“Look, there’s one for each of us!” Mary called, excited. At that moment, I shook all the doubts from my head and strode forward to reach them faster.

  She was holding small boxes that matched the color of their bracelets. They fit in the palm of one hand, so I assumed they were shards.

  And indeed, there was one for each of us.

  Mary handed me mine, and I examined it. The small wooden box was painted in both light yellow and dark black.

  At the center, a scythe was embroidered above a flying white dove. That seemed to be the symbol of my Patron god.

  I opened the box and grabbed the shard with one hand.

  Shard Skill – Electrified Aura – Rare

  You can activate the passive skill Electrified Aura at any time. The skill will cause low damage and a moderate stunning effect to any assailant a foot away from you. This skill is useful both for protecting your back and making one-on-one fights easier.

  It was a pretty good shard, so I didn’t think twice before slotting it into my shard inventory.

  The power surged through me, and I could sense the aura around me. It gave me a strange sense of power.

  My touch alone was now enough to make enemies afraid, or at least on edge. When scouting without [Shadow Step], the aura would help prevent me from being stabbed in the back.

  It wouldn’t help me against arrows or fireballs, but I guess nothing’s perfect.

  The best part about it was the face-to-face aspect. Stunning effects were already a good part of my arsenal, and if I could somehow find a weapon that could harness both light and shadow, the potential would increase immensely.

  The idea of another duel to the death against an Arahaktar had never escaped my mind. I knew it would eventually happen in the future, so this would give me an edge against a close combatant.

  What if I encountered a water-based enemy, be it a monster or another competitor? I could get close as they tried to use water against me and electrify them.

  There were some interesting possibilities with this skill, and when I discovered I could activate and deactivate it by command, I was even more satisfied.

  The others seemed as joyful as I was.

  Tress had gained an incredible skill. Now, when she was in combat or out, as soon as she set her eyes on someone and used her skill, she’d be able to track them down, even in corners. The skill would show their silhouette.

  I asked her to test it with me, to see if my invisibility would be detected by her skill, and it was.

  Scouting with her in the back would become much easier now. We now had two party members who could detect invisible or camouflaged foes.

  Elk had gained an amazing power. His skill was one of those that consumed a moderate amount of mana, and we quickly discovered that meant, at his rank, he could only use it twice before getting exhausted.

  The skill allowed him to make one of his illusions become material and capable of replicating his own skills. It wasn’t as if the illusion could freely use all his skills, but he could make a perfect illusion of himself and throw a real fireball with it instead of a fake one.

  I touched the illusion and was surprised to find it tangible.

  “I felt it,” Elk raised his eyebrows. “It was just a tingle, but I felt it.”

  “I guess you’ll have to be careful where you put the living illusions then,” I realized. “We don’t want them pierced in the heart. That’ll probably be worse than a tingle.”

  Then there was Mary’s skill, the only one we couldn’t actually test right now.

  The skill was simple and matched her other passive one.

  Half of the damage taken by her shield would return to her enemies. That could be used up to five times before entering a cooldown of a couple of hours.

  We tried to attack the shield, but we only got the normal pain of punching a wooden block. The system considered we allies and could detect we weren’t actually trying to damage her.

  Mary was pretty happy about her feat, and we were all on the same page.

  If she had that skill against the Drake, we’d probably have weakened it easier, and my hands wouldn’t need to be grated, but still, it was nice that everyone had earned an upgrade.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  It didn’t go unnoticed that I didn’t get an upgrade while my companions shared that they all had won one. For what seemed like it, I was ranked above all of them by a good margin in most of my stats.

  It was like I was an all-rounder, while Mary already had F1 Constitution, and Elk and Mary shared the same F1 in speed.

  Still, I could sense the power within me. I was much closer to a new upgrade than I was before descending the dungeon.

  The last thing we noticed was that something still waited for us inside the giant box near the rock at the center of the safe zone.

  I took my first look at it, and it indeed resembled a video game loot box. It shone with incrusted diamonds, making me shield my eyes as I got close.

  Inside the box lay a big triangular object. I grabbed it and analyzed it, knowing very well my companions were doing the same over my shoulder.

  Crafting Material – Drake Scale – Epic

  You can use crafting materials at the crafting station in any active City. Crafting materials can be turned into powerful weapons and armor and are only dropped after you defeat dungeon or tower bosses. You can also sell them in the shop.

  I took a look at the shop, and that small scale was worth ten thousand credits.

  “I’ll store this. Now, we have one more reason to find the city stone first. Maybe with the rewards for reaching it, plus the credits and the armor we’ll get from this, we’ll actually put ourselves above the others in the first tower,” I said, turning and smiling.

  The sun was almost setting; the day had passed faster than we had expected when we first woke up that morning.

  I frantically searched for Max’s position on the map and had two surprises. The first was that our position wasn’t showing on the map. Instead, a circular mark indicated the safe zone, and above it, in capital letters, I could read:

  SAFE ZONE CLAIMED – ACCESS DENIED TO EXTERNAL FORCES.

  That was both good and bad. On one hand, there was no way to know how many people were inside the safe zone, and competitors would probably avoid getting close to us. On the other hand, it was bad because people knew we were halted in place.

  Thankfully, it seemed Max had found a safe zone of his own. He had also disappeared, and a safe zone had been created close to the last location I saw him.

  There were a few groups scattered throughout the forest, but none were composed of eight members like his.

  That made me release a deep breath of relief. We had grown stronger, and our path toward the city stone wasn’t damaged. We still had a few hours ahead of the others, and the zone would only open on the seventh day, so an idea came to my mind.

  “What about a small dinner? Nothing lavish, you know. But we deserve to eat well and rest after all that,” I started.

  “Nothing lavish? Stop being so cheap, dude. We just won 6,000 credits, not counting all the other stuff we’ve already got. Let’s celebrate. I want to know if there’s pizza in the market.” Mary turned from me, sitting on the ground with Elk following her.

  “What’s pizza?” Elk asked, curious.

  Mary widened her eyes.

  “You’ve never had pizza? You’ll love it!” she said, and I could see her scrolling the shop inside her mind.

  I sat on the rock’s wall, knowing I had already lost that battle, and watched as Tress sat beside me.

  “Let them handle the food. I’ll get the drinks.”

  “What do you have in mind?” she asked, legs crossed, looking at me.

  I scrolled through the shop, searching for it, until I had the idea to think of the exact item. It wasn’t one I was familiar enough with, but the label was very clear.

  ‘IPA’ was written in large letters, so I selected two and watched as they appeared in my inventory and then in my hand.

  I opened both cans and handed one to Tress, but didn’t drink it right away.

  She examined it for a few seconds, seemed puzzled by it, and then took a sip. She made a surprised grimace, then gulped the whole thing in one go.

  I laughed at the scene, and when she finished, I clapped one hand against my thighs.

  “Yeah! You’re in the right spirit.” I gulped my own beer as fast as I could and threw the can away with a loud burp.

  She actually smiled at that.

  “Do you want me to drink another?” she asked, and I grimaced.

  “I want you to do whatever you want to do, Tress,” I replied firmly, and she nodded, her lips pressed together. The complexity of the situation bugging her mind. “You know what? Give me one drink from your place. You must have alcohol in your home.”

  “I can feel the effects of this particular drink, and yes, it reminds me of something,” she muttered, and then in the next second, she had a jar in one hand. She took a sip and gave it to me. “Don’t go all the way like you did with the beer.”

  I took a sip, and it ached on my lips. I let my mouth fill with the liquid and savored it. It was only slightly sweet, and the bitterness surpassed any other flavor. When I gulped it, it burned my throat, and I could sense it reaching my stomach.

  I felt like dying, but at the same time… I was a god.

  There was so much energy inside me that I could probably fly if I set the goal to use as many [Lightining Momentums] as I could before I reached the skies.

  I sensed the alcohol getting into my mind, conflicting with the strange rush of energy, and that paralyzed me.

  “That’s—”

  “Too much?” she asked.

  “Awesome! Elk, you need to try this!” I got up, finding the demon waiting with a slice of pepperoni pizza. I swiped it from his hand and pushed the jar against his torso.

  “Hey!” he complained as I ate the whole thing in two bites. Damn, how I was missing pizza.

  The next hours were probably the most fun we’d had since we joined the Ascension Games.

  We quickly realized the system was cleansing our drunkenness, so we started getting drunk as fast as possible, and it was more fun than it should’ve been.

  We made jokes about the dungeon run, smiling at the sluggish golems we fought or how I was extremely competitive at jumping platforms.

  I suggested a game of mimic, but on the first try, we realized we couldn’t play it as Elk tried to mimic the way an animal that only existed on his planet moved.

  When he revealed the subject of his imitation, we all fell on our backs laughing.

  I wished that moment would last forever, but as time often does, it moved beyond our control, and before we knew it, it was midnight.

  Another day had passed, and new monsters were exiting the forest and walking toward our position.

  And these freaks made the Necromancers look like small fries.