A/N: Hello guys! Webnovel decided to mess up the upload sequence for the last two Chapters, don’t worry, it has been fixed you want to go back and take a reread, but as an apology for your guys’ experience, here is a bonus Chapter!

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Opening his eyes back on the peak of the mountain, Verso did not waste a single second.

He had been following this exact routine for the past week, a grueling cycle of death and rebirth that had become his new normal in the realm world.

With a flick of his wrist, a blue portal tore open and the Reinforced Gargoyle descended. Its stone joints letting out a familiar heavy grinding sound as it landed.

But this time, Verso did not marvel at the creature, instead he simply climbed onto its runic back and pointed toward the coastline.

The flight to the beach cove took mere seconds.

As the gargoyle descended sharply, Verso leapt off before it had even fully touched the sand, his boots hitting the pristine white shore.

He moved around with muscle memory that he had built in the past few days, navigating the natural cavern like it was his home.

Inside, the ethereal hum of the Siren began to vibrate through the walls. The same sound that had nearly killed him a week ago.

But by now he had properly learned his lesson.

"Serpent, quickly kill it."

The Sea Serpent erupted from the blue portal entering the cavern’s inky lake.

The Serpent didn’t wait for the Siren to finish its song or react as it lunged at it, its jaws snapping shut over the creature’s top half.

The struggle was short, brutal and entirely one sided.

[Elite Beast Slain: Lost Siren.]

[Attribute Crystal Dropped.]

Verso remained completely unphased by the notification.

He watched as the Sea Serpent coiled its body, lifting the mangled remains of the Siren and tossing them onto the damp stone floor in front of him like a discarded rag.

In the beginning, Verso would have gagged at this sight but after so much repetition he had grown numb to this as he knelt down, thrusting his hand into the creature’s maw with a detachment look.

’Please be mana, please be mana, please be mana...’ He chanted internally, his fingers brushing against a hard, cold edge.

He pulled it out. A translucent, pulsing blue crystal sat in his palm.

[Attribute Crystal: Mana 24]

"Fucking finally!"

Verso let out a sharp, jagged laugh, pumping his fist into the air.

He didn’t wait a single moment before crushing the crystal in his hand as a surge of cool, crystalline energy flowed up his arm and settled into his core.

With a thought, he pulled up his status window to confirm what he had painstakingly fought for all week.

---

[✦Summoner Window✦]

Name: Verso

Title: -

Talent: [Endless], [Son of The Seas]

Core: Apprentice (1%)

Stats:

[Strength: 20]

[Agility: 20]

[Endurance: 20]

[Mana: 20]

Summons: [Nameless Skeleton] [Sea Serpent] [Reinforced Gargoyle] [Lost Siren] [Stone Golem (4)] [Stone Gargoyle (2)]

---

"I finally maxed them out..." Verso’s voice was tired. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

He sat down on the cold ground of the cave, leaning his back against the jagged stone. The mental exhaustion was acting like physical weight on his shoulders.

While he had gathered several important summons over the last few days, his primary focus had been these stats.

After the summoner academy exam and his encounters with the other humans, he had realized how precarious his position truly was.

He was becoming a glass cannon.

He could summon Elites that could level a building, but a single stray arrow or a lucky strike from a mid tier beast could completely end him.

In the world of summoners, this was a massive red flag. As even though wild beasts might focus on the largest threat which were the summons in front of them, humans were different.

Any experienced hunter knew that the most efficient way to kill a dragon was to put a knife in the heart of the person controlling it.

With the stats he previous held, he was a liability. But now at twenty, he finally felt like he could at least survive a gust of wind.

"I wish I was some rich brat who could just buy these crystals off the market," He mumbled, wiping blood from his hands onto his pants.

"Must be nice to just eat your way to power."

He stood up, intending to head back to the mountain peak to reset, but before he could take three steps toward the exit, the ground beneath him groaned.

A massive vibration shook the cavern, sending dust and pebbles falling from the ceiling.

’Oh god, not again. I forgot to recall the Gargoyle...’

CRASH.

A sound like a mountain being cleaved in two echoed from outside the cavern.

Immediately, a sharp ache flared in Verso’s chest, the sigh of his connection to a summon being severed.

[Summon ’Reinforced Gargoyle’ Dead.]

"Ugh... not again." Verso muttered, his face pale.

He flattened himself against the tunnel wall, inching back into the shadows.

He stayed there, silently waiting for the god forsaken beast outside to move away. He didn’t even need to look to know what it was.

This past week had not just been about grinding stats, but it had also been a lesson in humility.

He had been monitoring the crazy strong creatures that he had encountered across his accessible realms. The terrifying Leviathans in the Land of Atlantis and the pale Wyrm that ruled the Lost Island.

Initially, he had fooled himself into thinking they were just high end Elite creatures.

He had thought that if he just leveled up his summons a bit more, he could take them on, but he stood corrected.

There was no way a creature that could obliterate the Sea Serpent in a single effortless chomp was an elite.

The gap was too wide, which made him understand that the gap was not about stats but rather was a matter of rank.

’I am nowhere close to killing them.’ He realized, his grip tightening on his knees.

Monitoring the Wyrm’s movement patterns and the Leviathan’s deep sea hunts had revealed a terrifying truth.

There was a ceiling to his current power that he had not even begun to touch. He was playing with toy soldiers while the real deal were moving literal mountains.

’Maybe I can give it a shot when I have a few completely maxed out Elite beasts.’ He thought, his eyes narrowing in the dark.

It was an insane thought, perhaps even suicidal, but with the functions of his system, it wasn’t impossible.

It was only a matter of time before he could synthesize an Elite summon to its absolute pinnacle. And when that happened, maybe, just maybe he could stand a chance against these monsters.

He stayed in the darkness for a few minutes, listening to the rhythmic heavy thuds of the Wyrm’s movement outside as he realized it was not going away anytime soon.

So instead he decided to exit and reset the world.