Within the Federation, there are quite a few sixteen-year-old geniuses capable of cultivating vital energy, but someone like William Carter, who, without relying on any external force and only by practicing "Bitter Zen" to temper his own body and cultivate vital energy, is perhaps one of a kind in the entire Earth Federation. In a small city like Guide Prefecture, he is the only one in history.

At that time, all the teachers and students at Guide High School believed that William Carter was destined for great things in the future. But who could have known that not long after, a transfer student arrived at Guide High School, challenged William Carter, and defeated William Carter with just one move—and that student was a girl.

From then on, William Carter stopped training hard and became "willingly degenerate." Everyone thought William Carter was mentally fragile and couldn't handle setbacks and blows, but only William Carter himself knew that his change had nothing to do with that defeat. It was entirely because of the mysterious phone in his hand.

William Carter lowered his head, staring at the phone, constantly controlling the blood-red figure inside the phone to slay the black ants in the ant nest.

"Kill mortal creature: Mighty Ant... Kill mortal creature: Mighty Ant... Kill mortal creature: Mighty Ant..."

Every time William Carter killed an ant, a prompt would pop up on the screen, with rows of notifications flashing rapidly.

"Ding!"

No one knew how many Mighty Ants he had killed when suddenly a clear chime sounded, and then a special prompt appeared on the screen: Killed mortal creature: Mighty Ant, discovered Vital Energy Crystal.

William Carter focused his gaze and indeed saw that after a Mighty Ant was killed, a crystal clear, diamond-like crystal dropped. On top of the crystal was the number 5.

William Carter was delighted and quickly controlled the blood-red figure to pick up the Vital Energy Crystal. As soon as the crystal touched the blood-red figure's finger, it instantly turned into a strange energy and entered the figure's body.

Almost simultaneously, William Carter felt a surge of power flow from the phone into his own body, like a jolt of electricity, rapidly filling his vital energy.

On the blood-red figure's stats page, the vital energy value also increased from 4 to 5.

When dimensional creatures are killed, there is a certain chance they will drop various crystals, the most common being Strength, Speed, Constitution, and Vital Energy Crystals.

Using a Strength Crystal increases a human's strength; using a Speed Crystal increases speed; the other crystals have similar effects.

However, in reality, crystals do not display numbers, and humans cannot see their own attribute values. After using a Strength Crystal, they only know their strength has increased, but not by how much.

The mysterious phone in William Carter's hand not only allows him to obtain dimensional crystals in the game—crystals that others must risk their lives in dimensional zones to acquire—but also lets him clearly see the stats of himself, dimensional creatures, and the crystals.

Chapter 2: Ant Nest

Ever since he got this phone, William Carter has been grinding monsters in the game to collect various dimensional crystals.

Previously, his strength was 7, speed was 4, constitution was 7, and vital energy was only 1. It was through collecting dimensional crystals in the game over the past month or so that he managed to raise his stats to their current levels. If it were before, it might have taken him years to make such progress.

After using a large number of dimensional crystals, William Carter discovered a pattern: no matter which type of dimensional crystal, if the crystal's value is higher than his own, then after using it, his own stat will immediately rise to match the crystal's value.

But if the crystal's value is lower than or equal to his own, it can only serve as an energy supplement, and only through practicing the Vital Energy Technique can he possibly increase his own stats—it won't directly boost his physical attributes.

In other words, the higher the value of the dimensional crystal, the better, and the more useful it is to William Carter. However, after killing Mighty Ants in the Ant Nest for so long, the highest Strength Crystal William Carter has seen is 9, the highest Constitution Crystal is 8, Speed Crystals are all low, and Vital Energy Crystals are extremely rare. Today, getting a level 5 Vital Energy Crystal right away is the highest-level Vital Energy Crystal he has ever seen.

William Carter has considered that this might be related to the Mighty Ants' own talents. Mighty Ants have excellent strength and constitution but are not very fast, so the Strength Crystals they drop are higher level, while high-level Speed Crystals are nowhere to be found.

Still, even low-level dimensional crystals can be used as energy supplements, making it convenient for William Carter to quickly practice "Bitter Zen"—they are not entirely useless.

The only regret is that the crystals dropped in the game are absorbed as soon as the blood-red figure touches them and cannot be brought directly into reality. Otherwise, just selling some of the low-level crystals he doesn't need would be enough for William Carter to live a comfortable life.

There are a lot of ants in the Ant Nest, and after discovering the blood-red figure controlled by William Carter, more and more ants gather.

After killing over a hundred Mighty Ants, another dimensional crystal dropped, but it was only a level 3 Strength Crystal, which could only be used as an energy supplement during cultivation.