Liam hadn't paid attention to the drops when he had been fighting the slimes and now that he did, he was more than happy with the harvest.
Everything piled up in front of him was good stuff.
Slimes had the habit of engulfing high-grade items and slowly digesting them while they were held within their bodies.
So all sorts of good herbs and gems were present in the pile. There were even equipments like bracers, rings, and pendants.
Liam looked through the pile and then spotted a few things that he couldn't recognize. These were small blue-colored crystals.
When he picked them up by his hand, they immediately dissolved and went into his body. "Huh?" Before he could think about what happened, another notification came in.
[Ding. Congratulations. You have absorbed water elemental essence.]
[Ding. You have gained an affinity for the water element. All your water type attacks have 5% increased damage]
Liam immediately understood what had happened. He had received similar updates when he had absorbed fire essence back in the lava pool.
And this time, he had absorbed water essence. They had farmed around 550 or so water slimes and apparently, a few among them had dropped these water essence chunks.
He rummaged through the pile, segregating and tossing everything into his inventory. There were in total 5 chunks of water essence crystals.
He took one of the chunks near the spirit fox and the beast quickly shook its head. Kyuuuu.
[No master, bad.] The fox explained to Liam through their mental connection. "Why is it bad?" He tried asking, but the beast didn't have an answer for him.
It seemed like it simply instinctively knew that it was a bad thing and it shouldn't absorb it.
Liam nodded in understanding. Water essence being harmful to a spirit beast that relied on fire essence wasn't all that difficult to understand.
Unlike him, the fox could probably only absorb the essence of one element. So he didn't hold back and readily absorbed all of them.
He didn't notice any specific change but after he finished absorbing all the crystals, Liam felt a transient prickling sensation in his body that surfaced and also disappeared quickly.
"Hmmm… I wonder if there are any negative side effects of absorbing multiple elemental essences…"
"There are too many things I don't know about these. I should make a trip to the mage tower." He looked at the small fox eyeing him in concern and smiled, patting its head. "I am alright."
In his previous life, he had never heard about these elemental essences.
Slimes were rather common monsters found in different places but the drop rate of these essences seemed to be abysmally low.
Even they had to farm about 500 slimes of these just to get 5 essence crystals.
It looked like it was also possible to refine elemental essences using the help of spirit beasts but they were even rarer and there wasn't much information available regarding them either.
So it wasn't surprising to him that many people hadn't managed to come across these elemental essences. The significance of these was also not reported on any forums.
Liam continued patting the fox as he rearranged some plans in his mind.
There were many things like these essences and the invasion missions that he had to additionally factor in along with his original plan.
However, he didn't mind these as every single one of them only made him that much stronger.
A few more minutes passed in silence as everyone relaxed by bathing in the lake when the portal activated again and pulled the group back to the city square.
"Huzzzah!"
"Hazzzah!"
"Huzzah!"
The demons again started cheering for Liam and all the more so as he once again rewarded them with 15 silvers.
And instead of dispersing they kept staring at him with big puppy dog eyes, wanting to go for one more invasion mission.
Next to them, coincidentally another group as well arrived, returning back from their mission but those demons had completely different faces as if they had just now faced hell and had survived.
Numerous scars and wounds laced their bodies and some of them were even bleeding. They took one look at the boisterous group next to them and they felt aggrieved.
Liam's group, however, was all the more thankful for him. This would have been their condition also if he had not singlehandedly saved them from the rock giants.
So they stuck to him like glue no matter which direction he walked. In case he ran another invasion, they wanted to be first in line.
Liam chuckled. "It looks like my plan is working…? Let's see." He opened the mission notifications first.
[Ding. Limited Quest Completed]
[Ding. You have received 500 contribution points]
[Ding. All 5 soldiers have survived. You have received an additional 250 contribution points]
[Ding. You have received 100000 experience points]
[Ding. All 5 soldiers have survived. You have received an additional 50000 experience points]
[Ding. You have leveled up]
[Ding. You have leveled up]
[Ding. Congratulations. You have reached Level 30]
[Ding. Congratulations. You are the first person to reach Level 30. Your grand achievement will be etched in history]
"Oh!" Liam exclaimed as he pulled up the leaderboard. Unexpectedly, he had shot up to Rank 1 in just a few hours. The next person behind him was still stuck at Level 27.
He chuckled wryly and then closed all the notifications.
What an insane leveling speed! He still couldn't believe that no one had stumbled into this amazing honey pot.
Regarding the rank on the leaderboard, he didn't care too much about this as he knew that he would once again fall back.
He had certain important things that he needed to take care of and these could absolutely not be delayed.
"Time to log out. There are only a couple of hours left before the black market opens up."
Liam looked at the demons who were all staring at him wide-eyed. "I will be back later guys.. Make sure to rest well and be prepared in the meantime."