"Fine. I'll just stay here for a while then," he said and sat down. For the next few minutes, he calmed his body down and tried to recover the aura he spent. However, for some reason the aura he spent wasn't coming back. It seemed like the temple was blocking that from happening.
"Why can't I recover my aura?" He asked her.
"Oh, I meant to recover your stamina. Spent aura doesn't come back in the temple. The only way you can get past that loophole would be to use pills or treasures, but I think I used up all of yours," she said.
He lay on the floor with a disappointed expression. He didn't really expect there to be any time to recover his aura so he was very conservative with it, but she gave him hope. Now that he knew he couldn't recover, he didn't know what else to do.
He sighed while getting up. "Fine, then there isn't really a point in me wasting my time here. Might as well get past the tiles," he said.
Before he walked onto the next tile, he took a look at what it said.
[Obstacle]
Confused, he stepped onto the tile, thinking about what it could have possibly meant. Would it be another fight? Obstacles could mean a lot of things, from objects to humans.
"What did it say?" Nefrati asked him.
"Obstacle. Do you know what that means?" He asked her.
"Yes, I do. It means you are very unlucky," she said. "But maybe better now than later."
As she said that, a huge wall shot up above him, going all the way to the ceiling. It was very thick, taking up a third of the tile, blocking off his entry into the tile in front of him.
"So what do I do now?" He asked her.
"An obstacle means that you have to take a detour. You will have to walk around the wall to get to where you are. It's better at an earlier stage than when you get deeper. At least you don't have to go through more hard tiles," she said. As she said that, he got an idea.
"Wait. Can't I just sprint through all the tiles to get the treasures I want?" He asked her. She immediately shot down the idea.
"If you do that, you will die immediately. Not only will you be risking getting hit by multiple dangerous traps, but all the tiles that have guardians will also be activated when you enter them. All these guardians will face you at once, which means you will be minced meat in seconds," she said. "So the only option is for you to walk around the wall."
"Are you sure?" He asked her.
"Yes, I am sure. Everything I say is a product of my own experience here. If you want to find out yourself, be my guest," she said angrily.
He sighed and took a step forward. Kicking the wall lightly, he complained.
"I hate you, dumb wall."
As he kicked the wall, he realized that the material that made the wall wasn't metal as it looked. It was just limestone.
"Wait. What if I break the wall?" He asked her.
She scoffed. "Are you joking? Forget what would happen to you when the wall falls on you, how will you even break it?" She asked him.
He created a long shadow blade that was as thin as paper and shot it at the wall. It pierced through without a problem. He then swung his arm, making the blade slice through the wall like it was tofu.
"..." Nefrati was speechless as the wall was cut into two parts. Once it was cut, it started falling toward Leo.
He just walked a few steps forward to let the part of the wall that was still erect and cast a Shadow Dome around himself, waiting for the impact. The wall slowly fell toward him, accumulating speed, until it crashed loudly.
When it crashed, the end of the fallen wall still stood on the edge of the standing leftover wall, creating a triangular gap. Leo was wedged in his gap, but he didn't intend to stay there for long.
A pair of shadow blades sliced through the wall again, breaking it off just in front of him. The majority of the wall completely crashed to the ground, while a small part was left, resting on the Shadow Dome. He dispelled the dome and retreated back, letting that part of the wall fall down naturally.
Once this was done, the path in front of him was almost without any obstacles. There was only a wall that was 6 feet tall. At this point, it was more of a fence. He easily jumped over it and looked forward at the next tile.
"..." Nefrati still couldn't talk as she saw what he did. She never thought that this was a way to get past the wall. The previous time she had been there, she forced herself to go to a worse treasure because the wall would make her take a longer and more dangerous route.
Meanwhile, he walked to the next tile as if he did something perfectly normal. He only used a fourth of the aura he had used while fighting the guardian, so this was the better choice by miles.
As he stepped on the next tile, the entire tile changed. All of a sudden, his foot started to sink into the ground as if it turned into a swamp. However, he was prepared for this and coated his foot with aura. The minute it started to sink, he jumped up.
However, since the ground sank when he jumped, he got a very small amount of height. This was enough for him to summon a Shadow Blade right underneath his feet. He jumped using the blade as the ground, leaping into the air.
The first blade sunk into the ground when he jumped onto it. He tried to summon it back, but the ground completely absorbed it, forcing him to make a new one. When the new one was made, he jumped using it, getting to the next tile.
The minute he got onto the next tile, he jumped into the air again.
"What is this one?" Nefrati asked.
"Last one was swamp. This one says hole. Don't know what it means, but I don't want to find out," he said.
As he said that, the tile crumbled, revealing an endless abyss filled with darkness. He employed the same technique as last time to jump across the huge hole. When he looked down, he couldn't even see the bottom which scared him.
As soon as he got to the next tile, he collapsed onto the ground. The swamp wasn't that much of a problem since he expected it, but the immediate occurrence of the hole was unexpected. Once he saw that, he had to prepare for it on the spot since he wouldn't have time to think on the ground.
"So why are you resting now? What does this tile say?" She asked him.
"Oh, this one? It says guardian, so I'm fine," he said.
"You're fine AFTER you defeat the guardian, not before it!"
