Chapter 281: Mysterious Remnant

Unfortunately, the earth fire could not be of much use for the time being. Before he recovered, Joo Joowon temporarily did not plan to let it recover either. There was nothing wrong with keeping it in its current state.

Among the earth fire’s skills, the only one that surprised Joo Joowon somewhat was Throwing Oneself into the Net. It had actually been classified under the pollution category by the Age of Apocalypse. He had thought it would belong to a category such as illusions.

Thinking about it again, illusion techniques were originally meant to infect the mind and pollute an enemy’s perception, causing the enemy to believe that an illusion was real. Classifying it under the pollution category did not seem unreasonable.

And then there was the Five Elements Creation skill...

If he had the opportunity in the future, should he let the earth fire read some Daoist books? Since it had comprehended Thunderfire on its own, that meant its comprehension was not low. Perhaps it could use this opportunity to create more skills.

However, whether the earth fire even knew how to read was probably another problem.

Joo Joowon did not think about it any further. For now, he still needed to see what the earth fire was truly capable of. If its personality turned out to be sinister and cruel, and it caused trouble for him from time to time, he definitely would not consider these things anymore. Once he had finished using it, it would be time to put it out of its misery.

Joo Joowon did not care about the favorability rating. There were plenty of people in this world who hated someone to the point of death but still had to swallow their anger and endure it. There were also plenty of people who loved someone so much that they would drag that person down with them when they died. Favorability could not simply be used as the standard for judging whether a creature could be used. At most, it could influence how the creature should be used in a more suitable way.

Joo Joowon did not care in the slightest about the earth fire’s opinion of him. He only needed it to understand the situation and act accordingly.

Only a creature that understood the situation could be used by him. Otherwise, it would be like raising an ungrateful father who demanded everything from him. What would be the point of that?

Even when he raised Byeol, he had never thought that he should indulge him and let him climb all over his head just because he was a cat. During the initial period of adjustment, they had argued quite a lot.

After his body finally lost that nauseous feeling, Joo Joowon used ether energy to dry the clothes on his body. Although his current attributes were already high enough that simply getting a little wet would not cause him to catch a cold, it was always better to be a little more careful.

He slowly walked toward the place where the fire had first started on the mountain.

The air was filled with the smell of something scorched. There were almost no corpses left at the scene, as nearly everything had been burned to ash. Only the crystals filled with abundant energy remained.

Zombie core did not possess any spiritual nature. They were purely formed from the energy contained within a zombie’s entire body. Naturally, they did not have much attraction for an elemental lifeform like the earth fire, and it would not bother to burn them away.

Melting these energy-rich core was not an easy task either, so it was not strange that they had been left behind.

Seeing this, Joo Joowon could not help feeling a little regretful. If he had known this would happen, he should have tagged along and touched the monsters when the earth fire attacked, just to gain some experience. With so many cores, he could tell that even the experience gained by doing nothing but staying nearby would not have been small.

However, he was only saying this casually. At the time, he had not been able to determine the condition of the flames. Since the situation had been unclear, he would not have dared to take the risk even if he had been given another chance.

Searching the corpses after a battle was one of the most enjoyable things. Joo Joowon worked like a diligent little bee, not missing even the slightest remains around him. He finally learned what the crystallized heart he had seen earlier in the ant nest actually was.

...

[ Mysterious Remnant (Common) ]

Description: A remnant of extraordinary energy left behind after the death of an extraordinary lifeform. It is usually left behind in one of the organs of the body. Depending on the condition of the extraordinary lifeform before its death, 50% to 80% of its energy may remain. It can be used to refine certain things. It has already been contaminated, and using it without purifying it will lead to unpredictable consequences.

(Note: After an extraordinary lifeform killed by a player dies, 80% to 99% of its energy may remain.)

...

Joo Joowon understood after reading the description. This should be a unique mechanism caused by the global datafication of the world. No matter who died, their energy would gather together instead of gradually dispersing after death or remaining scattered throughout their limbs and bones, where it would be difficult to handle.

This was a change to the underlying "code" of the world, and it also made it easier for players to bring their spoils of war home.

However, NPCs did not carry systems, so when their bodies gathered energy together on their own, a certain amount of energy would be lost. When players made the kill, the game system would instead actively seal the extraordinary energy inside cores.

It was equivalent to placing the player’s corpse-looting skill onto the bodies themselves.

If that was the case, could the corpses of extraordinary creatures still be filled with energy like the corpses in those novels, allowing ordinary people to become full after eating only a few bites and even cultivate by consuming the flesh of those corpses?