Just like that, Ian enjoyed two months of rest. After everything that happened, he deserves leisure time. The death of his captain was too painful for him. But time fixes everything, the pain gradually becomes tolerable and Ian manages to get back to himself once more. During the first month, Ian was always in a daze most of the days, replaying the tragedy in his mind. He wept every night, blaming himself for being powerless. He knew that he couldn't stay in such a mental state for a long time. He needs to be in an optimal state once he receives his next mission.
As for leisure time? Most composed of nature therapy, roaming the street of Blood City, talking with vampire adventurers, and those vampires that hunt human hunters. Interestingly, Ian discovered that the most popular profession in the Blood Realm was Adventurer and Hunters. With Hunter being the number one!
What is the role of hunters? They go outside of the Curtained Imperium, in short, to the human world where there are dungeons located everywhere, every country. They look like massive black cracks in the sky. Dungeons are divided by ranks from rank 9 to 1, with rank 1 being the most difficult dungeon with rank 9 for beginners. Yup, there are no dungeons in the Curtained Imperium. For the reason that every living being in the Curtain Imperium is all dark races; Bloodsucking vampires, terrifying ghoals, undeads, big bad werewolves, liches famous for dark magic, and meta-lizardmen.
The question is, what are inside the dungeons? Demonic Beasts and Monsters that pray upon human and dark races alike. They do not distinguish between the two. It could be said that although the Curtained Imperium are wary of each other and had big conflict here and there. The dungeons are a far bigger problem, a far more dangerous common enemy that they had. There are a lot of collaborations and treaties between Human Hunter Forces and Dark Races in the Curtained Imperium in terms of; Prevention of Dungeons Breaks, Economy, Agriculture, etc...
It's a game of check and balance. The dark races and the human world cooperate whilst also trying to sabotage each other behind the scenes. Yes, they do not do it on the surface but there are a lot of small skirmishes like the assassination of geniuses on both sides in the dark.
As for Dungeon Break? When first Ian heard about it, he was quite surprised. After all, he only read about them in Korean Light Novels. There's no need for an explanation about Dungeon Breaks, right?
It was worth mentioning that every body part of the monster inside the dungeons is useful for infrastructure, equipment, alchemy, medicine, etc... The applications and value are so wide-ranging that the value of the dungeon has become deeply rooted in the society of the Human World and Curtain Imperium!
Most importantly, the monster cores had been used for clean energy. A hundred times more efficient than electricity and oil. More importantly, it is cleaner and doesn't pollute the environment. In essence, the existence of Dungeons is both a bane and a blessing. A game-changer for energy science and material science.
"Time to eat these shits." Ian woke up in his daydream. All of that information, he had learned from the taverns after hearing hunters and vampire adventurers blabber at each other. Some are pure nonsense while some enriched Ian's understanding of the Human World and Curtained Imperium.
He even learned that Curtained Imperium had "Curtained" on it due to the reason that ordinary humans don't know its existence. The world of dark races is completely unknown to them. Only the Hunter Society is involved and they blocked information about it from the regular human population.
'How ironic... They didn't know about Curtained Imperium but they are exposed to Dungeons all the time. What's the matter with Hunter Society? Is there something wrong with their brain?' Ian rubbed his chin. 'Damn! I really have a hobby of thinking about these things.'
Ian devoured the corpses delivered to him one by one. He started at 11 am and finished by 3:31 pm. Even with the side space of his jaw which helped him eat thirty bodies at one chomp... The amount of the bodies was just too many. He also took three minutes to rest every thirty bodies that he ate due to the soreness in his jaw. At the very least, after he had eaten everything, his jaw was quite stiff. It could be said that it was an intense exercise.
'Now that I've thought about it... This is the highest number that I've eaten to date.' Even though Ian wanted to smile, he could barely open his mouth now. Even his neck felt hot for some reason. 'Fortunately, everything is worth it. I wonder how much Biomass did I gain? Let's see...'
'Status!' Ian called out in his mind. He felt cool every time he did this.
Increased Bone Density.
Skeletal Claws (retractable). Body Size (+5 meters). Increased Muscle Mass. Kagune. Exoskeletal Armor (Steel+Tungsten).
'This many!? What kind of corpses did the Vampire Council send me!?' Ian's eyes almost popped out of their sockets at this moment.
Suddenly, he recalled that among the 2000+ corpses that he had eaten, a hundred of them made his gums bleed and even made most of his teeth hurt like hell due to their toughness. 'Could it be that there are higher-ranked creatures among those corpses?' This is the only explanation he could think of. After all, he won't be able to get such a tremendous amount of biomass just by weaklings.
A mad laugh echoed throughout the room. With these points, he'll be able to avenge his captain! He'll become more terrifying than before. Suddenly, a dangerous glint appeared in Ian's eyes. He could finally add the feature that he wanted on his body.
In the middle of the forest, outskirts of the Blood City. Ian looked at his surroundings with a satisfied expression. "This is desolate enough for my upgrades. 'How much Biomass is required to add that thing I want?'
'I want to spend half of my 81,900 to increase my body size again. Half of it is 40,950... Considering that every meter increase is 500 biomass. How many meters can I grow this time?'