Chapter 70: [Night in the Castle!]

[Adrian's POV!]"I wonder… mmh… how much time has passed," I stretched as I was finally done with all the planning. And with everything done, I was more or less satisfied with what I had planned.

Taking one last look at everything, I then clicked [Continue!] as the same [Normal Quest] appeared on my blue screen, telling me to protect the city.

[Kinetic Mastery!]

I then tested my new skill, wondering how good it is.

-Whoosh!

And as I moved, I felt like I was swimming in a river, along the stream. Even though the entire path was distorted with all the destruction, I felt like I was running on an empty path.

-Whoosh!

Changing the momentum, and controlling the gravity a bit, I then increased my speed as I ran at least 5 times faster than before. A smile appeared on my face as if I could reach anywhere in this world. With each step taken, I already knew where the next 10 steps were gonna be.

What should have taken 10 minutes to cross, took only a minute as I found myself standing in front of the wall of the city.

'All right. Let's first get in,' I thought as I erased my presence before jumping up the wall and entering into the city. As much as I expected, the entire city seemed dead. There was not a single soul present as far as 500 meters around me.

Jumping off the wall, I then moved towards the central castle in the city. The city was pretty wide, almost 10 kilometers in radius. Though given my increased stats and [Kinetic Mastery], somehow that distance felt like a kilometer at best, with the castle 500 meters away.

-Whoosh!

Increasing my speed even more as I pushed my skill to the limit, I tried to run as fast as I could. Creating a gust of wind around me, I ran as fast as possible, covering the entire distance in less than a minute. 54 seconds to be exact.

And as I was about to crash into the city wall, I shifted my momentum to minimum, controlling the inertia of my body, as I stopped immediately without any damage to my body. All that speed which could have squashed me against the wall, was gone. I just stood there smiling gleefully as I looked at the city gates.

'Hehe. This is fun,' I chuckled before wiping that smile from my face and looking at the giant gate in front of me.

'Hmmm. The skill said that I can walk up the walls without much problem, right?' I thought as I tried stepping up on the wall first. Even though it felt odd, when I shifted my center of gravity, and charged up my momentum, up the wall, walking somehow started becoming natural to me.

Walking up the wall, I reached the top as I saw the huge castle in front of me. That castle seemingly had three floors, with each floor being at least 50 meters high. Though the elevation was odd at places due to terrain differences.

Taking a few steps closer to the edge of the wall, I tried looking at the castle properly.

[Your [Gift: Cartography] has been upgraded by 1 Grade!]

'Oh! It was about that point as well,' I thought as I almost forgot about this. The changes were pretty similar as before, with each [Skill] increasing a bit in their aspect. The only noticeable feature was this new skill I got this time.

[Gift: Spatial Sense

Grade: C (directly proportional to the gift: Cartography)

Effect: Allows the user to have spatial awareness of anything and everything around him in a radius of 60 meters!]

'Oh. That's actually dope,' I thought as I closed my eyes first and checked out the effect of the skill. Much to my surprise, I could sense everything present around me within 60 meters around me.

Not in a sense like having a 3D map of everything around me, but more like having a real image of everything that is present. I could feel the movement of leaves against the wind, the texture of the wall, and even the interiors of the wall and stuff.

Though it would take me a bit of time to get used to that vision. Shaking my head, I then opened my eyes and then began looking at the castle in front of me.

"Now. Let's first meet my old group," I thought as I located them on the [Map!] before erasing my presence. And then jumping off the wall, I landed without taking any damage.

-Whoosh!

And within a few seconds, I was at the front gate, which was open for some reason. There were 8 guards on the front gate, 4 on each side, keenly looking at the outer gate, which was left empty for some reason.

'Hmmm, let's find things out slowly,' I thought as I entered the castle. Though, the first thing that I did there was to look back, and then try to get out of the castle.

[The gate is blocked by a Holy Energy Barrier! You do not have the key to exit the gate barrier!]

'Thought so,' I sighed before turning back into the castle, as I walked towards the direction where my old teammates were. It's about time, I put them to work.

…

[Alex's POV!]

It's been 9 days since this whole stupid world went crazy. First there were zombies, then goblins, flying monsters and here we have Vampires.

Honestly, I am tired.

At first it was interesting.

[Gift: The Heart of a Lion!

Grade: Upper Mortal Grade-3

Effects: Allows the user to set a target for himself! The harder the target the more Will required by the user to fulfill it! And if the user succeeds, the user can gain rewards based on the difficulty set by him!

Additional Effects: seaʀᴄh thё novel(F~)ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

-Growth of a Lionheart: For each task performed well, the user will get a random stat bonus between 1-5 Points.

-Will of the Brave: For each time the user shows unbroken will, one of the user's skills is randomly upgraded!

-Rule Maker: For each additional rule you add to your condition, you will gain 2% of the total rewards as soon as the task is started!]

With this Gift, I was able to kill all the zombies on my path to the third tutorial. I got some skills, some stats. It was fun.

But reality hit me hard as my entire group got wiped out against 2 E-Grade Goblins. I underestimated them at that time… I… it was devastating.

When I got to know that they were still alive in the safe zone, I took my time and went to find them. Couldn't find them all but I was able to locate some.

They cursed me to die in the next tutorial and asked me to never see them again. And when I offered them some points they spat on me before leaving from there.

I felt bad for them, but in the end Alice told me to move on as we all were naive in that situation. Nobody could have known what would happen next. And to be fair it still applies to our current situation.

'I should man up a little, huh?' I thought as I sighed as I looked at the wall of text in front of me.

[The gate is blocked by a Holy Energy Barrier! You do not have the key to exit the gate barrier!]

"Seems like our path is blocked, huh? What do you think?" Alice too observed the transparent wall in front of her before she asked the question to me.

Currently we are investigating the situation around us. And for that purpose, we decided to check out the city first. Since the front gate was guarded, the back gate should be our choice but…

"I don't know. Something feels fishy about this. First they wake us up at midnight and then that strange quest gets completed as soon as we get it. And then we were asked to get back into our room with no questions asked," I spoke out, summarizing the entire thing that happened before.

"And now they block our exit as well." Mark added as his eyes were focused on the empty garden beyond the gate.

"I can break it but… let's get some more people first. I think doing it alone could be dangerous," Alice spoke as she stared at the system message before she turned around and began walking.

Well. I had an idea of who she was talking about, but honestly I would rather work with this group than adding a bunch of girls that I am not familiar with. In fact, if there was someone that I really wanted to be in the group it would be that guy… Adrian.

'He seemed much more reliable in my opinion,' I thought before wondering what happened to that guy. Alice did mention briefly that he was in this tutorial but I never saw him.

"Alice!" And a shout came from the left wall as we paused and turned to look at. At first, we were surprised to see the person standing at a distance.

It was Luke, the guy who tried to take control over the entire tutorial.

And then I saw Alice continue walking as she ignored that guy. Since I knew the entire story, I too ignored him before beginning to walk but…

Mark took out his bow before loading it in Luke's direction. It surprised me. Did Mark hate Luke that much? Though his next words put us on guard as he spoke,

"There is something chasing behind Luke."

We observed the area closely as Luke kept running towards us. His eyes were filled with fear, and his body which seemed normal from a distance, on a closer look, was far from being in proper shape.

Luke was bleeding from his eyes and a part of arm was burnt somehow. And the worst of it? His shadow was missing right now.