( Meanwhile Max )
After spending a night with little to no rest, day 2 inside the dungeon was upon the group.
Thankfully Max and Asiva could recover stamina by pretty much just consuming blood and could function well under such little to no rest circumstances.
Having brought an abundant supply of blood bags with themselves the two of them had recovered back to nearly 100%, as only the slight mental fatigue lingered.
Anna and Sebastian were struggling a little with their actions and words being visibly sloppy as Max understood that the group would badly need an afternoon nap if they were to continue scouring the dungeon at full efficiency, however, for now they continued their looting spree while avoiding difficult opponents.
It sucked to be only tier 2 in this vast universe full of powerful creatures, it was said that every being was tier 0. It was the trash of the trash level that was the birthright of even the weakest species.
Tier 1 was akin to the strength of a grown adult, anyone could reach tier 1 strength in their lifetime with little to no effort and it was the tier where a vast majority of the universal population not involved in combat was usually stuck at.
Tier 2 was basically the limit of what a normal human could ever dream to reach without mana.
It was the power level attained by the highest levels of internal energy masters and martial artists as it could help one perform many feats of strength that a common man would never be able to, however, it was still a very ordinary power level compared to the true mighty of the universe and absolutely nothing to write home about.
A tier 2 player, regardless of race and gender was still pretty ordinary in terms of basic needs such as food, water, oxygen and needed conditions that supported life to thrive.
All this changed when one stepped into the tier 3 realm.
A tier 3 player became much less reliant on life supporting conditions and became much more reliant on mana to fuel their bodies.
Although it was not a 100% substitution and one still needed food and sustainance while in tier 3-4-5, the reliance decreased significantly as one progressed and one could easily go for weeks or months without needing both.
If Max and his friends were tier 3 they would not be troubled by the lack of rest that they felt today.
" Guys look, it's a tarantaran fruit! " Anna said excitedly as she pointed at a fruit hanging from a tree a few metres away.
Max looked towards the fruit with puzzlement as he tried to inspect it to understand why it was so special
[ Tarantaran fruit ] - This fruit is a rare treasure that gives the consumer a lot of EXP upon consuming.
" An exp fruit? " Max said, puzzled, he had never heard about these experience giving fruits before.
" It's a very dangerous fruit, although it gives exp the tree that it hangs from is actually a dryad.
It will most likely kill you with a piercing branch strike when you try to climb it " Anna said with a chuckle as Sebastian, who was preparing to climb the tree, took a clean U-turn as if he had never intended to climb it in the first place.
Asiva threw an arrow towards the fragile looking branch that was holding the fruit in place, but to her surprise the dagger clanked on the branch as if it were metal and fell without dealing any damage.
" What the… " Sebastian exclaimed as he looked shocked that the green looking soft stem was actually so powerful.
" The branch is strong, it's not easy to break it unless you set it ablaze. So Ma-, I mean Ravan, please do the honours ". Anna said as she flinched away in fear of Asiva hitting her head for accidentally almost blurting Max's name.
Although Asiva did give her the ' I'll kill you ' look she did not actually hit her as Max used a fireball spell to set the branch holding the fruit on fire.
" Mmmmzzzzz " The tree hummed as it's branch eroded to Ash and the fruit fell on the ground, small spikes appearing all over its previously smooth trunk.
" Thankfully, this dryad can't move yet, otherwise we would be in big trouble" said Anna as she bent over to pick the fruit, however, just as she was about to pick the fruit up she felt a breeze of wind brush past her as before she could grab it up the fruit had disappeared from the ground below.
" Guys it happened again! It happened again! The fruit it's gone, it's gone- I-I had just bent over to get it but it's gone from between my fingers, what's happening? " Anna said, freaking out as the rest of the group was also suddenly alarmed as to how this could happen?
All of them felt the gust of wind passing by, however, none of them could even see a shadow indicative of someone stealing the fruit fast and running away which perplexed them even more.
' Look at the floor Max, the dirt show a trail of footprints, looks like turtle feet to me ' Drax said in Max's mind as Max looked down below to find a faint trace of turtle feet like pattern on the soil.
" Guys check these footprints out, although I'm not sure if they were here before we came or if they are fresh, looks like a turtle is stealing our loot to me ". Max said as he pointed towards the ground.
" Nonono, it's clearly a tortoise Ravan, turtles don't have feet " Sebastian pointed it out
" Yununjao turtles do "
" Dafferey turtles do "
" Mavery turtles do "
Immediately Anna, Asiva and Max spoke the name of a species of turtle which had feet as Sebastian felt like crying.
" B-but if they have feet they are tortoises then… " he said sheepishly
" Also aren't turtles supposed to be slow on land? " Sebastian asked as this made no sense to him.
" It may be a ninja turtle " Max said as the other three asked together " What's a ninja turtle? "
Max sighed deeply, he forgot he was not playing Omega and the people around him were not from earth, as he said " It's a tv show from Earth, forget it you guys won't get this reference.
Anyways, we need to be more careful about our loot, we can't have it stolen away all the time ".
The other three agreed as they continued on their journey.
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/// A/N - Bonus chapter for hitting the GT target, good job everyone!
I have decided to host the riddle event for 2 weeks and will be asking riddles every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday for the next 2 weeks from 12th to 26th December.
To give the non privileged readers a chance, the riddles will be posted over discord only.
Here is the link to the server if you have not joined already.
