Usually, killing monsters did not grant experience.
It was the same as killing small animals.
Although monsters possessed power comparable to that of Transcendents, they did not actually have clearly defined Transcendent levels. Their levels in the game merely indicated "the level of Transcendent whose power they equaled," and nothing more.
Iver did not remember the setting for "experience" very clearly, but he roughly knew that Free Experience was actually related to the Path Power that naturally dissipated when someone killed or drove off an opponent in intense combat. Since Path Power naturally flowed from higher places to lower ones, the system merely served to open up a channel for receiving it.
However, one could basically only gain experience by killing a Transcendent who was stronger than oneself, or at least on the same level.
Thus, this was essentially also a "transcendence" ritual.
This fit the player Son of the Serpent Father's setting perfectly—gaining power through transcendence.
That was why the experience granted for killing a Transcendent was usually inferior to that gained from dispersing a Phantom Demon of the same level. Once a Phantom Demon was dispersed, all the power within it would disintegrate. But when a Transcendent died, they might still be transformed into an undead creature, and the Path Power gained from dispersing an undead creature was usually even less.
These monsters, meanwhile, were special creatures without consciousness or intelligence. They did not grant experience.
They resembled certain Phantom Demons, but they had not actually been born in the Dream Realm. They were native creatures of the Material Realm.
A First Level Transcendent might not necessarily be able to defeat a wild wolf. A Second Level Transcendent would most likely lose to fierce beasts like lions and bears. Even a Third Level Transcendent would be in great