Reward
The chamber fell silent, the only sound the soft crackling of wine-green flames along the walls.
Sett stood over the corpse of the Grand Guardian, breath steady but charged. The once-mighty creature lay in ruin—its hulking armor shattered, limbs twisted at unnatural angles. Its head was crushed, flattened beneath his final stomp, shards of bone and metal jutting from the mess.
Despite its destruction, the hollow in its chest—the Heart Zone—remained untouched.
Inside, eight Tomb Hearts floated, pulsing faintly before their slow rotation came to a halt.
Sett knelt and reached in, fingers closing around the weightless cores. He pulled them free one by one until all eight rested in his grasp. He examined one briefly, then scoffed and tossed six across the floor. The Tomb Hearts rolled to a stop near Zainah's feet, discarded without a second thought.
She didn't pick them up. She just stared, expression complex.
"Feed the girl one," Sett said absently. "If she has talent, it'll heal her. If not, we'll sell the rest for her treatment once we're out of the Tomb."
He had no use for these anymore. He only needed two more.
Sett shifted his focus to the system, scanning his status. Killing the Guardian hadn't moved his Limitless Evolution bar at all—no Neutral Points this time. Why was that?
The system flickered into view.
===
[Limitless Evolution Art]
[ 1/6 unlocked (0/1000 Neutral Energy).]
Limitless Magic—
Tomb Lord.?
===
He came to a conclusion soon enough. Unlocking the first Limitless Magic required him to murder enough mummies from a D-tier Tomb. The stronger the mummy was, the more Neutral Energy they provided.
That creature was in the end a mere a mere D-Tier Tomb's Guardian. And since Sett had already unlocked his first Limitless Magic, it was not going to be useful for him. Nor was it going to provide the quality of Neutral Energy that was required to unlock the second Limitless Magic.
Then he would have to kill C-Tier guardians and mummies to get his second Limitless Magic!
But before that, Sett squinted at his first Limitless Magic.
This power was interesting.
An ability he had never had in his first life.
This was hope. Hope at achieving Godhood in this life!
For now, he ignored even that and threw a Tomb Heart into his mouth.
Then, he closed his eyes.
[Absorbed one Tomb Heart]
(Progress: 50 Tomb Energy Value)
[Cryptwalker Progress 8/9]
The progress blurred.
[9/9]
Sett took a deep breath, even though it was useless to breathe.
Unlike the sub-levels—Low, Medium, High, and Grand—reaching Sacred from Grand didn't require two Tomb Hearts, it only needed one. The moment he reached a total of nine Tomb Hearts, his body had also become sublimated with D-Tier energies.
He could feel an evolution coming.
["Grand" Tier 1 Guardian Mummy evolution requirements have been met!]
[Evolution into "Sacred" Tier 1 initiated!]
[Integrating (50) Tomb Energy Value]
The points blurred, and Sett felt his body undergo another transformation. His muscles tightened, his bones hardened, and his skin, once pale and lifeless, now gleamed with a faint metallic sheen.
If he were steel before, now he was refined, hardened steel.
The hole in his chest, where the Tomb Hearts floated, seemed to glow brighter as nine marbles started dancing around each other. The moment the nine came together though, they started to resonate with each other and slowly moved towards one another.
Then, they fused into one.
It was slightly bigger, but at the same time, more beautiful with a bit of a translucent allure. Sett's body curled upon itself and right before Zainah's very eyes, he slowly became more and more lifelike.
His torn flesh, skin, and haggard appearance completely changed. At first glance, he looked like a fresh corpse that had just died some weeks ago.
Sett then grew a fresh set of teeth.
It was clean, white, and incredibly orderly with two pointy but short fangs on both sides. It was not the ugly fangs that blood sucking monsters in books had, it was the devious looking fangs that a playboy would have. On his balding head, a vibrant forest of hair began to grow right after, dark with tinges of grey.
I must still look pale, old, and ugly but at least, I probably don't look like an ancient mummy anymore.
Sett's nose twitched and a nasty smell assaulted his nose.
He sniffed by instinct and began to smell the mouldy air of the Tomb. It stank so bad.
Were tombs always this mouldy?
He also smelled the scent of rotten blood.
Ah…
Sett touched his own face, surprised himself to find a single trail of tears going down his cheek.
I can smell now.
Zainah rubbed her nose, looked away from him and fed her sister one of the Tomb Hearts. Due to the kid's unconsciousness, she had to feed her with care, but luckily, Tomb Hearts were easy to swallow.
Meanwhile, Sett calmed himself down and looked at the system to distract himself.
—
[Stats]
[Name: Sett Ramses II]
—[External Life Paths]—
> [Crypt Walker]
D-Tier (T1)—"Sacred" Guardian Mummy
(Progress: 9/9 Tier 1 Tomb Hearts)
> [Axiom Holder]
Axiom of Reincarnation (Inactive) (Tier 5)
(Progress: Uncrowned Pharaoh of Ehyut)
—[Innate Life Path]—
[Limitless Evolution Art]
(1) Limitless Magic—Tomb Lord
[1/6 unlocked (0/1000 Neutral Energy)]
—
Sett then looked at the last remaining Tomb Heart in his hand. It was a Tier 1 Tomb Heart, thus, even if he ate it, he wouldn't grow any stronger. Now that he was at the Sacred level of the Crypt Walker pathway, he had reached the end of Tier 1 for this path. He would have to absorb a Tier 2 Tomb Heart and force his body to evolve to Tier 2.
Tier 1 Tomb Hearts were useless now.
Normally, that is.
But Sett's situation was not normal.
Crypt Walker pathway was for the dead.
Tomb Raider pathway was for the living.
Sett was sure that he wasn't entirely dead.
He was also sure that he wasn't entirely alive either.
Anyway, since he had reached the limits of Tier 1 Crypt Walkers, that meant that even if he ate this Tomb Heart, the Crypt Walker pathway cannot absorb it.
Sett threw the Tomb Heart into his mouth.
He didn't feel his body grow stronger, not even one bit, but a pure vitality spiked through him like an electric current. Vitality! Energy of a living being! Pure regenerative force!
Sett felt chills all over him.
His skin began to crawl. The wrinkles on them vanished within seconds—Crypt Walker pathway only fixed the body as if it were a tool, but this spike of vitality healed instead of fixing. He felt a coolness at the very core of his being.
Sett began laughing, his whole appearance starting to shift.
Even Zainah turned towards him.
But ignoring his changing appearance for now, he looked at the system.
[You have successfully become a Tomb Raider!]
Sett smirked.
[Divine Information unlocked.]
[The Cryptwalker Pathway is the path that is meant to help the dead regain life.]
[Even the dead are not hopeless. As long as they can absorb enough living beings, they can regain their life. This path uses the energy of death to make one's body grow stronger.]
Oh, so I indeed can regain my life. That is the end goal for the Crypt Walker pathway, huh?
The stronger a Crypt Walker, the harder it was for them to die.
They became more and more undead!
In fact, Tier 5 Crypt Walkers were nearly immortal. Unless you could destroy their Tomb Cores, they could not be killed.
He felt a bit complex.
Mummies were never just mindless creatures who hunted living beings all the time. They were tragic creatures who had to kill for a hope to live. Though they themselves might not have been aware of it, just killing the living to gain more strength.
Sett read the rest of the Divine Information, whatever that was.
[Yet, even the Cryptwalker Pathway can only sustain the undeath of the dead creatures within Tombs. If a mummy were to leave the Tomb, they would immediately experience existential erasure. A Tomb Born shall live and die within their own Tombs.]
That information almost made Sett's stomach curl.
So am I truly stuck in this Tomb?
The new Limitless Magic he had gained made him regain a bit of hope. And moreover, that was talking about Crypt Walkers—and Sett was no longer just a Crypt Walker!
He was also a Tomb Raider.
Did that make a difference?
Ignoring the skin-curling thought, he continued reading the information.