Noticing his expression, Eliana smiled, "You don't need to fight them."
She then took out a grayish metallic ball and gave it to Max.
"This is the black beetles' favorite mineral. Use this and lure them away. I'll handle the rest." Explained Eliana and then asked, "You can do this much, right?"
Max took the metallic ball and looked at her with raised brows, "Yes. However, are you sure you can handle two three-star beasts?"
"Yes. You don't have to worry about me?" Eliana nodded with a confident look.
"Okay." Max shrugged and then asked, "We aren't going to attack now, are we?" It was already night, and their vision was restricted, while black beetles wouldn't have any problem at night since they were nocturnal creatures.
"No, we will take action after sunrise." Eliana shook her head. She then walked toward a flat area on the hill, took out a bed, and said, "You can find someplace to sleep on this hill. There isn't any danger here."
Max looked at her for a moment and walked away. He found a flat surface a few meters away and took a Mattress out of his spatial bag to sleep on.
As he lay on it, he smelt an intoxicating fragrance from the mattress. It was Anna's. She had been using this mattress before moving in with him.
"Aren't you going to cultivate before sleeping?" Eliana's voice sounded.
"No. I'm worn out after sitting on your bird. I'll be sleeping now." Max shook his head and closed his eyes.
Eliana looked at him with a frown and murmured, "Such a lazy guy. I hope he can complete his task without causing me any problems."
"Don't worry about it." Max's voice sounded, which caused her to almost jump up in surprise. She hadn't expected his senses to be so strong.
This also caused her opinion of him to improve a bit. She then sat on the bed and started meditating. On the other hand, Max had fallen asleep in just a few minutes.
...
Chu! Chu!
In the morning, Max woke up after hearing the chirps of Eliana's sparrow.
"You are awake." Eliana glanced toward him. She was feeding her 'Little purple' some fruits. She then said, "We will be taking action in one hour. Get ready."
"Okay." Max yawned as he stood up and stored the mattress.
After one hour, Max and Eliana sat on the little purple and flew a few dozen more miles into the desert.
A rocky hill appeared in sight. Eliana pointed at it and said, "That's the lair of those beetles."
They then landed in front of the hill. A cave was dug out in the hard rocks, which was the entrance to the lair of black beetles.
Eliana stored her pet sparrow and said, "I'm going to hide while you lure them out of the cave. Okay."
"What if those three-star beetles also came after me?" Max asked.
"They won't. This piece of mineral isn't too attractive for three-star beetles." She shook her head. "Go. You need to stall them for around only around five minutes." Saying this, she moved away from the cave entrance and hid behind some rocks.
Max looked at the cave solemnly, took a deep breath, and entered it without making any sound.
The cave wasn't too big and had a downward slope. After walking for a minute, he saw at least a few hundred black metallic-looking beetles lying on both sides of the cave or more like a tunnel.
The smaller ones were half a meter large and were most in number, while the bigger ones were a little more than one meter large and numbered only two or three dozen.
He could faintly see the figures of two beetles, more than three meters in size, at the end of the cave.
He let out a breath after seeing that all of them were sleeping and controlled his breathing in case he woke them up.
After that, he took a few steps back and brought out the metal ball.
Hu~
When the metal ball appeared in his hand, all one-star and two-star beetles seemed to sense it, opened their eyes, and looked toward him.
Max's breathing almost stopped after being stared at by so many beasts simultaneously. He unconsciously took one more step back.
Clatter~
Noticing him move, all the beetles stood up on their fours and ran toward him, making clattering sounds.
Whoosh!
Seeing this, orange-colored Mana enveloped his feet, and he shot out of the cave like a bullet.
Eliana saw him run out of the cave, followed by a swarm of countless black beetles. As she noticed his speed, she paused. 'This guy...'
After Max and the beetles had gone more than a mile away, she charged into the cave.
...
Max turned around and noticed that the distance between him and the beetles was increasing. Due to this, some one-star ones had stopped chasing him and turned back to return to the cave.
'If this continues, all of them will lose the motivation and return to the cave.'
Thinking this, he stopped using his three-star Mana and ran at sixty percent of his Maximum speed. This made two-star beetles close the distance, and one-star ones also used their all to close the gap.
When the distance between them was only one hundred meters, he increased his speed and continued to run. Very quickly, they had run for twenty miles.
By now, most of the one-star beetles had stopped chasing and turned back, while two-star ones also realized that they wouldn't be able to catch up, so they also stopped and started retreating.
"It's been more than five minutes. She should be done by now." Max murmured as he watched the beetles go back.
'I should kill a few two-star ones to sell their cores later.' He thought and raised his hand, and his three-star Mana surged out.
A few dozen fiery arrows materialized and then shot toward the group of two-star beetles.
