Chapter 175 - Undead World ( 1 )

'Right… I remember now.'

Cyril sighed as soon as he saw Melody. It's probably due to their genes as Melody's beauty stands out the most within the room.

Although Valerie is quite stunning as well, Melody's charisma is on a different level.

It is probably inherited from their family's genes.

Now that Cyril saw this lady, it seems that Karen is copying her older sister's style or makeup.

'Ehem… I wonder what really happened to this woman… Karen only showed her pictures before and said that she left her. Did she actually die or did she abandon her sister for some other reason?'

Cyril wasn't sure but he knows that something will happen to this woman that would make her abandon her only sister.

Melody is currently in her battle uniform and based on her light armor, it seems that she's adept at close combat.

She glanced at Cyril after noticing his stare and smiled sweetly.

Cyril gently nodded to hide his embarrassment as he listened to Arvid again.

'Right, I'm no longer connected to them. I decided to forget that vicious woman. It was my fault for not being good at judging people. If I didn't blindly follow Karen's words, I wouldn't be in such danger in the first place.'

Cyril sighed as he recalled again how Karen betrayed him. He wanted to forget this part of his life since he felt that he was so pathetic at that time.

Being controlled by a woman is just him being too weak. It's something he didn't like to remember as much as possible.

However, after seeing Melody, all his sweet and sad memories of him being together with Karen resurfaced in his mind.

Cyril sighed as he shook his head to focus on Arvid's words.

He learned that only 10 people can use the Entrance Crystal at the same time.

Aside from that, the Undead World they are about to head into has three places where they could use as a safe zone. These safe zones can also be used to return to the human world which is quite reassuring.

Of course, the scouts only managed to survey half of the tomb, so it's possible that there are more safe zones further in.

Anyway, based on their calculations, this Arcane World can be completed by a group of C-Rank and a few B-Rank Awakened to deal with the world boss.

In short, Cyril's presence as an A-Rank Awakened isn't really necessary. However, they thought that Cyril is still too inexperienced so they wanted him to work a bit harder. Especially, how he rarely joins an Arcane Exploration.

He would almost not join them if not for the monthly quota or the SRE included in the contract.

This is the reason why no one was really surprised that an A-Rank Awakened would join their exploration.

After the briefing, Arvid and Valerie went outside to discuss a few things about the exploration and allowed the nine Explorers to talk with each other before going inside.

They started introducing themselves and it was led by the members of the Sword Trance Team.

Well, if they performed really well, they might be able to invite these few people who are at a higher rank than them, after all.

Anyway, Cyril was mostly interested in the two B-Rank Awakened.

"You can call me Melody. B-Rank. I've only explored a mid-class Arcane World about nine times. Most of my experience is at low-class Arcane World… I'm using an Enchanted Spear in combat..."

"I'm Del… B-Rank. I have only entered a mid-class Arcane World twice and perhaps about twenty low-class Arcane World. So I don't have much experience. I'm using a gauntlet as my weapon."

Del is a man who appears to be only a bit older than Cyril. He's perhaps 20 or 21 years old, not too far from his age.

"Haha! Don't fool us, Del! Those two mid-class explorations you mentioned lasted for five weeks each!"

"Right, that's already considered an incredible experience. Most exploration only lasted within a day to ensure the stable mentality of the explorers."

"That's true. This will probably happen in our exploration today as well. Once we secure a safe zone deeper in the tomb, we'll probably go out to take a rest and return here..."

The members of the Sword Trance seem to know Del as they comfortably spoke with him.

On the other hand, the two other C-Rank Awakened unaffiliated with the Sword Trance are actually people that Cyril knows!

They are the siblings Eron and Evalia whom he met in his "first" Arcane World Exploration led by the late Freymann, Axel, and Allan who all died during exploration to find a Bead Artifact.

Nevertheless, what Cyril noticed about their introduction is that they've already made 20 Mid-Class Arcane Exploration and over 80 Low-Class Arcane Exploration!

This is quite an impressive count considering that it has only been a few months ever since they Awakened!

Cyril can only guess that they've included the explorations they completed under their clan's supervision.

Anyway, Melody doesn't seem to like chatting with them since after she introduced herself, she remained quiet and listened to the others.

"I'm Cyril… I've only explored less than 10 Arcane Worlds in the past few months. I'm A-Rank Awakened as you all know. I'm using a sword as my main weapon." Cyril said as he looked at everyone.

Then, Eron and Evalia shared their experiences about their explorations inside a few low-class Undead Worlds.

They shared how they fought against Zombies, Skeleton Warriors, Skeleton Mages, Banshees, and Wraiths.

After about ten more minutes of chatting, Arvid finally returned bringing a stash of items.

"Since we're entering an Undead World, it's obvious that we needed some Blessed or Holy Artifacts. You can purchase them using your contribution points. As for the members of our Sword Trance team, they already have theirs so these Artifacts are you guys who don't have them yet."

He then took out pair of white gloves with a magic array pattern on its palm and showed them to everyone.

[ Shaman Gloves ]

[ Rank-C Artifact ]

[ Skills: Death Energy Protection ( Passive ), Corruption Resistance ( Passive ) ]

[ Durability: 100/100 ]

[ Remarks: Effective against Ghouls and Zombies infection. ]

"I need 380 Contribution Points for each of these gloves. If you don't have them yet, we will just deduct it to the points you'll get after completing the exploration."

Arvid explained to everyone.

However, all of them have enough points. In truth, the 380 points are quite an expensive Artifact.

It must be remembered how Cyril traded his Rank-B Centaur Long Sword for 600 Points when he needed to have 9000 CP.

Rank-F Artifacts can be traded for 15 to 40 CP.

Rank-E Artifacts for 41 to 80 CP.

Rank-D Artifacts for 81 to 120 CP.

Rank-C Artifacts for 121 to 400 CP.

Rank-B Artifacts for 401 to 1000 CP.

Finally, Rank-A Artifacts for 1,001 and above.

Luckily, Cyril still has enough CP after participating a few times in an exploration. Aside from that, he has never gone to see Grandma Thea exchange his points ever since he made a transaction to her after all.

He still has about 600 Points that he could use whenever he needed.

After everyone got their gloves, they immediately left to enter the Undead World.

'Unfortunately, I can't wear my Death Knight's left glove at the same time. Well, they have complete opposite attributes so it can't be helped.'

Cyril wryly smiled as he can only keep it inside his storage space.

Soon, everyone arrived at the Entrance Crystal room. Everything has been prepared and they just needed to enter.

"Let's get in!"

Arvid led the entry as he put the tip of his finger on the purple crystal at the center of the white room.

Whoosh~

He was followed by the four other members of the Sword Trance team. Seeing this, they no longer hesitated and did the same.

"Hmm? What's going on?"

Cyril frowned as soon as he entered the poorly lit Tomb. He seemed to be in a huge tunnel with a few glowing crystals lighting up his way.

Nevertheless, it wasn't enough for him.

Today, he brought several night vision potions with him so he decided to quickly pull one out from his storage.

He didn't hesitate on doing this since he already noticed that no one was around. His teammates who are supposedly beside him was nowhere to be seen.

This is obviously different from what Arvid had discussed a few minutes ago.

Gulp!

After swallowing the cold and bitter potion, the potion's mysterious energy ran through his eyes allowing him to see a whole lot better.

"This looks better than I expected." Cyril commented after noticing how neatly constructed this tunnel was.

"Ugh… Anyway, how did I get separated? Or is it the same for everyone?" Cyril sighed as he was unsure what was going on.

"Xagan… Do you have an idea?"

"One day, Contractor." Xagan replied using their mind connection.

"Tsk… Never mind, I'll find the answer myself. Since it's not expensive, it should be easy to figure it out."

Cyril said as he looked at the dark tunnel in front of him with a grim look.