Awakening：The Infinite Evolution of My Talent as a Low-Level Awakener

Sterl had barely stepped into a civilian house when a system alert flashed before his eyes.

[You have entered the special zone: Village of Death.]

[Embrace this brutal pleasure!]

The latter message appeared in blood-red letters, unsettling him slightly.

Sterl felt a slight tremble under his feet, and then... nothing happened.

He wandered around the house for a bit, finding nothing of value—only seeing signs that no one had lived there for a long time.

Pots and pans that had weathered the years were now so brittle they would crumble to dust upon touch.

After confirming there was nothing to gain in the room, Sterl had no choice but to head back the way he came, pushing the door open to leave.

However, as soon as he stepped out, Sterl found the scenery around him had drastically changed. He was now in the center of a cluster of civilian houses, surrounded by buildings and streets swirling with yellow sand.

Looking far into the distance, Sterl realized he would have to traverse several kilometers to leave. Without hesitation, he took out the quest scroll he had obtained earlier and chose to use it.

Immediately, a new quest appeared in Sterl's quest log: [Death Slaughter].

[Death Slaughter]

[Type: Repeatable Quest]

[Description: Kill 200 units of enemies in the Village of Death to receive a trophy orb as a reward.]

[Note: This quest can be completed up to ten times, with an extra reward appearing upon full completion.]

[Time Limit: 10 hours.]

"2000 monsters in 10 hours?" Sterl frowned slightly, not because he doubted his combat skills, but whether it was possible to spawn that many monsters.

At this point, he could only hope that the Village of Death would live up to what the adventure team had said about its insane monster spawning rate.

Incidentally, Sterl's quest log also contained another quest—the [Smoke and Mirrors] quest he had taken on before.

However, Sterl didn't have the energy to learn another skill at the moment, having decided to skip learning the level 20 skill when he last returned to base.

His plan was to learn both skills after reaching level 40, then tweak and submit his quest to master the Smoke and Mirrors skill in one go.

Now in the Village of Death, Sterl looked around with curiosity. It was his first visit here. With his skills and boldness, he found everything intriguing.

Soon, he noticed a pair of decaying, dark green arms grotesquely stretching out from the front door of the house he had entered earlier.

Accompanied by a strange howl, a plague-ridden zombie with a contorted figure and crawling gait appeared before Sterl.

With the appearance of the first monster, it was as if a call to arms had sounded.

From about a dozen houses, monsters emerged. In less than five minutes after Sterl had entered the Village of Death, he was completely surrounded.

Sterl casually activated the detection effect of Star Insight.

He quickly assessed the strength of this horde of wild beasts. They were mostly between levels 35 and 40, not low in attributes, and could at least match a D-class professional. Moreover, they came with the skill [Rotting Plague]—

Units hit by the plague-ridden zombies would accumulate a layer of poison status. This effect could stack indefinitely, shared among all plague-ridden zombie units.

Instantly, Sterl understood why the previous team had strongly advised him against going solo.

These monsters were formidable in their own right, challenging for players of the same level to tackle solo, not to mention their vile skill.

In solo combat, it was inevitable for players to get hit a few times, allowing the [Rotting Plague]'s toxic effect to continuously stack. Even for players in the high seventies or eighties, the accumulating toxicity could prove fatal.

Having a priest on hand to dispel the magic was essential. Otherwise, no matter how strong you were, death was certain.

Or...

Another strategy was to ensure the monsters couldn't touch you at all!

A confident gleam flashed in Sterl's eyes as he opted for the third solution.

Descending Deity, activate!

Blaze of Bewilderment: Storm Form!

Golden flames erupted around Sterl, and then…

He downed a bottle of advanced experience potion and dragged his pet, the Starlight Dragon, out of his sleeve. This little guy is still sleeping.

Sterl force-fed it a potion as well.

By now, the plague-ridden zombies had closed in, their eyes glowing green, their claws, carrying terrifying poison, gleamed coldly.

Facing such a threat, Sterl calmly stuffed the Starlight Dragon back into his sleeve to let it continue sleeping. Only then did he casually snap his fingers.

[Blaze of Bewilderment: Storm Form].

The flames, mixed with the power of the stars and turning a deep blue, formed a storm that instantly engulfed several plague-ridden zombies nearby, turning them into charred remains within seconds.

Then, the power of the Blaze of Bewilderment underwent a curious transformation, pouring entirely into the bodies of those already dead monsters.

In the next second, energy burst forth, the flames turning into very sharp, cobalt blue, thread-like energy bodies, splashing around. Each time they hit a wall or the ground, they would bounce and refract.

Within seconds, the surroundings turned into a storm of countless blue light beams.

This energy raged on until it hit the monsters.

This was the skill shared with the Starlight Dragon, Starlight Splash!

The Blaze of Bewilderment took three seconds to kill four monsters, but Sterl's passive skill, Starlight Splash, took only two seconds to kill the remaining ten or so plague-ridden zombies.

Those thread-like energy bodies turned the monsters into a hive of holes.

After the second wave of plague-ridden zombies were killed, their bodies burst forth with slightly dimmer thread-like energy bodies.

Starlight Splash would continue to trigger in a cycle until it had expended the overflow damage!

Unfortunately, since there were no monsters nearby, the effect of Starlight Splash just bounced between the cracks in the walls of the houses before slowly fading away.

"Holy shit! This is just... too incredible!" Sterl was also surprised and delighted by the sight.

Such efficiency was noteworthy!

Typically, monsters scattered in all directions were the most troublesome and the hardest to deal with.Sterl would have to use several skills to kill them all.

But now, a single Blaze of Bewilderment cleared them all?? Even the efficiency of Starlight Splash was unbelievably fast, completing a wave of harvest in two seconds.

System notifications continuously rang in Sterl's ears.

[You have killed a level 35 plague-ridden zombie, earning 644 experience.]

[You have killed a level 37 plague-ridden...]

Sterl's experience bar slowly increased, and within his inventory, the power of blood within the Bloody Gem condensed another strand.

It's worth mentioning that after level twenty, the experience required to level up varies significantly between different classes. So Sterl had no idea how much experience he would need for future levels.

For him, advancing from level 20 to 21 required 100,000 experience...

Meanwhile, the stock of blood power within his Bloody Gem, including the newly acquired strand, totaled 27 strands.

Sterl estimated that after completing missions in Death Village, he should significantly accelerate the progress of accumulating 50 strands of blood power in the Bloody Gem.

Additionally, there were several other notifications.

[Your pet Starlight Dragon has gained 644 experience points.]

[Your pet Starlight Dragon has gained…]

…

Sterl's little pet, without doing anything other than sleeping, was leveling up.

By the way, pets are considered half a teammate. The reason they're only half is that when players carry pets, the experience gained decreases by 25%, and both the player and the pet receive 75% of the original monster-killing experience.

Clearly, the game system of [Transcendence] encourages players to train a pet.

However, the experience buff is independent for players and pets, which is why Sterl had also given the Starlight Dragon an experience potion.

Furthermore, pets also need to meditate to convert their experience into levels.

Back to the matter at hand, after Sterl had killed the first wave of monsters, he noticed a subtle change in the sky. What was once an azure sky, almost invisible due to the dense yellow sand, gradually darkened as it was enveloped by dust storms.

Then, over 30 plague-ridden zombies spawned at once, surrounding Sterl. Unfortunately for these monsters, they hadn't even had time to react before Sterl once again—

[Blaze of Bewilderment: Storm Form].

The first batch of six monsters hit by the skill were burned to death, followed by densely packed blue lines formed by Starlight Splash ricocheting through the surrounding space.

The remaining monsters were effortlessly cut into pieces. Despite the doubled number of plague-ridden zombies, it took Sterl merely five seconds to clear them.

Subsequently, the sky turned increasingly gloomy and dark, even showing a very peculiar blood-red color.

Sterl felt a bit uneasy. During his time with that adventuring party before, they had never mentioned such a phenomenon.

He felt a slight sense of discomfort.

As the blood-red in the sky grew denser, more and more monsters spawned.

From over 30 to over 40, to over 60…

After Sterl cleared several waves of monsters, he could hear continuous banging sounds coming from the nearby residential buildings.

Then—

A group of foul-smelling bodies forcefully squeezed out from those narrow doorways!