Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 625
Chapter 625: District Seven (3)
Erasing essences.
Although it was a skill that any priest who was archbishop rank or higher must possess, there was one additional condition to be met before they could remove an essence: It was a feat only possible inside a temple.
It was for that very reason that many Noarkans ended up turning into trash characters after eating the wrong essence. They needed to risk their lives if they wanted to open up a slot, even more so if their face was widely known.
With that, I staggered a little, sighing as I returned the blue shortsword I received from the priest. The emptiness I felt every time I erased an essence was too heavy to ignore. It was difficult to explain, not just the feeling of having my stats decreased, but…
It feels like a portion of my soul was cut away.
That was the closest comparison I could make.
I could understand why this world called MP “soul power.”
Figuring I might feel better if I filled the empty slot with something else, I quickly took out a magic vial from my sub-space.
Arbet and Oomdal plus the Giantization of the Orc Hero, all combined into one custom essence.
After taking out the stopper, I tossed it back into my mouth as if drinking a potion.
It left me wondering then. If I got this while playing the game, what would the name of the custom monster pop up as?
[The Essence of ??? has seeped deep into your soul.]
Hmm, well…they wouldn’t just put up a few question marks and call it a day, right?
With no way to find out, I stopped thinking about useless things and focused on the changes happening to my body.
There was a concept called “taming” an essence among adventurers. Something about how if one focused deeply on the changes happening to their body when consuming an essence, one would become more proficient with new abilities from the get-go.
[Strength has increased by +100.]
Flames that made me feel I could lift anything embedded themselves in my body. Considering just the base strength increase, it probably wasn’t at the level of an Ogre’s, though.
[Jumping Power has increased by +120.]
The muscles in my thighs strengthened.
[Physical Resistance has increased by +80.]
My tough skin became even tougher.
[Hearing has increased by +60.]
And the sounds permeating through the air became clearer.
No matter how much I focused, these were the only changes I could sense right off the bat. Not to say that was all there was to it, of course.
[Dark Resistance has increased by +40. Soul Power has increased by +50. Natural Regeneration has increased by +80. Endurance has increased by +60. Bone Strength has increased by +60. Absorption has increased by +60.]
Pure-stats-wise, Ogre was pretty high on the list of essences, but when taking into account all stats on the whole, nothing could compete with Arbet. The trade-off was that Arbet’s skills were terrible. However, that didn’t apply to me since I used the underground floor’s system to extract only the stats.
I sighed, and after getting used to the changes in my stats, I carefully opened my sub-space. I had stored all the numbered items I had been using there, specifically because of the passive skill of Oomdal.
[Soul Connection: The piece of equipment you first obtain becomes soul-bound and obtains additional abilities.]
It worked on the first piece of equipment you obtained after getting the skill.
Although that was the description of the skill in the game, the passive was only activated on numbered items.
And you can’t change which one it activates later if you connect to the wrong one.
Since I could only connect one item, I needed to be very careful when handling Oomdal’s essence. If I had eaten the essence while in my full loadout, it would randomly pick one of them.
With that, I reached into the sub-space and imagined the item I wanted to take out in detail, and held tightly onto that object.
No. 87, Karul’s Demon Grinder…is obviously not it.
The Demon Grinder was a high-quality weapon, so selecting it would definitely make it stronger.
But it’s not worth spending an entire passive slot for it.
Countless passives worked with the shield barbarian. I would have taken one of those passives instead of this one in my build order, but only if I didn’t have this one as well.
[You have equipped No. 3, Wall of Aegis.]
[General Item Level has increased by +18,600.]
I chose the strongest shield, the one I would only have been able to obtain much later.
[Call of the Soul. No. 3, Wall of Aegis, becomes permanently bound to the character.]
[Bound items cannot be destroyed.]
[All effects of the bound item are increased by 10 percent. When defeating monsters, the bound item will also receive separate experience points, and after it reaches a certain level, it will obtain a unique effect.]
This shield could now grow.
***
Soul Connection was a core skill I always picked up when I built my shield dwarf, which utilized synergies between numbered items. Naturally, I had done quite a bit of research for that build, and I understood most of the unique effects of the high-ranking equipment.
The unique effect is given when it reaches level nine.
Of course, the skill was pretty good even without unlocking the item’s unique effect. The effectiveness of the gear would increase by 10 percent per level.
Still, it’s a bit of a waste that I doubled up on the indestructibility effect…
But honestly, since most of the high-ranking numbered items were indestructible, to begin with, it wasn’t all that bad of a concession. The binding effect, too, couldn’t be seen as a downside either since I never planned on selling the shield.
Giantization.
After checking that the active skill was also activated properly, I took a look around. It seemed that everyone else was finishing up with theirs as well. It wasn’t just me who had to reformat a few things, after all.
[The Essence of ??? has seeped into Amelia Rainwales’s soul.]
[The Essence of ??? has seeped into Missha Karlstein’s soul.]
[The Essence of ??? has seeped into Erwen Fornacci di Tersia’s soul.]
The three sisters(?) had their custom essences applied to them.
[The Essence of ??? has seeped into Ainar Fenelin’s soul.]
[The Essence of ??? has seeped into Ainar Fenelin’s soul.]
Ainar slotted in two custom essences, erasing the essence of Smug and Vitlan and losing Mandel Oil and Wildness Control in the process. The change was instantaneous.
I think the combined Aggression value of the two essences was around 100?
Theoretically, that should be able to perfectly cover the Aggression lost from eating the essence of Hipramajent.
It was not too difficult at all to recognize that Ainar had returned to normal.
“Behel-LAAAAAA!”
Yeah, that was what a barbarian battle cry sounded like.
I looked at her with pride as she roared loud enough to echo throughout the entire temple, and Amelia took the opportunity to approach me.
“How is your new essence? Do you like it?” I asked.
“We’ll talk about that later. We need to proceed to the next step before any more time passes.”
You know, you could show some joy at your new essence, even if you didn’t want to roar like Ainar.
“…Got it.”
She sighed. “I like it. Don’t look so sad.”
“Oh, really?”
In any case, since I agreed that we didn’t have a lot of time, I immediately proceeded to the next step.
“Everyone, attention!”
Before I took these guys to attack another prison, I needed to do something first.
“This is a historic moment!” I declared.
Everyone noticed that a speech was about to be given. They all shut their mouths and looked at me.
None of them found it boring. In fact, most looked on with excitement in their eyes.
“Rafdonia is currently under attack. Those dirty rat bastards who lived in the sewers have dared to lust after our city.”
I learned this during my life as a barbarian: Apparently, I had a knack for speeches. I was pretty sure Amelia said I was born for it or something.
“And now! We were lucky to be living here!”
“Lucky…?”
“Among the many districts of the city, aren’t we unlucky for it to have been ours?”
Question marks appeared over the heads of the audience as I continued my speech. They were all valid questions. However, that was why…
Now.
Right as the mood was about to fall, I barreled ahead with my speech.
“No! This is a blessing for us! We were given an opportunity! An opportunity to save the city and achieve a great accomplishment that has never been seen before!”
I didn’t need to explain. These guys were adventurers to their cores. I knew better than anyone else what they wanted.
“Also, I make this promise to you here and now. When everything is over, I, Bjorn, son of Yandel, will dare to declare it in front of the palace! That it wasn’t my accomplishment alone. That the city was saved with your blood, sweat, and tears as well!”
I raised my fist high, and cheers erupted as if they had been waiting for the signal.
“Yeaaah!”
Was it because I was now famous? Or was it because I had gotten used to it after so long?
Whatever the case, I got the feeling that shouting like this was becoming easier and easier.
Anyway, after putting on this performance, no one should doubt my intentions later…
Unlike the heated speech I gave, I looked coldly at the audience before raising my voice again.
“However!”
The adventurers closed their mouths again in anticipation of the rest of my speech.
“The enemy is strong! The rats have grown big by stealing from our homes, and we will need to spill our blood if we want to rout them out!”
Even as I gave words of warning, the adventurers only took this danger as a new opportunity.
“It doesn’t matter!”
“Kill them all!”
Well, that wasn’t all bad, but I needed to get to my point.
“Ahem! I understand your courage and spirit. However! As a noble of Rafdonia, as a warrior and an adventurer, and as one who loves this city more than anyone, I hope that you do not bleed more than necessary. I pray that you return alive to the arms of your family.”
This speech was just a setup for what I did next.
“With that, I, Bjorn, son of Yandel, have decided. I will now distribute essences to you all!”
You know the saying of more the merrier?
This was exactly that.
“…Eh?”
When I declared that I would freely distribute the essences, the expressions on the adventurers’ faces changed. An understandable reaction, given that what I was doing was incomprehensible.
Why did that barbarian say something so absurd after saying something so cool?
The reactions of my allies weren’t much different either.
“If you’re saying you’re distributing the essences…”
“Are you talking about the ones we got from Basement Floor One?”
“Why give out those precious…?”
Only Amelia stayed calm.
She knew. Freely giving these out would give me an even bigger gain in the end.
It may be obvious, but it wasn’t just to decrease the number of essences that would go to our dormant enemy, the palace.
Think about it.
If we distribute the essences here, who would be able to guess how many we have left?
In other words, I would hand out the bad essences to the adventurers and hold onto the precious ones to eat later. The palace had no way of knowing that we distributed only the low-quality ones.
It might be trashy for me to say this…but it’s inevitable for casualties to exist in war.
How would they investigate it? How would they know if someone who died had passed on with a good or bad essence?
My motive was clear as well. How could they fault me if I were to say that I gave them out for the good of the city?
Yeah, things are bound to disappear here and there during a war.
This was what we called “tax evasion.”
Like those Asian stores that only accept cash?
Anyway, that wasn’t important.
“Here, here! All of you, come here! Don’t push! There are enough essences to go around!”
I began to officially distribute the essences.