Young Master in the Apocalypse

[You do not have sufficient endurance to upgrade.]

These were the notifications that entered his mind. Apparently, after the long and painstaking process of the metal essence extraction, a certain qualification was actually required to upgrade his core.

"What the fu*k!!?"

If he were not out of energy due to the extraction process, he would have loudly uttered a bunch of curses at the damned notification already!

Viktor slowly took deep breaths to calm himself and conserve his energy, and when he finally finished letting his indignance dissipate, he took another deep breath and started thinking about the matter rationally.

"Sufficient endurance… Djinn, is this thing talking about the endurance stat? And please don't tell me you don't know, I don't want to hear anything remotely similar."

Viktor's last sentence rendered the Djinn speechless for a moment, but in the end, the Djinn still told him what he knew.

<Well, although I can't say I know about every skill there is, now that we have this information, I can tell what it is about.>

"Great! Tell me about it, please." Viktor's mood became a bit better.

<To put it simply, extracting those metals into your body not only gives you its benefits, but also the toxicity within the metal essence. If you want to keep the metal essence and extract more into your body, you will need a body strong enough to withstand it.>

Viktor let out a deep sigh. The Djinn's explanation was indeed a very logical one. However, if he had known about it sooner, he would have made a better plan to use his free stats and use some of them to upgrade his endurance stat instead.

While thinking about the matter, he subconsciously glanced at his current stats.

[Viktor Romanov]

[Strength - 30]

[Agility - 60]

[Endurance - 36]

[Battle power - 42]

[Spirit force - 69]

[Core of Anvil - Stage 3: 100%]

[Earth Realm - Mid-stage]

"So, how many points of endurance do I need for the upgrade?"

As if trying to remember or checking something, the Djinn was silent for a moment before he finally answered.

<You will need 40 points of endurance.>

"..."

Viktor's brows furrowed.

He let out a deep sigh once again. Seeing his endurance stat, he already had 36 points, so he needed 4 more points. Fortunately, he only needed one more point of spirit force to break through into the high stage of the Earth realm.

If he could just breakthrough, he would have 10 extra stats to be freely distributed. Then, he would be able to allocate 4 of them into endurance and finally upgrade his core.

With this thought, Viktor checked his alien ring. Unfortunately, he only found 10 measly spirit stones inside. These 10 spirit stones were the ones he received back from Eva as she had already reached peak mortal realm.

Since the battle against the penguin over the frozen sea and the undead near the powerplant, he had not gotten any more spirit stones. He mostly did not have the time to search the corpses there, and even when he did, there were none.

Well, there was one...

The green one, that is.

Upon remembering the strange green spirit stone, Viktor took the object out to take a closer look at it. He was about to ask the Djinn about it, but the Djinn spoke before Viktor even said a word.

<I have no idea what that is, but from what I can tell, the spirit energy inside is corrupted. It must be because of the toxic waste you humans do.>

Although Viktor wanted to advance as quickly as possible, he was certainly not desperate enough to put something unknown into his mouth. Without a second thought, he decided to only depend on the measly 10 spirit stones for the time being.

"Hopefully, I only need a gentle push to reach 70," he muttered to himself.

With his heart filled with hope, Viktor took the 10 spirit stones and put them into his mouth. Slowly but stably, he could feel the spirit stones being processed within his body. He felt his body heat up a little bit, but after 30 minutes of nothing, he knew that it was not enough.

Disappointed, Viktor stood up, got out of the vault, and walked up to check on the others.

He wanted to inform the others that he was going out for a bit, but when he arrived back up, Barry was still busy with tidying things up and Eva was still in her relaxing bath.

In the end, he decided to tell only the two bodyguards to keep everyone inside safe and make sure nobody goes out before walking out of the bunker on his own.

"Don't worry, I'll return before dark!" Viktor shouted to the two bodyguards guarding the bunker entrance to reassure them.

After they were already a distance away from the bunker, Viktor turned to look at the magic lamp on his waist.

"Well then! Ready to go hunting, Djinn?" he asked to the lamp.

As soon as the Djinn heard his words, a cloud of blue smoke came out of the lamp on his waist, and a moment after, it once again formed into a blue-furred Siberian husky.

"Woof woof!"

"All right, let's go!"

Viktor took the boat out of his alien ring and drove toward the direction the Djinn told him to.

"Woof woof!"

[Mutated Penguin - Level 26]

[Mutated Creature - Tier 1]

[Battle Power - 23]

Although the mutated penguin was weak, there was not only one of them there. From the Djinn's sensor and even just a glance, Viktor could immediately tell that there were at least a hundred of them in a group. And there were several of those groups!

There was no way he was going to risk it.

Not only were these creatures so many, but he would also risk destroying his new ride if he decided to go after them. There was also the trouble of how these mutated penguins were found on deeper ice. This not only made it harder for the boat to reach them, but the penguins would also be able to jump in and out of the water with ease.

Hence, he quietly moved away and started looking for other targets.

"Penguins… penguins… penguins..." Viktor muttered in annoyance. Even after constantly moving for minutes, he kept getting the same penguins on the Djinn's sensor!

After a while, Viktor finally reached a bigger landmass. There, the Djinn gave him a piece of information about a different type of animal.

[Mutated Leopard Seal - Level 42]

[Mutated Creature - Tier 2]

[Battle Power - 43]

Now this one was a little more his size; a mutated animal that could thrive both on land and underwater. There were a few dozen of them, and the best part was that these creatures were currently lying on land, spread out on a 3-mile landmass.

Viktor was about to begin his hunt with them, but just when he wanted to step out of his boat, he realized that his boat might be destroyed if he was found riding it.

Ultimately, Viktor first parked the boat in a relatively safe area on the other side of the landmass and walked to the spot where he first saw them.

He and the blue Siberian husky carefully approached, ready to hunt.

"Let's aim for the solitary one first."

Viktor walked across the snow with his tier 2 ax. He was ready to fight those mutated leopard seals. He noticed one was in the distance through the Djinn's sensor.

It was a 5-meter long creature that looked like an oversized chubby snake.

These mutated leopard seals were supposed to be the penguins' predators. With their oversized jaws full of hard and sharp fangs, they could swallow a penguin in one bite.

To be safe, Viktor would study the creature before attacking. With their two flaps, these leopard seals were obviously much stronger underwater.

This fact made Viktor more confident. As long as he did not follow them underwater, with his 60 points of agility, he believed that there was no way the creature would be able to catch him.

From how they looked, there was a large chance that they were endurance-type creatures and had very strong skin. Even so, with his tier 2 ax at hand and how much he needed endurance points, there was no reason for him not to give it a try.

"Watch my back, all right, Djinn?" Viktor whispered to the blue husky.

"Woof woof."

Viktor sneaked toward a better angle far from the mutated creature's sight. Then, with the intent to kill, his tier 2 ax started to glow.

[Strength 30 (34)]

The added strength would definitely be beneficial. Now that he was fully prepared, Viktor rushed toward the lying seal in hurry and quickly swing his ax.

Swish—

Clank!!

With how thick its skin seemed, he had expected it to be an endurance-type creature. However, Viktor did not expect that its skin would be so thick.

Even with his tier 2 ax and full strength, he could only scratch the creature's skin.

"No f**king way!!"