Chapter 118: Sleep

Alex looked around the room once again. It was bare and nothing interesting was around before but now, the room seemed to have a simple bed at the corner of the room and some furniture. Alex, a tiny bit shocked by what he saw walked up to the bed and slowly put his hands on the bed sheets. 'It's an actual bed, and it doesn't look too bad… Hell, this is better than what I had in my old apartment.' He thought as he slowly sat on the bed. 

Alex didn't know how much time he had to rest so he just lied on the bed, he didn't want to believe that this was all real. He had this thought at the back of his head telling him that it was all a trick. But Alex shook his head looked at the ceiling, 'I'm already tired, the healing potions and healing skill have healed my body physically but my mind is exhausted. My stamina had to be drained countless times as well as my mana only to be regenerated by the potions. Because of this, my mind is just all over the place and confused.'

Alex sighed, "I guess that there is always some drawback to everything. Using too many healing potions and mana potions caused my brain to just want rest." Alex continued to lie down, thinking about the last two challenges. Both of them seemed to be challenging something specific about him. "The first one was testing my control over my own impulses… that woman must have been my actual biological mother so I felt some connection to her… He used the fact that I've always wanted to meet my parents against me to lower my guards but I kept on and I acted quickly, taking down the fakes… I was so close to giving in to it as well but I guess being betrayed once made me judge these situations." He laughed a slight hint of sadness in his eyes. 

"The next was a very weird challenge. But I guess it was trying to test my intelligence… I was sure to lose that battle but I got lucky and heard how healing worked the day before… If not for that, I wouldn't have figured out how to take those creatures down. I guess luck was a factor to win that battle as well and I got really lucky." Alex smiled. He looked around the room and saw nothing. Alex felt like he had been thinking for a few hours but he didn't have the ability to check his actual time. 

'I guess It is an actual resting break for me… My health and mana are properly regenerating and I'm feeling really sleepy right now.' Alex, without even properly realizing it fell into a deep sleep. 

A small hum echoed in his room as he slept. A small voice spoke, "This one is an interesting one, isn't it? Blessed, yet still so powerless… I wonder how far it can go." It was a high pitched female voice. Another voice replied, "It seems like we will find out soon. If It does win us, then I have nothing to say but we were wrong in doubting it from how it looked… However, We're never wrong when it comes to this, are we?" A deeper female voice chuckled.

The initial voice laughed, "Indeed, We have gone through thousands of contesters over such a long amount of time but never has any of them even been close to winning… It might be set up so that the enemies are close to how strong you are but strength is the last thing that wins this challenge…" The second voice followed up, "indeed, strength is the last thing that is needed. Well, we can only wait and see if this is the chosen one for us. The blessed one, we shall await." The voice laughed and dispersed. After their voices disappeared, The hums started to get louder. 

Alex however, didn't notice a thing. He didn't hear anything in his sleep, his mind and body were very tired. An unknown amount of time passed, Alex slowly woke up. He looked around to see that he was in the same room. He got up and walked around and saw that nothing had changed, "I wonder how long I was asleep. It must have been some time because I've never felt this energized after waking up before…" He said to himself as he walked around some home. He looked at his body and saw no change but he did feel a lot lighter. His head was also a lot clearer. Alex felt happier knowing that he was in good shape now and he knew that he could be ready for the next challenge.

Alex's clothes were drenched in sweat, the heat had been causing Alex to sweat non stop. He took a deep breath and sighed, "if we go deeper, it might cause a problem… According to his words, I have two more challenges after the one I was about to do… so 3 challenges left? That's a lot, if the heat increases as I do more, It might actually be a huge problem." 

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Mary walked into the rooms within the barracks with a stern face. She looked into rooms and the kitchen and checked around the entire place. 'I have to act like I'm actually watching them but this is just boring… But this will let me ask them for their documents, I'll just have to check who went out of the barrack in the last few days. They will be among the suspects…'

She went into the main hallway and sat down, 'Other than that, I don't have anything else to go by right now… questioning is also another good way but I think Oj will have more luck finding any culprits than me… This is just a plain old barrack.' Mary continued her investigation. She wanted to find some form of clues or anything that could lead her to the emp grenades.