"He chose to do it alone after all?"

"Indeed, but I don't think that would change anything with that."

"Well, we will wait and see for now, I truly didn't expect to get the first lead about the truth even knowing it's from him, he should be able to give us a few surprises…"

`~~`~~`~~`

The Lightning Knight Brigade had added a new unit! Breaking the 5 unit tradition that seemed to have lasted for several decades!

This was the news that went quickly around the members of the Brigade after the monthly meeting was concluded…

However, the most important piece of news was that the leader of this new unit was actually just a new recruit! And he had the authority to recruit other members of the Brigade at that!

Several members questioned how that managed to happen, but the unit leaders stayed silent when asked such questions which only caused the matter to blow up into a hot matter.

In fact, some Junior members who were unhappy with their current positions of the 3 units found this to be some sort of an opportunity sent to them, after all, they just had to apply to the newbie unit leader, who would probably accept them to build up the unit, thus becoming the first Senior members of the unit without the effort they would have to spend to get promoted in their own units.

Not to mention that being a Special unit meant that they wouldn't be dispatched at a weekly basis or even a daily one like they are and they would still earn a guaranteed pay, this only made the recruits more appealed to join this new unit.

Yet… the new unit leader was nowhere to be found!

And when he returned at the end of the week, he closed his room's door and hanged a 'No Disturb' sign seemingly deep in sleep.

That occurrence was repeated for the following weeks as well!

The newbie unit leader, named Zero, would leave the headquarters for almost the whole week, return for one day, closing his door, and repeat…

The interested members were quick to lose interest as it seemed that the new unit leader didn't really care about the unit and believed he would be able to shoulder the whole unit on his own, which was a very ridicoulus train of though, even if they somehow managed to join they would be bound to be hindered by the incompetent unit leader, so they decided to give up the matter and be satisfied with their current and guaranteed positions.

But even then, the new unit leader was still mentioned quite a bit, the only difference was that instead of talking about seeking an opportunity in his unit, most people wondered what he would spend the whole week doing, considering that Special units should have more free time than them, not to mention a new Special unit at that…

`~~`~~`~~`

[ You have absorbed the blood essence of a 'Kobold King', purification in progress… ]

[ You have received 2,123,321 EP! ]

[ You have absorbed the essence of a 'Corruption Core', purification in progress… ]

[ You have received 3,559,545 EP! ]

[ You have leveled up! ]

[ You have reached level 96! ]

'That's the 177th one… oh… it's already done…?'

As I was transported out of the gate, I checked the 'Eradication' list once again to make sure that I indeed reached its end…

'Sigh…'

Counting from the day when I received the 'Eradication' list, a full two months had passed, mostly spent in clearing gates, so it was only right that the list would reach its bottom now…

Having decided to use these gates as training grounds as usual, I limited my daily clear rate to 3~4 gates per day as a maximum, using the rest of the day for further self-training, so the gains of these two months were quite good.

Using one weapon per day proved quite effective, other than the need to renew my weapons other than the sword, everything went smoothly as all of my normal concepts had already reached the max of the intermediate rank, with the elemental ones ranging between lv.7~9!

Other than that, the achievement I was most proud of was leveling up 'Lightning Steps' to the peak of the 9th level, almost reaching its max level, as it seemed that travelling between the various 'Corruption Gates' had quite the miraculous effect on leveling it up, which only served to better my combat performance, allowing me to use, test and perfect my battle techniques quite thoroughly.

The only thing that I held back on was enhancing my stats, as they were already sufficient to conquer all the gates in the 'Eradication' list which only contained gates up to lv.130~140, not to mention that I wanted to delve more into the technique improvement aspect than just overpowering my way to the 'Corruption Core'.

As such, other than the 'Dual-Element' stat which I had increased relying on the elemental crystals that I obtained from the demon base, the other stats barely changed.

On the other hand, thanks to the quantity of blood essence that I managed to absorb while clearing the 177 gates, the number of my 'Unassigned stat points' had already reached a height that I never had before…

In the end, though I was a bit sad that the list was fully used up, I was quite satisfied with the results that I obtained from these two months of grinding, leaving only one problem that has yet to be figured.

No Two-floor gate was found so far!

Considering how it was easy for me to see through the illusion of the demon's base, and especially when taking the methods of the Imperial Palace and the Lightning Knight Brigade into account, I believed that at least within one month's time, a base would be found…

However, the result was far far less than I expected, a whole two months without any results to speak of…

There was no way that the scouts were just too incompetent, so the only reason that would result in that would be…

'They must have done something…'

Outside intervention!