With practiced motion that almost seemed unbelievable for his age, the Diamond Back Snake’s skin was flayed off its body with the dagger in Desther’s hand.

One slit from the top all the way to its tail, Desther ripped it off cleanly and set it aside.

The bloody smell of the snake’s meat and blood did not deter him, not even in the slightest.

After the entirety of the skin was removed, Destther proceeded to remove its gut.

As a matter of fact, this was not the first time that Desther had dissected a snake, but for such a size, level, and strength, this was definitely the first he had set his hands on.

The guts were removed, and so he began to chop the meat next.

Snake meat was actually delicious. At the very least, they were the previous time Desther tasted them in the wild.

You can say that they taste like chicken, only they were a bit more oily and greasy.

Him chopping the meat was, of course, for his plan on eating it later on.

The guts were also edible, as far as he knew. But this was no ordinary snake; it was something beyond what the mortal snakes he had tasted before. And for such a monster, he was unwilling to eat something as exotic as their guts.

There were some parts of its guts that could be sold in the market, though. They would be great ingredients for potions and the like.

However, unlike the meat, guts and the innards usually turn foul-smelling and rot very fast. The space inside the Space Bag was limited, so he planned to leave them here.

"Do you often do this kind of thing? Dissecting monster corpses, I mean."

Seeing his practiced movements and ease in dissecting the snake’s corpse, Lexie could not help but ask out of curiosity.

She had slain her fair share of monsters and dissected them for their materials as well. But she knew for a fact that she was not as proficient with it compared to what Desther had just shown.

Yes, they had also studied dissection in school, yet they were merely replicas, and some were even just normal animals like frogs and rats. Compared to monsters, they were merely child toys meant to entertain children.

For monster carcasses and corpses with varying degrees of anatomy for each, she knew for a fact how hard it truly was to dissect them as proficiently as Desther.

"Not really," he answered simply.

All the meat was stored in the Space Bag. The space inside almost became cramped due to the massive size of the snake. But Desther did not worry about it as he planned to cook at least half of them later on.

"You can eat monster meat, right?" He suddenly asked, recalling how Noah seemed averse to the notion of eating monster meat at first.

Lexie nodded his head in affirmation.

"No problem."

She had tasted her fair share of monster meat before as well. As a matter of fact, even before the apocalypse, she had already eaten a snake in some fancy exotic restaurant. Not only snakes, she even tasted monitor lizards, centipedes, and the like before.

As exotic as they were, they could still not compare to how monster meat truly tastes.

The head of the snake was also left behind by Desther. He pulled out its tongue as well as its fangs and stored them inside the Space Bag. As for the head itself, Desther doesn’t have any particular use for it.

He sent the picture he had taken to Noah, in which Noah sent to Victor in return, earning him another set of Awakened Credits.

"By the way, are you not keen on getting first place? Victor is already about to surpass you."

Since her points had remained stagnant since they met yesterday, Victor was now only a few points away from surpassing her.

"Not really. I don’t care about the rankings. I am here to train and earn experience points. That was the goal. Earning some points for the rankings was just a byproduct of it."

Desther nodded his head in understanding.

"Are you not curious about the reward in the first place?"

The principal mentioned a reward for those in the top ten, top twenty, and all the way to the top fifty.

Whatever kind of reward it was, it would surely be something good.

For the normal students, that is.

Desther did not feel any temptation toward it, though. Whatever it was, he knew that he would just outgrow it in a couple of days, if he wished.

He was not boasting.

He was indeed capable of that if he set his eyes on it.

His talent, class, and own battle prowess allowed him to be that confident.

And he was slowly embracing it.

His identity.

His eventual destiny.

Or so what the Title stated.

"I am. But at the same time, I am not. Although a reward for such an activity might sound generous, it is actually carefully selected to a level where the student could not use it for long."

"For longer and thriving motivation, the method of carrot and stick has always been applied. For me, such a reward is meaningless if I would no longer be able to use it in a couple of weeks."

Her thoughts aligned with Desther’s in regards to this.

Perhaps because the two of them were confident of their abilities and confident of their talents, they did not think too much about the reward promised by the principal at all.

For better or for worse, they also knew that it might just be some weapons, armor, and the like. In which case, the two of them really did not need that much at all.

Anyway, the two continued to move forward.

The green canopy of trees and shades of brown of the trunk blurred in motion as the two sped up ahead of them.

Lexie had achieved her goal of reaching Tier 1.

With her attributes doubled and with a Class of her own, her confidence in facing that monster—if it was still there—rose along with her anticipation.

As someone who vowed to become strong and uncover the truth of what she was searching for, her defeat from that monster was not something she wanted to dwell on.

As a matter of fact, she had already planned to return and take her revenge later on.

However, since Desther was curious about it, she did not hesitate to bring him there.

For one, she knew Desther was strong. If there was someone in her class who could defeat that monster aside from her, that would be Desther.

She was confident of her own analysis. She had never been wrong toward him.

Her trust toward him was impeccable, born from her initial assumptions proven to be right.

The mystery that surrounds him eludes her, but it prevents her from putting her trust in him.

After all, during that perilous moment she sensed her own death in advance; it was only him she deemed someone would do her any harm, no matter how absurd the thought was.

...

Time passed by in continuous motion.

The two swiftly traveled to the valley and encountered monsters after monsters as they progressed forward.

Those that blocked their path were obliterated, while those sensed by Desther out of their way were spared.

Although not truly racing for time, the two figured that it would be better to reach the area where she fought the monster as soon as possible.

For all they know, there was a chance that it had already transferred location ever since she escaped from its grasp.

Having no other choice, Desther knew that they must still proceed forward.

His Sense went into action as he sensed their surroundings in full detail.

Every nook and cranny, every crack of the rocks they passed by, entered his ’vision’. None could escape; none would be able to escape from the B-Grade Skill he got as a reward from the title.

As they moved forward, Desther and Lexie amassed experience points. For Desther, it went beyond, as every monster also provided him with Free Attributes, Skill Fragments, Points and Awakened Credits.

204 Free Attributes, 8% experience points, and a total of 19 Skill Fragments for Ravenous Lizard, Demon Bunny and Hideous Frogs.

Sending the pictures to Noah, Desther earned a total of over 500 Awakened Credits by the time noon arrived.

After a brief pause to eat and rest, the two continued their journey forward, and a few moments later, Lexie finally halted as she looked around.

"We’re here."

Beyond her gaze, Desther followed and saw what seemed like a minor devastation.

Trees were strewn everywhere, grounds cracked, and patches of grass lay amok in the surroundings.

A faint smell of blood lingered in the atmosphere. The smell of rot pervaded the air. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Now laden with some Ravenous Lizards, Desther saw a corpse of a monster now with rotting flesh.

"I assume that’s the monster you fought before getting ambushed by that shadow?"

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A/N: 1 long Chapter for now.