Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

His previous total merit balance had been 1,481, and he had thought that was an incredibly hefty amount to sit on. Now, looking at the gains from these new titles, almost every single one of them surpassed his entire previous total, except for the 1,000 dungeon beast solo-kill title, and the 9th in world to clear a dungeon title.

And speaking of that dungeon clear title in particular...

Uhtred frowned slightly.

9th in the world to clear a dungeon?

To his current knowledge, King Alexei was the only individual on the global leaderboards who explicitly possessed a dungeon as an asset.

”Oh...” Uhtred murmured, a sudden realization clicking in his mind.

There was a glaring difference between simply clearing a dungeon and actually possessing one.

Even though Uhtred had just successfully cleared this entire twenty-floor dungeon, he still hadn’t technically claimed the core. He didn’t own the dungeon yet.

King Alexei, wherever he was currently operating in the world, had officially claimed ownership of whichever dungeon he had broken cleared.

As for the other seven individuals who had cleared dungeons ahead of him, Uhtred reckoned that the System’s counter included all the basic dungeons scattered across the planet, specifically the standard five-floor dungeons located inside the safety of Zone 0.

Those small dungeons were designed specifically to give the newly integrated human populations a safe, structured environment to gain their initial levels.

He knew for a fact that nobody in the sector where he, Minh Quan, Diya, and Dennis came from had managed to clear all five floors before his departure. But the world was massive, and Zone 0 formed a giant ring that wrapped around the entire span of the planet.

Different sectors had their own isolated five-floor dungeons, and the exact circumstances, leadership, and talent distributions in those regions were completely different.

It was highly probable that a few elite ascenders elsewhere had taken absolute control of their local dungeons, much like Scorpion had tried to do, and forged ahead to clear them completely.

Factoring that into the equation, it made perfect sense that he was ranked ninth globally for a dungeon clear.

But the realization didn’t bother him in the slightest.

The primary achievement was the regional dungeon clear and the massive amount of merits it provided, alongside the increase in his skill level with various affinities.

He shifted his gaze down to the magic notifications, scanning his new proficiencies:

His Basic Metal Magic had hit Level 4, his Thermal Magic had jumped a staggering three levels to hit Level 6, and his instinctual copying of the daemon’s field had officially been recognized by the System as a ”Basic Frost Magic” at Level 2.

He nodded inwardly, thoroughly satisfied. The rewards were exceptional. He had initially assumed an unbroken solo clear would grant even more titles, but thinking about the mechanics logically, there weren’t many other parameters the System could have measured besides these four categories.

With a brief thought, he swiped the blue notifications away, walking forward until he stood directly in front of the large white crystal hovering at the center of the chamber.

The moment he stepped within arm’s reach of the pulsing energy, a sharp system prompt flashed directly before his eyes:

[Dungeon core available for claiming. Claim now?]

[Note: Claiming a dungeon core gives you absolute possession of the entire dungeon structure. You will gain full authority over environmental access, dictating which individuals are permitted to enter or exit. You will also gain access to comprehensive floor controls, including instant, free travel to and from any cleared floor.]

[Alternatively, you may choose to sell the dungeon core immediately to the multiversal store for Multiversal Tokens. The choice is entirely up to you.]

”Claim.”

Uhtred didn’t even hesitate for a fraction of a second. The response left his mouth instantly. Was this even a choice? This core was the entire purpose of his brutal speedrun of the dungeon floors.

The moment the word left his lips, the hovering white crystal flared with a blinding, radiant light.

A sudden, violent shift rocked Uhtred’s perception as the System officially registered his core signature as the absolute owner of the dungeon.

An invisible, heavy metaphysical link formed between his mind and the core, granting him a layer of mental awareness that felt exactly as if the entire stone structure had become an extension of his own body.

The sensation was profoundly weird.

If Uhtred focused his thoughts even slightly, his awareness expanded outward through the core, allowing him to perceive the entire layout of Floor 20 simultaneously.

It was an all-encompassing, top-down omniscient perspective that differed fundamentally from how the physical human senses experienced three-dimensional space. Even with his massively enhanced perception attribute, the sheer volume of sensory data was staggeringly superior.

He could see every single nook and cranny of the massive chamber. He could see the exact angle of Zara’s head as she stood completely still, staring at his motionless body in front of the core.

He could count every single speck of dust resting on the far walls. He could see the shattered ice left behind by the Winter Court slowly dissolving into small puddles of water on the stone floor.

He could see the heavy, decapitated body of the Frost Daemon slowly beginning to dissolve, melting away into a thick, grey sludge as if he were nothing more than a standard, system-generated floor beast.

The massive influx of environmental data began to violently tax his brain, and Uhtred quickly severed the mental connection, cutting off the core’s perspective before his mind could become completely overwhelmed.

He panted heavily, his chest heaving as his physical eyes focused back on the reality in front of him. Zara was still standing a few paces away, her deep blue eyes fixed on his face.

”Are you alright?” she asked calmly.

Uhtred didn’t answer, his teeth gritted as he waited for the severe disorientation to fade from his skull. He shook his head sharply, clearing the lingering mental static and making a firm mental note never to expand his awareness into a dungeon core again unless it was absolutely necessary.

A small, secondary notification popped up in his vision, opening an organized management interface before him. This panel laid out the floor data in a far more intuitive, human-centric format, translating the raw sensory magic of the core into clean bars and numbers.

It was a complete control interface displaying the current state of every single floor in the dungeon.

His eyes skimmed the lines. He could see the exact countdown timers required for each cleared floor to begin respawning its respective beasts. He could see the precise population caps.

He even noticed that right here on Floor 20, a brand-new boss respawn sequence had automatically triggered, initializing a twenty-four-hour countdown.

Uhtred’s brows furrowed as he stared at the dissolving grey sludge that used to be the Frost Daemon.

Is the System actually about to turn the dead daemon into a permanent floor boss?

Was that how the dungeon mechanics actually functioned behind the scenes?

As the theory formed in his mind, he considered the broader implications. The standard beasts they had spent the last few hours slaughtering possessed no essence cores whatsoever, and it was highly plausible that they weren’t just random magic constructs...

They could very well be the remnants of actual, foreign alien species that had perished elsewhere in the multiverse, their data harvested and repurposed by the System to act as automated grinding tools on newly integrated worlds.

He couldn’t be entirely certain what would materialize on this floor once that twenty-four-hour timer hit zero. But if a replica of the Level 21 Frost Daemon was present here tomorrow, it would mean his theory was completely correct, or at least incredibly close to the reality of how dungeon creatures were spawned.

”Ah! That’s right!”

A sudden thought crossed Uhtred’s mind, and a wide grin spread across his face.

Very quickly, he swiped away the management interface and pulled up the standard World Ranking panel, specifically navigating to the Global Wealth Leaderboard that had appeared after King Alexei got a dungeon.

The moment the updated contents loaded into his field of view, Uhtred let out a loud, victorious guffaw that echoed sharply off the high ceilings.

[Global Wealth Ranking]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 1

Name: Red

Level: 17

Total Wealth Value: 25,305 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 2

Name: King Alexei

Level: 11

Total Wealth Value: 3,050 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

For a moment, Uhtred forgot himself and roared out loud, laughing maniacally in glee as he stared at the ridiculous numbers.

”Damn! I wish I could see the look on this guy’s face when he logs in and sees this! Trying to ragebait me with wealth?!”

He cackled loudly, the sheer absurdity of the jump filling him with an intense sense of pride, then suddenly he became self-aware and glanced back, remembering that Zara was right there with him.

For the first time, a completely different expression was visible in her blue eyes. She was looking him up and down with a slow, deeply questioning glance, her face practically asking whether he had completely lost his mind.

Uhtred cleared his throat roughly, quickly smoothing out his expression, though in truth, he didn’t actually care about the look.

He was now officially twenty-five thousand multiversal tokens richer. A man was entirely allowed to lose his composure for a few seconds over a feat like that!

He opened his mouth to say something to break the awkward silence between them, but before a single word could leave his jaw, his newly acquired dungeon management panel violently flashed into view without his prompting.

The interface began to beep aggressively, a bright, pulsing red warning color spreading across Floor 1 specifically.

Uhtred’s smile vanished instantly.

They had intruders.