Chapter 476: A Little Snack

Julius listened to the sounds of the battle behind him and noticed that the guy with the shield was quickly being overwhelmed by the redhead’s superior speed. It was quite clear that the two had joined up for a reason, and while Julius felt somewhat guilty for putting the guy in that situation, there was also the fact that the woman in the trees was ready to swoop in whenever she wanted to.

He would be lying if he said that it didn’t affect his decision. He would rather have the woman be much more cautious when there were multiple people involved, rather than letting her try to do something when it was almost over.

He let them be as he continued his way to the small lake, making sure that he kept an open eye for people or monsters lurking about. As it had just been proven, there were still plenty of people around, even if the secret realm was supposedly massive.

He smiled when he spotted the woman finally making her move when the redhead got the better of the shield-bearing warrior. She had clearly decided that the redhead was a larger threat of the two and stepped in when he was about to be overwhelmed.

Honestly, it was a good strategy. The shield warrior had enough juice to keep on fighting, but there was no way he would be able to fight the archer woman afterward. He didn’t have much of a chance to win, and he didn’t seem to be very fast, which made escaping a low possibility.

Julius nodded his head in admiration when he saw the woman activate several skills. He could tell right away that they were either really advanced rare skills or epic-ranked skills. They packed a punch, and a storm of arrows swarmed the redhead.

A large dome of fire appeared around him and vaporized the arrows, which were made of mana. However, Julius could tell right away that this used a lot of mana and aura. He suspected that this was the same technique the guy had used earlier. The same one that Julius had detected from so far away. The monster might have ambushed him, and he had been forced to use it to protect himself.

The woman kept up the relentless assault. She must have observed something from the redhead’s fight, because she didn’t let him move an inch. He was forced to focus entirely on defense. He was constantly blocking or rolling on the ground, evading dozens of arrows. He was forced to use that dome of flame a few times whenever he was caught in an uncomfortable situation. She was trying to wear him out, and it was working.

Then, when he was finally showing signs of wariness, she started to add more powerful singular attacks into the mix. These arrows were much more potent and had a lot more mana than the other ones. She kept on hammering him over and over.

Julius suspected he would have already moved away by now, but the redhead was staying near the monster’s body. There was some green glow emitting from the corpse, and they likely believed it to be a token or some kind of treasure. He clearly wasn’t willing to give it up to the archer, and so he persisted.

Julius, on the other hand, was quite happy as he strolled over to the treeline and spotted the lake with his own eyes.

He smiled in amazement when he saw the sparkling blue water. It was like small sapphire gems were scattered across the surface, and before he could stop himself, he rushed over like an excited child. Before he could even think about whether the water was dangerous, he got on his knees and took a big gulp of the crystal clear water.

The moment it hit his tongue, an electrifying sensation rushed throughout his body. It was like being zapped by Derek’s lightning, but in a good way. He unconsciously moaned at the refreshing feeling.

The water was much colder than he would have expected. It was ice-cold, but what was even more interesting was that the water possessed some mysterious properties. He could feel his mana suddenly recover all the way back to full. He hadn’t used all that much, but the increase was noticeable. It wasn’t too shocking since the water contained a shit ton of mana, but the way it seamlessly regenerated his mana pool was.

On top of that, it wasn’t like a usual mana potion. This mana he had gained felt just like his own. There was no real need to infuse his own will into it; it automatically transformed into the perfect mana.

There were also other healing properties. It wasn’t quite as potent as a healing potion, but there was a rejuvenation effect. He didn’t really need it since he constantly used a little bit of [Phoenix Renewal] and Drasil was continually feeding Julius any of his residual mana, but it was still nice either way.

He was tempted to bottle up the entire lake and stick it in his ring to sell. They were not explicitly told about any limit on the amount of treasures they could return with. The main issue was that if you “died,” you wouldn’t be able to take anything with you.

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You either had to survive until the end of the week or complete the trial and leave early. There was also a unique feature where, upon someone’s death, the treasures they had collected would reappear somewhere else.

This caused many people who entered the secret realm, looking for treasures, to hide for the entire week rather than proceeding to the final stage and deciding that it wasn’t worth the risk of dying and losing the treasure.

Julius firmly believed that there was definitely a hidden consequence to this type of strategy. He couldn’t imagine the Empire would incentivize people to burrow themselves in a mountain until the end of the second stage.