BOOM!
The moment the beam impacted the dice, a powerful explosion spread out, and it blasted Aldred and his comrades dozens of meters away. The cliff shook.
Aldred helped Mira stand up before he approached the explosion site.
The giant crater sizzled with flames and steams. At the center, a dice lay intact with no damage on its surface.
"It doesn't work."
The people heard that and gasped in disbelief. That powerful explosion was enough to kill a dozen Gold Ranks at once, yet it did nothing to the dice.
As the people were amazed by his show of power, Bartrem and the others looked at each other.
"What kind of spell chanting is that?" Mareona asked.
"The ones that give me more power."
Aldred slid down the crater and picked up the dice. He sighed as he walked to his friends.
Mareona picked the dice from his hands and read the writing.
"Maybe we should focus on the clue. What can kill the hardiest of man?"
"Powerful magic?" Aldred said.
"Powerful swords probably." Mareona said.
"The strongest debuff." Sophia slightly thud her staff to the ground.
Mira was deep in thought to think of an answer.
Mary frowned and approached the dice. She took it from Mareona's hand and then stared at the writings. "Kill the hardiest of man, the tallest of mountain, the largest of lake. It cannot be. Is the answer… Time?"
The dice glowed in bright green and it shot out mist and particles of the same color. Suddenly, Bartrem's dice shoot out the same mist and particles. The same thing happened to Mary, Mira, Sophia, Mareona, and all the soldier's dice. Maverick and his friends' dice were shining as well.
The onlookers looking at this checked their dice, but nothing happened.
Suddenly, Aldred's dice made a click sound, and the green mist enveloped their bodies, making it glow.
"What is the meaning of this?" Aldred looked at his glowing arms.
"Maybe now we can climb the cliff," Bartrem said.
Aldred summoned his undead and ordered it to climb. Just like before, the undead crawled his way up, and when he reached the twenty-meter mark, the undead did not disappear.
The audience gasped and was shocked. They were about to ask Aldred what was the answer to the riddle, but their dice clicked, and the riddle changed. This made it impossible for them to ask Aldred.
Not that they'd dare to as Aldred was the strongest here. Offending him meant certain death.
They knew because some of them saw a pair of undead monsters hunting down hundreds of adventurers.
Recalling that scene sent a shiver down their spine. They spread the news about that, and no one in the know would ever piss on Aldred.
Aldred and his friends climbed the cliff. He combusted some small flames on the wall to reduce the cold, and made the air warmer.
"Mira, Sophia. Can you do it?" Aldred asked as he wrapped the Light Formless Chain around their body.
Sophia smiled and raised her staff. "Light Weight! Sticky Grip! With this two buff, I believe Mira and I can manage."
They continued to climb under the gaze of envy and unwillingness. It was so unfair. They had the power, the wealth, and the status, and they also had the luck. These adventurers fought with all they had through gritted teeth and frozen skin to get here.
A lot of them sighed and shook their heads, trying to solve the puzzle.
When Aldred reached another cliff, he helped Mira and Sophia, then looked around. The wind was increasingly cold. With a slightly trembling hand, he combusted the ground into flames, sizzling the air with warmth.
A small ice frog leaped by Aldred's feet. Its skin was frozen solid with ice, but he was more surprised that a frog could survive in this place.
That was when the ground started shaking, and Aldred saw a gigantic ice frog in front of him. 3 meters tall with a pair of red, sinister eyes.
Everyone prepared themselves for another battle. They took their swords, shields, spears, axes.
Aldred aimed his staff. "Fire jet."
BOOM!
A large hole sizzled on the frog's chest. And it fell to its death.
[+3,155 EXP]
"Eh…"
"Come on, guys. I think we should continue this way," Aldred said as the girls followed him. He didn't bother to add it to his undead collection as the frog was too weak. He promised himself that he would only collect powerful monsters, or monsters that could effectively swarm the enemy.
The soldiers on the other hand were shocked that Aldred killed the giant frog in one shot.
"Has Aldred always been that powerful?"
The boy's power was unbelievably strong, but what they couldn't believe even more was the difference in power between Gold Ranks. Just like Aldred, they were also Gold Rank, yet how could he be so much more powerful? They also recalled how they fought off the twenty Gold Ranks bandits the other day.
If they knew that Velobra fought thirty Gold Rank by himself, they would get a heart attack.
On their way, Aldred and his team faced all kinds of weak monsters. A swarm of icenewt came. These small little creatures were only good for target practice.
Aldred raised his staff and gathered a large amount of mana on the crystal. When he felt it was enough, he tapped his right hand with it, transferring the powerful mana.
Aldred widened his stance and he stared forward where the swarm of icenewt was. His right fist punched.
A blazing flame the shape of a fist shot and enlarged before it engulfed everything in its path. The snow vaporized, the ground sizzled in heat, and the monsters could only scream before they fell off the cliff or burn to death.
He received a bunch of EXP, but he ignored them. It would be a while before he breakthroughs to another level. He wanted to send his undead to the dungeon, but the experience he got from that was far more minuscule than killing monsters in the mountain. He only had a Copper Ranked dungeon which meant the monsters inside were only at Copper Rank.
Farming in the dungeon did not make any sense anymore since he could farm Gold Rank monsters in Mount Fargon.
Aldred checked his dice, looking at it to see if it would unlock another riddle. It did not, so he continued his journey and killed all the monsters he met.
He started to get bored killing all these weaker monsters, so he summoned Bella to teach him some water element spells. Mira was a water magician as well, but she didn't have any offensive spells at all.
Aldred wondered why that was the case. All she learned was healing spells and defensive spells.
The beautiful ice magician stepped out of the black mist and transformed into her real form. She did not feel cold despite the freezing air.
"You summoned me, Master."
"Bella, can you teach me some offensive water spell?"
"What would you like to learn?"
"I want something that can cut my enemy."
Bella nodded and started to teach Aldred how to manipulate the water element. She was an ice magician, but ice magician was a subpath from the water magician, which meant she had to master the water mastery first.
After a few hours of teaching, Aldred learned a lot of things about controlling water. And he even received some skills.
[Water Razor]
-Creating a razor sharp water to cut and pierce objects.
-This ability can be shaped into many forms.
