facial features and no limbs, only soft, limp bodies that dragged themselves slowly across the ground.
Their only method of attack was spitting out a thick liquid resembling raw petroleum.
Once a player was splashed by that viscous fluid, their movement speed would be reduced by 50%.
You could neither run properly nor level efficiently by fighting them.
They were the kind of monsters everyone hated on sight.
And yet John had come here, because he wanted to test a certain crazy theory of his.
He cast a Detection spell at one of them, and its information quickly appeared.
[Tarblob] Lv.5
[HP]: 1500
[Attack]: 100
[Defense]: 200
[Skill]: Crude Oil Spray
…
Looking out across the area, the entire festering swamp was practically overrun by tarblobs.
"So many of them. If everything goes according to plan, this should be enough."
A sharp light flashed in John's eyes.
He walked to the edge of the swamp, where the stench of marsh gas hit him head-on.
John took out a Burning Flask from his inventory.
[Burning Flask]
[Effect]: After being thrown, it ignites a 5×5 area. Enemies within the area take 10 damage per second for 5 seconds.
[Note]: On special terrain, the burn duration will be extended.
…
If this Burning Flask were used directly for mob clearing, it would probably take more than a dozen of them just to kill a few tarblobs.
So John did not hesitate in the slightest.
He directly modified the item's stats.
After the adjustment, the Burning Flask's values rose dramatically.
[Burning Flask]
[Effect]: After being thrown, it ignites a 50×50 area. Enemies within the area take 100 damage per second for 50 seconds.
At that point, the modified Burning Flask could no longer be called a Burning Flask.
It was more like an incendiary bomb.
Locking onto a tarblob, John activated Boundary Break and threw it.
The incendiary bomb traced a perfect arc through the air—
and hit its target with flawless accuracy.
Crack!
Terrifying flames instantly swallowed the tarblob whole.
Under the stimulation of the surrounding marsh gas, the fire spread even farther.
Almost in the blink of an eye,
that patch of swamp turned into a sea of flames.
[-119!]
[-121!]
[…]
The tarblobs' bodies twisted continuously as they burned, while damage numbers rose endlessly above their heads.
Because the burning effect ignored defense,
and because the marsh gas kept feeding the fire, the burn damage continued to intensify.
The dozen or so tarblobs in that area were all caught in the inferno, their HP dropping at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The foul stench of burning swamp gas spread through the air.
In barely a dozen seconds,
the first tarblob let out a shriek and turned to ashes.
[You killed Tarblob Lv.5. EXP +400!]
A level 5 tarblob only gave 100 more EXP than a level 3 wolf.
But that did not matter. John had not come here to level up in the first place.
He silently stared at the remaining dozen or so tarblobs still wrapped in flames.
As they, too, gradually burned into ash,
a series of notifications continued to appear.
[You killed Tarblob Lv.5. EXP +400!]
[You killed…]
His EXP bar shot upward again and again.
And amidst the string of white notifications, two lines of blue text suddenly appeared.
[You have plundered the Tarblob's D-rank talent "Attack Slow"!]
[Attack Slow: After any attack hits a target, there is a 30% chance to reduce its speed by 10% for 3 seconds.]
[You have plundered the Tarblob's D-rank passive skill "Damage Splash"!]
[Damage Splash: All attacks deal splash damage to other units within a 3×3 area around the target. Splash damage equals 10% of the base damage.]
"So it really was these two talents."
A slight smile curved at the corner of John's lips.
Just as he had expected,
the tarblob's traits did indeed contain those two talents.
And through plunder, both of them had now become his.
That was also the real reason John had come here.
He looked toward the dense mass of tarblobs filling the swamp, excitement flashing in his eyes.
"In that case… time for the harvest."
John immediately took out the rest of his Burning Flasks.
Then, using System Points, he modified all of them into upgraded incendiary bombs.
After that, John became like a tireless artillery turret, throwing them out one after another.
Each throw ignited another patch of the swamp into a blazing inferno.
John threw more than fifty incendiary bombs before finally stopping.
Hiss! Hiss! Hiss!
At that moment, the swamp within a ten-kilometer radius had all turned into a sea of fire.
Under the effect of the incendiary bombs, the marsh gas ignited over and over again.
Thick black smoke rose across the entire swamp.
The tarblobs living there instantly fell into chaos.
They writhed and wailed in agony, but no matter how they struggled, they could not escape such a terrifying inferno.
[-179!]
[-200!]
[-198!]
[…]
Within the sea of fire, damage numbers appeared in overwhelming numbers,
nearly filling John's entire field of vision.
One tarblob after another turned to ash and died.
Their deaths provided John with a massive amount of experience and talents.
[You killed Tarblob Lv.6. EXP +700!]
[You have plundered the D-rank talent "Attack Slow"!]
[You killed Tarblob Lv.5. EXP +400!]
[You have plundered the D-rank talent "Damage Splash"!]
[You…]
John's EXP bar surged upward segment by segment.
His level rose right along with it.
Level 3, Level 4, Level 5… all the way to Level 10!
When the flames in the swamp gradually died down,
there were barely any tarblobs left in sight.
All that remained was a land of ashes.
Even though these tarblobs did not provide much EXP individually,
killing so many of them at once
was still enough to send John straight to Level 10.
In the game, each level-up granted 5 free attribute points.
At this point, he had a total of 90 free attribute points.
After thinking for a moment, John chose to put all of them into Agility.
As an assassin, the higher his Agility, the better.
But the greatest harvest of all was still the D-rank talents he had plundered from them!
Looking at the densely packed identical D-rank talents in his talent list, John did not hesitate for even a second and directly activated Universal Synthesis!
[Consumed 10 D-rank talents "Attack Slow." You synthesized 1 C-rank talent "Slowing Aura."]
[Consumed 10 D-rank skills "Damage Splash." You synthesized 1 C-rank skill "Damage Diffusion."]
[Consumed 10 C-rank talents "Slowing Aura." You synthesized…]
Notification sounds rang out one after another.
John took the enormous number of D-rank talents and kept synthesizing them upward, one rank at a time.
By the time he had synthesized so many that even he felt tired,
finally—
two golden notifications suddenly appeared.
[Consumed 10 A-rank talents "Extreme Speed." You synthesized the S-rank talent "Absolute Stillness."]
[Absolute Stillness: After any attack hits a target, it causes the enemy to lose all ability to move for 1 hour!]
[Consumed 10 A-rank skills "Dominating Damage." You synthesized the S-rank skill "Annihilation of All."]
[Annihilation of All: After any attack hits a target, all enemies within a 50m×50m area around it will suffer the same amount of damage!]
Those two S-rank talents were already powerful enough.
But John still felt they did not quite match him.
So without hesitation, he spent System Points and directly modified them.
[Absolute Stillness: After any attack hits a target, it causes the enemy to lose all ability to move for 168 hours! (Current-rank modification limit reached)]
[Annihilation of All: After any attack hits a target, all enemies within a 500m×500m area around it will suffer the same amount of damage! (Current-rank modification limit reached)]
After the modifications, the two S-rank talents were no different from ordinary SSS-rank abilities.