Even though his plan had failed, Krune wasn't disheartened at all, looking at the Blood Essence Crystal in his hands. His heart had been thumping ever since the moment he laid eyes on it. Even though he was a mortal, Krune was still able to judge based on his two centuries of experience in obtaining treasures that the Blood Essence Crystal was beneficial to him.

In such a manner, he captured Monster Geckos, dragged them to a cave each, made them consume the massive fruit while dislocating their arm joints, and patiently watched them. Just like his first attempt, not one of them managed to evolve, dying in the process.

​​

Without any hesitation, he tied their tails to their respective wilting bone trees after cutting the tip. And as a day passed in such a fashion, Krune sprinted from one cave to another, collecting all the Blood Essence Crystals.

At present, he had 10 of them in his hands. He first placed them in his cave and hunted for 10 more Monster Geckos, killing two, sometimes three, every day. He dragged them to the 10 caves once more, placing one in each.

In the place covered by bone powder, he planted a new bone tree branch that he had broken out from the forest. And, once he watered them using the blood in the Monster Geckos, the bone tree branch began to grow.

Krune observed that even when some blood spilled on the bone powder, there was no reaction from it. It seemed that it had truly lost all life the moment it wilted, becoming no different from dust. Once he finished supplying blood to all the bone tree branches, he let them grow to a normal height first before supplying it with the blood of a live Monster Gecko. Only after that would it begin to grow the massive fruit.

He then scouted his surroundings, noticing that the cases of injuries among the Monster Gecko village had increased. They were now in a state of unrest. Similarly, the second village was also alarmed.

Krune noticed that even though they were all Monster Geckos, they had mild differences in their appearances. That was why when he hunted from the second village, he always ensured there was a witness of his hunt.

This was to instigate a war between the two villages. Only through that would he be able to target their leaders. Otherwise, it wasn't possible. He had been going about with this plan from the day he decided to target the second village.

Laying down the traps was just to further destabilize their mental states. After all, they were monsters and weren't sentient. So, he planned to make use of their advantages against them, turning them into disadvantages instead.

Upon seeing that his surroundings were clear, Krune returned to his cave, picking up a Blood Essence Crystal and the remaining Water Essence. He arrived before the pool, laying down all the tools he had created until now beside it.

This way, the moment something turned amiss, he was ready to operate himself and protect his life. Once he was done with all preparations, Krune sat beside the pool and held a Blood Essence Crystal in his hand.

Using his Neon Radiance, he looked at it, observing that it was a pristine blood-red crystal, perfectly smooth and almost see-through. He was anxious, making a double-check of his surroundings to see that he had indeed prepared everything at his disposal.

"Here goes nothing." He gulped it immediately, feeling difficulty in swallowing it for a moment as he downed some water, flushing the Blood Essence Crystal into his stomach. Within a couple of seconds, a burning sensation emanated from his stomach and permeated throughout his body.

Instantly, Krune felt his heart beat faster and faster, as if it wanted to increase the speed of blood flowing through his body. Similarly, to keep up with the higher rate of pumping, his lungs contracted and expanded faster and faster. Krune took deep but rapid breaths, supplying enough oxygen to his heart.

He could feel his entire body heat up, brimming with vigor. And, without his control, his Neon Radiance activated, brightening up the entire cave as if it was directly under the sun. The brightness he unleashed was beyond what he was capable of normally.

He had surpassed his limits in its emission. Krune could feel the Blood Essence Crystal dissolving in his stomach before eventually flowing through his blood. This way, the immense energy in it flowed through his blood, being used in place of his stamina when Krune activated his passive abilities.

He could feel his cells were now drunk with energy, brimming with power. Eventually, he felt bloated, as if his body was about to burst. Without any hesitation, Krune emitted the Neon Radiance from throughout his body at its maximum intensity, one that had already surpassed his maximum during normal times.

As he kept up with it, Krune could feel that the bloated feeling no longer increased. Instead, he was still feeling bloated. With that, he ran to the nearby chamber in his cave, picked up the Whale Tooth Sword and began swinging it, intending to tire himself as much as he could.

It was like he was on drugs. No matter what he did, he didn't tire out easily. Though, Krune realized that it was only because of the boost from the Blood Essence Crystal. His body was still becoming physically exhausted. The moment its effects wore off, he would collapse in exhaustion and wouldn't be able to move for a long time.

So, after understanding it, he realized what the Blood Essence Crystal truly was. "It's a concentrated mass of the energy in our physical body. Or in other words, a condensation of muscular energy."

Krune trained for two hours like a maniac when he felt the energy from the Blood Essence Crystal eventually wear off. He immediately ran towards the pool and jumped into it, noticing immense exhaustion set at the moment the effects wore off.

The exhaustion was to the extent he almost lost consciousness, feeling unbearable pain all over his body. Thankfully, he jumped into the water, feeling a bit relaxed as he drunk it, gulping it down until he couldn't drink any more water.

The healing property in the water alleviated his strained muscles little by little as Krune fell asleep, only waking up after half a day had passed. He woke up groggily, feeling a splitting headache when he noticed his body was feeling brisk.

Krune clenched his hand into a fist, feeling that his strength had increased a tad bit as compared to the day before. The improvement was staggering, something he would need a couple of weeks to obtain.

"Just this alone makes this an amazing treasure for mortals." Krune laughed, finding a path that he could proceed upon now to develop himself in this dangerous place. Now, he was no longer afraid of the Monster Geckos. Rather, he saw them as a tonic that would boost his growth.

Though, that didn't mean he planned to go on a massacre. It didn't conform with his ideals. He only planned to kill based on his needs, no more, no less. It was a simple rule of survival of the fittest. It was what he had been following all his life until now, and that was what he planned to do from here on out as well.

Krune soon exited the cave, hunting some Monster Geckos from the second village while in the presence of some witness, driving a wedge between the relations of the two villages. He used them to grow the bone trees, returning to his cave as he consumed another Blood Essence Crystal and trained himself like mad.

When he was done, he rested in the pool, healing his body slowly. He determined that he could only consume a Blood Essence Crystal every three days for maximum benefits. Before that, his body would still be damaged, and the effect would drop. Moreover, he would injure himself further and would require even more time to heal.

If he delayed beyond three days, then it was simply a waste of time. So, Krune maintained the time correctly, using some of his resting time to hunt the Monster Geckos. The Monster Geckos needed to eat daily. With that, groups of Monster Geckos roamed through the forest daily at regular intervals to harvest the ripened fruits.

With such a schedule, this gave Krune a lot of opportunities to hunt them. Moreover, during one of the times when he spied the first village, Krune noticed that when a female Monster Gecko gave birth, it usually laid 6-8 eggs.

On top of that, it seemed that the time period for her to lay the eggs was short, only spanning around two months based on his observation. "But if their fertility is that potent, then their population should have exploded massively by now."

Thinking as such, Krune passed the foggy layer one day, now being able to see using the sunlight. He noticed that there were indeed a lot of Monster Geckos on the Primary Landmass. It seemed that they had a tradition to follow, the cause for their controlled population.

Every month, a large batch of Monster Geckos that had matured would leave the Primary Landmass and head into the ocean above to hunt for fish. The bigger the fish they hunted, the stronger they were, and the greater they were lauded.

And that basically determined if they had a chance of becoming a Mutant in the future. But it wasn't as easy as that. After all, constantly swimming in the ocean surface touching the Primary Landmass's face were dangerous predator fishes that were massive and dangerous.

So, most of the Monster Geckos lost their lives in this way. Though, that also meant that the survivors were praised all the more. At these times, the survivors would drag in massive fishes that they had killed in the waters.

Most of the time, they would only eat the fishes a little to celebrate their victories before dropping them whole on the bone trees. After all, eating the fruits on the bone trees was more beneficial to them than eating the fish. Hunting them was just one of the traditions they followed.

"So, that's why their population hasn't snowballed out of control yet," Krune muttered before descending through the foggy layer, arriving at the bottom of the Primary Landmass, returning to his cave to train.