Unfortunately for all of the Awakened who’d gathered and surrounded Rohan and Elane, luck wasn’t on their side that day. They’d chosen the wrong people to target this time around.

Rohan went on a killing spree, taking one Awakened down after another just seconds apart. None of the present Awakened could match his speed, his attacking power and especially his defence.

Right now, Rohan was essentially a Pseudo E rank, as his power was far beyond what the Elite F tiers could produce, but didn’t quite meet the E rank standard just yet.

’I wonder if I’m weaker or stronger than an F rank Awakened with all Commander tier equipment by this point.’ Rohan mused inwardly. He was so lax despite the carnage he was causing that he had the leisure to multitask and focus on other things while taking the Awakened down.

The truth was, Rohan had no idea what the levels of strength were for Awakened, even after over three weeks had passed since his Awakening now. He knew that peak Ordinary F ranks averaged around 30 to 35 using the Association’s testing standards, but beyond that?

He had no clue.

’I really should go back for another test once this run of the Origin Realm is over.’

Thud!

After taking care of the final Awakened of the original thirty, there was no longer anybody left who stood in their way.

And there was quite a bit of loot for them to collect — thirty Awakened worth!

A quick tally and he calculated that in total, they had acquired 92 Origin Crystals, and surprisingly, 20 of them were Elite tier Origin Crystals!

Rohan was ecstatic! This was more than he and Elane could gather if they hunted beasts for the next 5 days straight without stopping once for a break!

Especially the Elite tier Origin Crystals, they might not even encounter 5 Elite tier beasts over the next 5 days, let alone 20 of them!

"This is just absurd!" Elane blurted in excitement.

"No Genes or Genetic Armaments unfortunately, but that’s fine. I’m more interested in all this Origin Energy anyway!"

Either the Awakened weren’t lucky enough to obtain any Genes or Genetic Armaments in their own hunts, or they’d stashed them away some place so that they wouldn’t lose them in events such as this.

Whether it be inside the city or somewhere in the wilderness, there is always somewhere you could hide something as small and inconspicuous as a Gene or Genetic Armament’s orb — but the risk of somebody discovering it or forgetting its location always existed.

For desperate people like the Awakened who’d ambushed Rohan and Elane, stashing their most important loot away was probably safer than carrying it with them at all times due to their meagre amount of strength. Meanwhile for Rohan and Elane, it was the exact opposite.

After storing away all of their newly acquired Origin Crystals, which happened to encumber them quite a bit considering the amount, Elane looked at Rohan with vigour.

"We can’t go around fighting beasts, or perhaps even more Awakened like this." She spoke, pointing at the sagging bags they had slung around their waist belts and on their backs.

Suddenly, Elane’s face turned smug.

"What if we use some of them right now, you know, to reduce our weight."

Although she spoke without saying anything too obvious, Rohan caught her drift right away, and he was also thinking along the same lines as her.

She didn’t say anything too revealing or explicit due to how close they still were to the city, and the main path leading out of it. Even though she was 90% sure that they’d taken care of everybody, now that they were starting to gain the kind of attention they definitely didn’t want, they had to be more cautious not just in their actions, but even their words.

After all, Elane might be able to detect most F rank Awakened trying to eavesdrop on them, but if an E rank came along, or perhaps an F rank much stronger than herself, there was no guarantee of that.

If she spoke too much about Rohan’s special talent for evolution, or even suggested something similar, it could bring them a whole mountain load of trouble more than they were already experiencing.

’I’ve been sitting at 14% progress in my Elite tier Origin Energy for too long now, it’s about time I complete it for the first time and see what kind of evolution I can achieve from it!’

It was perfect timing. Just earlier he was having complaints about how his attacking power was starting to lag behind everything else, but now he had the perfect opportunity to alleviate that!

’Considering I can evolve Ordinary items to Elite tier using just Ordinary Origin Energy, it’s safe to assume that I can evolve my Horned Rabbit Spear to Commander tier if I fill up my Elite tier Energy!’

Rohan was eager to test it out, and so he and Elane departed from the scene of that massacre after collecting everything that seemed useful, and made their way even deeper into the wilderness.

’It’s probably best to find a cave or somewhere similar to go through the absorption process. I can’t have anyone catching sight of me instantly absorbing so many Origin Crystals one after the other.’

***

At the same time, back in Erenhot.

"It’s been 2 hours now, and still none of them have returned. Just what the heck is the hold up!?"

A man sat impatiently in the corner of a spacious inn, tapping his knees up and down rapidly in succession as if to make everyone aware of his impatience. He wore a long, fully blacked out cloak with his hood up, concealing his appearance, and kept on looking back at the front door to the inn as if he was expecting someone.

Around his table sat three other people, all of whom also concealed their appearances with long, hooded cloaks. Their genders only revealed themselves whenever they spoke — two men and two women in total.

"Calm down, Cornelius. Perhaps we underestimated the targets? The information we received about them could have been wrong or misleading." It was a hooded female who spoke this time, her voice giving away that she was much more mature in age than most of the newbies who lived in this city.

"Could that really be the case...?"