354 Is That So? (1/2)

[ 'Light (Three-eyed Lightning Cat)' has reached level 17! ]

”Meow!”

'Lower efficiency as expected…'

Half a million EP would have been enough for the lv.1 old me to gain at least 20 levels, but due to the reduction caused by the transfer loss as well as how great Light's initial body strength was, it only resulted in 16 level-ups.

Still, the skill itself still seemed to be more than just useful, all I had to do was think about transferring some of my EP to one of my two companions and it just happened like that. I didn't have to suffer any setbacks to power-up little Light with a small amount of EP that wouldn't have helped me anyway, unlike those legendary beast tamers who would sacrifice a part of their power just to allow their tamed monsters to proportionally grow in strength, 'Essence Sharing' was definitely worth it.

I hadn't tried it earlier since most of my essence was consumed to level up immediately after all, but now that I did try it, I had no regrets about that pitiful amount of EP when compared to the gains!

[ Your blood companion 'Light (Three-eyed Lightning Cat)' has 9.6 Unassigned stat points! You can choose to assign them according to your well as its contractor! ]

'Just as Obedient Long has explained…'

However, in comparison to 'Essence Sharing', its parent skill, 'Blood Companion' was even more great!

Having already asked Long which leveling path Light would follow, he had detailedly explained how 'Blood Companion' cheated the system to allow Light and the Pseudo Sky Dragon to level up like players but gave me the control over how to assign their Unassigned stat points, of course, it was also possible to give them the option to choose how to do as long as I allowed them to.

These levels and points were also another thing I considered and discussed with Light using our mind connection as we already decided on how to distribute them before the mission even started.

Dumping them all in one specific stat, I looked at the round number with a satisfied smile before I gave Light a few pats and put him back in the bag and moved ahead…

The gate's narrow tunnel which seemed endless only took half an hour of me as I jogged with light yet suitably agile steps, not even encountering any single monster on my way till I reached the gigantic boss gate.

'Could it be the boss that turned everyone of the five into their zombie states…?'

Confirming that the gate was empty all-over meant that there were no impossible difficulty monsters to begin with. It seemed like a trap to destroy geniuses, but what had actually destroyed these geniuses?

Even if the first zombie managed to zombify the rest, then who zombified him?

There were very few plausible answers and the first that came to mind would be that the boss might actually have something similar to a special ability that granted immediate or at least quick corruption, but as I pushed the gate open….

'Huh?'

I couldn't help but get slightly surprised as there were no living beings inside either, the only thing that stood still was the short pillar which held the corruption core, there was still nothing else but that.

It didn't take a genius to guess that the corruption core itself was the likely to be the trap that caused the zombification, which was the fact that the first zombie senior shouldn't have been aware of and even if he was indeed aware of it, it couldn't like he could keep himself trapped within and so would have still had to deal with the core somehow, this was also the current situation I was in.

Probably just like the first zombie senior, I took a big jump toward the core on the pillar as I reached out to it with the 'Lightning Cloud' spear in an attempt to destroy it…

Swishhshshshhs!

Just as the spear touched the orb, a swarm of pitch black particles swarmed at me like an army of bugs, however, even though it visually seemed disgusting…