Chapter 208

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"Perfect. It's not on that map, but there's a small village on our way if we take a quick detour. I recommend we stop there for the night."

While Arie speaks about this mysterious village, I stare down at the clear crystal ball in my left hand.

The blue text from earlier still glows over it in my mind's eye...

[Use Advanced Mana Manipulation]

Advanced Perk: [Temporary Minion]

Enter Desired Level: 0-423

[YES][NO]

Maria looks over at me while my gaze stays glued to the palm-sized sphere gem. I finally raise my head as she speaks up.

"Looks like there was at least one item drop from the boss!"

The blond-haired ice user reaches into her item box, pulling out the black fragments of broken core from our earlier defeated golems.

The moment they touch the air, the black crystal fragments begin dissolving into nothingness. I activate my perception skill to watch the tiny mana particles disperse into the air.

I drop my sword into the sand and do the same, while my other teammates check their item boxes too. All of the black fragments of cores dissolve before our eyes.

All that remains is the empty clear crystal core from the boss. I turn it over in my hand a few times, then look up to my teammates.

"Well, at least we got something out of the first break. Mind if I hold onto this core?"

I get a reply of 3 simultaneous nods, then Arie starts looking out into the desert again.

"1 down, 5 to go. Let's start moving before it gets too late."

I throw the core into my item storage while putting my sword and armor back into the item box around my waist. Later, I'll have to take a closer look at this new item.

We venture further into the open desert wasteland.

The mountains far off in the distance seem to get larger with every step we take. The further in we get, the farther away they seem.

All of the abandoned twisting roads and remains of human-made structures are now non-existent this far out in the desert.

They were much more common closer to the wall.

We travel straight ahead for 2 full hours.

Maria and I follow Abby and the archer as they take the lead up front. All of us continuously drink from my water supply, but with the heavy sun above forcing sweat from our pores, each new bottle never seems like enough.

It's a good thing I have over a 60-day supply of food and water on me. For the 4 of us, it should be more than enough to last the week.

Arie speaks up as we take another break under one of the few light brown rock structures left in the rapidly flattening desert plane we walk across.

"I know it's far, but we're almost a quarter of the way through."

I choke on my water, looking up at him while sitting on the sandy ground under a shady portion of cover.

"A quarter of the way through?? We've been walking for hours-"

He smiles.

"They don't call these the sun-scorched flats for nothing. It'll get even hotter once we get to the center. Don't worry though, it'll be worth it."

Once we continue, Abby and I take turns creating barriers of stone above the four of our heads to block out the incredibly hot sun.

The MP used is minimal compared to the energy exertion it'd take to handle this heat.

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