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Chapter 422 - Chapter 421: [Voidborn]

Another part of the newly combined skill's description that caught his eye was the ability to absorb and use void energy to increase his biological level. Levels was a term he was long familiar with, but he had never heard anything about a biological level.

'Are they different things?'

Curious, he used his connection to the void to slowly absorb the void energy that seeped through. But it was so little, it barely had any effect on him. Seeing that the dimensional barrier was naturally preventing more void energy from coming through, he knew he had to use the void energy he currently had to weaken the barrier.

Sol held his hands in front of him, slightly apart as if he were holding a small round object. He then controlled the void energy to flow out from his palms and gather in the gap between them.

At first, there was no effect. But as he released more void energy, black veins began to sprout from thin air, tearing into the space before him. As the void energy gradually weakened the dimensional barrier, Sol grew concerned with how much he had already spent.

'You have to spend money to make money…'

He reassured himself with the classic saying and poured even more void energy into it. The black veins extended further and further until a sharp crack rang throughout the room.

From the empty space between his hands, a small black hole appeared, releasing a corrosive black mist that flowed out like a gas.

Sol's eyes lit up.

'Finally! It took half of my void energy, but it works!'

His celebration was cut short as he saw the hole begin to rapidly shrink, but he reacted quickly, using the energy coming from the hole to stabilize and reinforce it.

He let out a sigh of relief. 'I need to maintain it or the space will repair itself. But that's fine, now I can draw much more void energy than before.'

Still maintaining the rift, he began to absorb void energy from it. But before using it to raise his biological level, he first used it to replenish his internal void energy.

Once he did that, he went ahead and absorbed all the void energy that entered his body.

[Absorbed void energy! Gained 1109 Exp.]

[Absorbed void energy! Gained 1052 Exp.]

[Absorbed void energy! Gained 987 Exp.]

Every second, a new notification appeared before Sol's eyes, confirming his suspicions.

'Biological level and level are the same thing. And absorbing void energy is similar to absorbing the essence of the Yggtree. But why add "biological" to it? Maybe it's to separate it from skill levels?'

That was his best guess. As far as he knew, there was no other form of level besides a person's level and their skill's levels. But honestly, it didn't matter to him. What mattered was that he could now gain experience at any time without having to enter a high-level dungeon.

As the experience notifications continued to pop up, he did a quick calculation.

'If I'm gaining around a thousand experience per second, that's about three and a half million per hour… that's still not enough…'

Sol needed much more than that to level up. With that average, he estimated it would take over seven months just to level up once. At first, he was disappointed, but then he realized something.

'That's with just a small crack to the void! If I open it wider, or go directly into the void, how much more can I get?'

He finally understood how the voidlings had reached such high levels. It wouldn't take long for any newly born voidling to surpass level 100 within a year if they were absorbing from the void's infinite supply, limited only by how much they could take in at once.

Pleased with the result, he stopped maintaining the void rift and let the dimensional barrier repair itself, which it did in seconds. He decided he'd absorb more void energy another time, as he had one more thing on his mind. But before moving on, he didn't forget to name the new skill, and he already had a name in mind.

[[Voidborn] Confirm name?]

"Yes."

And just like that, another powerful skill was added to his growing arsenal.

Having wrapped up the matter of void skills, he now turned to the final question that had been lingering in his mind.

'What were those system messages I saw when we returned?'

Opening the system message logs and tediously scrolling past nearly a hundred notifications for absorbing void energy, he arrived at a set of messages that caught his attention.

[System connection reestablished. Cancelling protocol: D-3AT4 and reporting infraction to level 3 user.]

[Error. No permission level 3 user detected.]

[Reporting infraction to level 4 user.]

[Error. No permission level 4 user detected.]

[Reporting error log to level 5 owner.]

[Error. No permission level 5 owner detected.]

[Exceptional circumstances identified. Activating T&S backup.]

These were the messages he saw when they arrived back. He'd been so consumed by the sin of pride, and his desire to kill Thorwyn, that he had brushed them aside.

Once he calmed down, he noticed the messages again and, after apologizing, confirmed with Thorwyn and Amber that they had received them as well. He assumed Reena had too, but she had been unconscious at the time and probably still didn't know unless, for some reason, she had checked her system message logs afterward.

Reading the messages again, he groaned.

'I understand that the system reconnected and even removed the [D-3AT4] skill from our statuses, but why couldn't it find anyone with permission level three, four, or five? Could they have died?'

Sol didn't think that was the case. The system had existed since the war against the outer gods, and it was odd that not a single god held permission level 5, which was labeled differently from the others as "owner."

'If none of the gods own the system, then who does? And what is the T&S backup?'

After that final system message, no new ones had appeared, and no one had come for them. He wasn't sure what to make of it.

He had already gone over these doubts with Amber and Thorwyn, but none of them knew the answer, himself included. While the other two didn't seem to mind not knowing, Sol was different.

He muttered aloud, "While we went to the void by accident, there's no doubt in my mind that leaving the system's range is not tolerated. And based on those messages, we should have been punished for it. It's good there's no permission level three or higher user to come for us, but it's possible this T&S backup is meant to replace them…"

[Infraction report has been removed from the database.]

"Huh?"

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