Alexander stepped in front of the tower where Aurora’s signal was coming from. It had taken him a long time to take care of everything else and get here.

But no matter where he looked, he was not able to find any trace of his party members.

[User alert. Presence of strong abysmal magic detected.

Scanning....Presence of a Trial detected. Would the user like to take part in the ongoing trial?]

Alexander gave his system a look of betrayal. But he couldn’t blame it for the problem he had run into.

Alexander could feel the strong magic spells that had been used all over the emergency tower. The caster had been strong to make all this possible.

Had he been alone, Alexander would have risked trying to clear out the spells and head inside the tower. But if Aurora had chosen to take the trial then it meant that this was not optional.

That was the only reason Alexander did not hesitate to walk into the darkness and instantly found himself inside an emerald cave.

The space around Alexander felt like an abyss but he was sure this was not the real abyss. This must be a place that was created by the trial spell with the help of the abyss magic.historical

“Let’s see. The first thing I should do is to find those other three and..”

Alexander paused as he heard his voice. It sounded deeper and his body felt weaker than he was used to as well.

He quickly took out a metallic plate in his inventory and looked over his face.

Much to his shock, he looked a few years older and skinnier. He had no idea what kind of curse or magic was capable of doing this but Alexander had a bad feeling about it.

“I need to find those three and I need to hurry up. I hate feeling vulnerable like this.”

Alexander quickly opened his map to look where the rest of his party was. Only to stop short as soon as he noticed Rita heading his way at a really fast speed.

Alexander had a bad feeling about his current position and he was proven right as soon as Rita emerged from the cave she had been in.

And she was far from alone. She had a gigantic water-snake chasing after her.

“Rita, what did you do?”

Alexander cried out before he started running as well. He was not capable of taking on such a challenge in his current state and he had no idea what was going on around him either.

“You? What are you doing here? No, let’s talk about that later. For now, let’s run.”

===========================

Rita had a plan she wanted to follow. She had chosen a relatively harmless water monster as her target and she was ready to make it follow her.

Rita had a small bait ball in hand to get the monster out and then attack. She had calculated everything and then fired her magic as soon as she felt the monster come near.

But fate had other ideas for her since she didn’t hit the intended monster but the boss of the lake instead.

“Fuck. I knew I should have looked for a monster much further than the boss cave.”

But even as Rita admitted that fact, she had no other choice but to head for the boss’s room. The other hoards were either too far away or too weak to be of any use to Rita.

She quickly took the route she had planned and entered the emerald room. It was the room just before the boss and would lead her to the cargo bay.

“Rita, what did you do?”

Rita thought she was hallucinating for a second as she heard the familiar voice. But it did turn out to be Alexander.

The man looked a little older than Rita remembered him being and he felt really weak to her senses. She was not sure why he had come here in such a condition but Rita did not want to see him die.

“You? What are you doing here? No, let’s talk about that later. For now, let’s run.”

Rita quickly fired off a spell to get the Leviathan’s attack off track. It barely made a dent but the fang did miss the duo.

“Hurry, this way. We need a way to make him break the surface.”

Rita quickly summarised the situation. There was not much time for sitting around and talking about the plan.

“That is easy for you to say. If I stop then I will die.”

Aurora did not disagree with Alexander on this topic. His weak magical aura did make it seem like he would be killed off if even the smallest of pressure was exerted over him.

But that also gave Rita another idea.

“Alexander, take the right turn at the junction. If the boss doesn’t follow you then try to make the ceiling cave in.”

Rita was sure that the beast would only follow her if she flared her aura. If even she was having trouble sensing Alexnader then the beast must not be able to follow him as well.

“Is my aura that weak?”

Alexander caught up fast on Rita’s thoughts and he looked disgusted to know the plan. But he did not disagree with Rita.

At the next junction, the Leviathan followed after Rita and the pair finally got their chance to drag the boss out into the open.

Alexander quickly fired off the explosives he was used to carrying around and the ceiling came crashing down on top of the huge beast.

The beast thrashed around in agony. Its huge head snapped toward the ceiling and it cried out in pain.

But it did not take it long to follow along the cracked ceiling and smack into it. The Leviathan didn’t have much of a brain and it could not figure out Rita’s plan.

And when it finally broke the surface did Rita breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, the monster was out in the open.

“So, are you going to tell me the status report now? Or do I need to guess what we need to do to pass this trial?”

Rita gathered her thoughts and gave out the smaller version of events. But Alexander was pretty much caught up on things once Rita finished explaining them.

“I understand. All we need to do is to get the ‘Mystic Pearl, right? I’ll see what I can do about it.”

Rita did not try to stop the man. Their plan had already gone off-trail as soon as the boss had decided to follow after Rita. things could not get any worse than this.