Endless Extraction in a Game-Like World-Chapter 56: Lower Your Cortisol! Caelus’s Toxic Gamer Rage

Chapter 56: Lower Your Cortisol! Caelus’s Toxic Gamer Rage

However, before Caelus could truly enjoy the moment of euphoria, a blaring system warning assaulted his vision.

[System Warning: You possess an E-Rank Affinity. Due to this, your Chaos Dragon Heart cannot synthesize properly with your current vessel. This mismatch will cause energy deviation, resulting in immediate death.]

[System: Optimizing changes to preserve host survival.]

[System: You may fully unlock the seal once you gain a higher affinity rating.]

[System: Your Chaos Dragon Heart is currently operating at 25% capacity.]

[HP: 510 -> 160]

[CA: 500 -> 150]

[Combat Score: 1 (Iron II) -> 132 (Iron I)]

"WHAT?!" Caelus roared in pure rage. "I just grew a whole new organ for this! Give it back, you digital b***h! I will find your developer!!"

[System Warning: Profanity detected. Your stress levels are currently high. Please lower your cortisol levels.]

"I will help you lower your cortisol instead! Don’t mess with me I’m an ender, it’s written in one of my passives that i can break rules!!" Caelus threw out every curse word he had learned throughout his years as a toxic FPS gamer, punching the floating notification screen in sheer anger.

Then, the empty void around Caelus shattered. In the next moment, he found himself back in the secluded alleyway, standing right in front of Sylvia. Her vampiric fangs were bared, and her eyes were glowing red. They both blinked at each other.

"Sylvia!" Caelus almost burst into tears but quickly caught himself with a cough. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

It was not really that bad to the point he wanted to burst out crying.

At least his base stats still increased. Now he could spam two Plasma Nukes in a row and still have 100 CA left!

Plasma Nukes costed 25 CA each.

"What happened, Caelus?" Sylvia tilted her head, her tone coaxing.

Caelus shook his head and recounted the tragic system nerf.

"Your affinity caused a bottleneck, huh?" Sylvia shook her head in sympathy.

She stepped forward and rested her head against his chest. His physique had become noticeably broader and vastly tougher with his latest Combat Score jump.

"Your heartbeat rhythm is entirely different now. It sounds like a heavy drilling machine," Sylvia looked up with a smile that could melt any man’s heart. "How will I sleep peacefully next to you at night? I will have to listen to your drilling machine of a heart. You are lucky you have me."

"On that note, I also happen to know exactly how to increase your affinity," Sylvia smiled proudly. "Being my blood-bond can actually help you. Once I reach the Bronze rank, I should awaken a racial skill that allows me to transfer my own Combat Score and affinity rating directly to you at a certain percentage."

"And due to my undying nature, whatever I transfer will eventually regenerate," she added.

"There is a skill like that?" Caelus mumbled daze as he observing her closely.

She looked less like a vampire and more like an angel right now.

"You are growing prettier with each passing day. Are you secretly visiting those eastern kingdom beauty clinics?"

"Do I even need those?" Sylvia pouted, but a proud look quickly replaced it. "I was always this pretty. Maybe it is just because you never looked at my face closely before. Hmph."

She gently pressed Caelus’s head down, pulling his ear close to her chest. "What about my heart? Can you hear anything, Caelus? I also awakened my heart first." she whispered softly, causing the hairs on his neck to stand on end.

He could not ignore the softness of her chest, but his attention was quickly captured by her heartbeat. He furrowed his brows. It sounded exactly like a ghost’s hollow echo. Each beat held a strange, ancient resonance that simply did not belong in this world. But then again, the same could be said for him.

"A ghost?" Once Caelus explained what he heard, Sylvia burst out laughing.

"By the way, did your Combat Score increase?" Caelus asked.

"Yeah." Sylvia nodded, flashing her status window.

[HP: 200/200]

[MP: 200/200]

[Combat Score: 130 (Iron I)]

"Hm. Mine briefly broke through to Iron II but dropped back down to 132 due to the system optimization," Caelus said with an awkward smile.

It was still a massive leap from 72 to 132. Once he upgraded his affinity, the seal would break, and his power would jump even higher. He just needed to figure out how to extract an affinity from an enemy. It had only been five days since the Domain opened, yet he felt like he had lived a lifetime and so far he still haven’t managed to extract an affinity. But he didn’t give up hope. If he can extract combat experience, then he can extract affinity too!

But on the bright side, as he was right now, he felt light enough to fly through the air.

Of course, real flight required a massive mana pool only available to Gold or Crown rankers, but his sheer running speed could likely achieve a gliding state using Projection Frame.

"Well, shall we go pay a visit to Allstar then? We can use this opportunity to question him."

"Find that NPC you mentioned?" Sylvia nodded. "But how will we even locate him?"

Caelus stood tall and began to chant. "Celestial Worthy of endless heaven."

The instant the words left his mouth, the wind around Town 513 turned unnaturally chilly.

"Celestial Worthy of endless heaven." By the time he uttered it the second time, he felt a distinct presence materialize right behind him.

It was none other than Allstar, wearing his trademark sunglasses and an amiable smile, leaning casually on his magic staff.

"Yo!" He gave Caelus a lazy two-finger salute, then looked over at Sylvia and nodded. "Looks like you managed to complete the quest. Not bad at all."

"Allstar. What were your true intentions with that quest?" Caelus stared the man down and asked directly.

"Why? Was it not to awaken your hidden races?" Allstar burst out laughing. "That little miss over there was also very intrigued about it, so I decided to graciously give her one too."

"Does that mean you can peer into our reality?" Sylvia suddenly dropped the question, her eyes widening slightly.

Caelus froze. An NPC of the Origin Domain actively seeing into the Azure Origin Planet? Was that not completely absurd?

"Reality? What are you talking about, missy? I just felt your presence deeply linked to Boss 555 over here and decided to include you in the fun."

"Do you not know us NPCs give quests based strictly on the player’s inner intentions?" Allstar said with another booming laugh.

Both of them looked at Allstar in pure bewilderment. A standard NPC would never speak like this or know that quests are personalized for players.

"I know exactly what you are thinking," Allstar clicked his tongue. "It is just that this specific beginner region is running on an older version. The NPCs here do not have actualized souls. But in the Middle Expanse and the Upper Expanse, they are just as real as the players in the town right now."

"I knew it! You know about the Middle Expanse!" Caelus exclaimed out loud.

"I do not understand what you mean, Boss," Allstar stared at Caelus with a completely deadpan look, feigning ignorance.

"What is the Middle Expanse? How do we get there?" Caelus followed up aggressively, wanting to strike the iron while it was hot.

He knew this fellow was feigning ignorance.