As the contestants approached the third challenge, almost all of them came to a complete stop right before the pool. Find exclusive stories on m_v l|e-novelhall.net
The animals seemed to refuse to step foot into the water as if they could tell it was deep enough to submerge them.
With a relatively wide gap spanning almost a third of the track, all the riders seem to be thinking of ways to overcome it.
Eventually, the lizard was the first one to make a move as they once again flew up into the air, just a few feet from the ground.
"Ha! My bet is going to win!" Mary excitedly yelled as she had already begun celebrating.
Soon, several of the contestants started hitting their animal's backs, forcing them to march into the water.
Fortunately, all of the animals were able to float on the water, slowly swimming towards the shore.
But the riders were a completely different story.
They were all holding onto their animal as if their lives depended on it, and their heads constantly submerged in and out of the water.
Just as the lizard was about to make it back to land, the giant turtle at last place finally made it to the pool challenge.
Everyone was in complete shock as the turtle seemed almost on drugs, swimming at full spread toward the other side.
From passing the horse to the second-place wolf, it soon moved past the lizard, who was still a few feet away from land.
"Damn it, I lost..."
Everyone was a little surprised by Katherine's comment until the turtle got back onto the land again.
Once again, it was back to the slow, typical turtle speed as it advanced towards the finish line.
The lizard soon passed the turtle, but with a surprise turn of twist, the lizard came to a complete stop.
"Why did the lizard stop? Why is it not going?" Mary complained as more and more animals began to catch up.
"It ran out of stamina from levitating in the air like that... It should have just swam across."
As Alex answered Mary's question, several of the animals ran past the lizard and the turtle.
It was soon coming down to the white horse, the giant cat-looking animal, and the giant grey wolf.
But to everyone's shock, the giant frog suddenly leaped into the sky before landing several feet ahead.
With the rapidly repeating jump, it soon reached first place and the finish line just a few seconds ahead of the rest.
"How! That frog can jump that far that fast? It just doesn't make sense." Sophia complained as the cat came in second.
"Too bad... Congrats, Luqing, you won the bet." Alex clapped in celebration, along with grumpy Sophia and Mary.
"Thank you..."
"Ahem, let's go to our carriage before it's gone. We got a long day ahead of us."
---
When they arrived at the transportation they were taking, they were a little surprised by how similar it looked.
The horses looked a bit like the ones they had just watched in the race, and the carriage itself looked similar to the one they used in the past.
As they got inside, they quickly realized it was the same one, with the same interior and even scratches.
"What? Do you think I'm going to buy a new carriage? I'm just going to reuse the old one we have."
"Not yet. Wait until you're mage level four, and maybe I can teach you about it."
"Okay!"
As the six of them entered the massive tent, Meiya and Luqing were surprised at its size.
They could reach side by side and even stand perfectly fine, as it almost felt like a living room rather than a tent.
"Here's your guy's sleeping place. I had someone custom-made this yesterday night."
As Katherine brought out the same mattress bed next to the one the four of them used to sleep on, they were both a little stunned.
"Thank you... Kate, how big is your dimension thing?" Meiya curiously asked again.
"It's pretty big... I had spent a lot of resources expanding it for this kind of trip.
Anyway, let's cook dinner first. I'm sure these three are starving for food right now."
"Yeah, and I wonder why..."
Alex murmured, which made Katherine blush a little, as she was the one who decided to skip lunch, thinking they could make it to Ironpeak today.
"Ahem, Luqing, Meiya, can you two look gather some wood and animals? My dimension can't bring any living thing."
"Sure."
As the two headed into the forest, Sophia and Mary turned towards Katherine, who was still removing cooking equipment.
"Mom! I'm hungry!" Mary complained.
"Be patient."
"Mom, don't you have bread in your pocket dimension?" Sophia asked as her stomach started growling.
"Fine, fine, here. Go give some to Alex, too."
"Yay!"
As Sophia and Mary excitedly accepted the bread from Katherine, Alex was all the way on the other side.
Right before him was a white horse, the one that looked familiar to the race.
But with four of them standing next to each other, it was clear it was obviously not the one from the race itself.
Instead, it was just the same species or the same family.
"Why do these horses look a little different from the other ones?" Alex murmured as he examined their body.
From the slightly spiky hair to the horse's tail having no hair, it just looked a little off compared to an actual horse.
"Alex! What are you looking at?" Sophia curiously asked as she handed him a piece of bread.
"Just the horse... Do you guys think these are horses?" Alex asked back as he started eating the bread.
"Ehh, not really. Their necks look kinda like a snake." Sophia answered.
"And the body is too skinny! It looks like it had barely eaten anything at all!" Mary added.
"That's because it hasn't eaten anything. Those horse scammers really didn't feed them well.
No wonder why we couldn't make it in a single day. They are way too exhausted."
Katherine answered as she pulled out a bunch of hay for the four horses to chew on.