Goblin Dependency

It’s just a pity that even though Dodd, by virtue of his identity as a Ceremony Arranger, had planned a perfect starting point for himself as a "Gravel Scale Lizard," pulling far ahead of the other adventurers right from the beginning...

When it came to absorbing Energy to achieve a higher level of life evolution, he was the same as the other adventurers in the Secret Realm, unable to control the path or direction of his Transformation.

He could only rely purely on luck, evolving at random.

Right now, after absorbing the sand rat’s remaining Life Energy, he could feel the changes and improvements in his body.

He still didn’t know which species he was moving toward, but clearly, it was far from the evolutionary direction of the "giant dragon" he had imagined.

Of course, the ritual had only just begun, so Dodd naturally wouldn’t be too discouraged.

From a certain point of view, given that he’d only just descended here and not even a full day had passed, yet he had already completed one evolution, it was likely that no other adventurer could keep up with his pace.

And from here on, his advantage would, on this basis, be gradually stretched to a level the others would find impossible to reach no matter what they did.

As for the direction of evolution...

In Dodd’s view, as long as he could absorb enough Life Energy, then even if the final evolutionary path he drifted toward wasn’t perfect, as long as he completed the ritual and seized the final victory, that would be enough.

He opened his mouth and gulped down the sand rat cub’s corpse from the ground without chewing.

He focused his attention, carefully sensing the positions of the other adventurers in the Secret Realm.

He could tell that the vast majority of them were in an active state, moving from time to time.

But a small number seemed to have been frozen in place, without the slightest change.

Dodd knew full well that the beasts these adventurers had possessed were most likely already dead.

That was perfectly normal.

Although those who were drawn into the Secret Realm were all Elite adventurers with rich combat experience and a long history of adventuring...

After all, upon first descent they were nothing but beast cubs, lacking any ability to protect themselves, and the external environment was uncertain.

There was every possibility they would die young.

From another angle, for "Algae Scale" Dodd, this was actually a good thing.

Because the adventurers’ deaths did not cause the Life Energy on them to dissipate as well.

That cluster of glowing Blue light that only participants in the Secret Realm could see would still hover above the corpse even after the adventurer died.

When that happened, Dodd wouldn’t even need to fight; he could simply use the Perception in his mind to locate the site of their death and go there to absorb it.

It was just a shame that, in his Perception, the light points that had already become completely inactive, even the closest one to him, were still at a considerable distance.

Crossing such a span just for that, consuming a huge amount of time and effort at this most crucial initial growth stage, was quite not worth it.

He would just wait until he had a chance to evolve flight, or some ability for rapid long-distance raids, and plan for it then; there was no rush.

Thinking this way, "Algae Scale" Dodd’s attention suddenly paused.

He abruptly noticed that, in his Perception, at a place very far from himself, two light points had quietly overlapped.

Then, like bubbles colliding, one of them completely burst apart, while the other flared bright for an instant before returning to normal.

Dodd of course knew what that meant.

Just as he himself completed a killing evolution, another adventurer in the Secret Realm had also achieved their first evolution.

"Tsk, such good luck."

He certainly didn’t think that the other party could also sense the positions of other adventurers the way he did; most likely it was just two participants who happened to descend in close proximity.

But even so, seeing that an adventurer had actually caught up to his progress, he couldn’t help but feel a trace of impatience rise in his heart.