Chapter 496: Sneaky Sneaky

He made sure to keep his mana and aura hidden. He didn’t want his target to run away or to know that he was coming. While he didn’t have a dedicated stealth skill, he still had a brain. He used the natural shadows and the person’s blind spot to sneak up behind them. His perception skill was really good for that sort of thing. He was able to estimate where they were looking with relatively high precision.

However, estimating where their senses were pointing was a little more difficult. However, he took the gamble that they hadn’t noticed him yet. So with great patience, he slowly crept up on them, and it was only when he was outside fifty feet that he made his move.

He knew that fifty feet was when they would notice him.

He exploded from behind the bush, using every bit of kinetic energy to close the distance. They were a second too late, and he was in front of their faces before they realized it.

“Boo!” He shouted in Aubrey’s face.

She squealed in shock, but to her credit, responded quite well. She had already prepared her skills and was throwing a fist at his face. He got out of the way just in time to avoid getting his nose crushed by her ridiculously hard crystalline skin.

When she finally realized it was him, she got even more aggressive, blasting large beams of light at him, trying to chase him down. He was laughing the entire time. It was his little bit of payback. She loved to tease him, and he wanted to get back at her.

Going off her reddened face, it looked like he succeeded.

“Julius!” She scolded him.

“Sorry, couldn’t help it,” he said with a huge smirk and walked over to her.

“Yeah, you could. You just wanted to give me a heart attack,” she grumbled.

“That too.”

“Idiot.”

“Squealer,” he retorted.

“I did not squeal.”

“Yeah, like a little piggy,” he said with a sympathetic pat on her shoulder.

Two of her clones suddenly appeared behind him and tried to tackle him, but he knew her too well. He had expected something like that and had already preemptively moved out of the way.

“Ass,” she muttered. “At least let me get some revenge.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m sure you will find a way to do that in the future.”

She smiled savagely. “You know it.”

He hid the shiver that went down his spine. Perhaps scaring her hadn’t been the best choice in hindsight. He sighed. He and his impulsiveness would get him killed one day. Most likely from one of his friends if he was being honest.

Aubrey might smother him in his sleep, and Lily might mess with his brain to “fix” him, which would probably lead to him becoming catatonic.

“Are you alone? Have you found the others yet?” He asked while looking around.

She shook her head and brushed her hair out of her face. “Not yet. I came across a few people who were very eager to team up with me, though.”

“What did you say?” He asked.

She stared at him flatly. “What do you think I told them?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you told them to get lost, or maybe you decided to kill them for asking. I never know with you,” he said with a shrug.

She swung her palm at him, and he didn’t even try to dodge it, letting her hit him. It was deserved. He did notice how much stronger her blows had become. Her physical strength had definitely improved with the training she had gotten from Marcus, Stella, and that weird, gloomy, rude guy that her mother sent over.

He told her as much.

“Thanks! I figured out that if I use my crystal defensive skill as an aid, I can send even more mana through it. It also helps me transfer power to various parts of my body with greater speed and fluidity,” she said proudly, suddenly forgetting that she was mad at him.

They ended up talking as they walked around. He learned that Aubrey had come across far fewer monsters than he had. Apparently, she even found a token hidden inside a cavern without any guardian whatsoever.

There were just a few weaker monsters who had attacked her, but that was it. Nothing like the strong gray monsters he had fought, nor any powerful greater spirits to deal with.

She was actually jealous of him. According to her, it wasn’t fair that he was hogging all of the fun. She had been walking for the past day, bored out of her mind.

“How about we go find something fun to do?” He asked her with a grin.

She grinned right back at him. “With you with me, I don’t think that is going to be a problem. And who knows, we might find the others along the way as well.”

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He didn’t know if he appreciated what she was insinuating. It almost sounded like she thought he was some kind of trouble magnet.

***

Julius could only shake his head and avoid Aubrey’s gaze as they climbed off the flying disk.

“Not a word,” he muttered as they looked at the swarm of monsters coming toward them.

“I’m not complaining. This is exactly what I wanted,” she said with a smile, but that smile dimmed slightly. “Although I wish they didn’t look so disgusting.”

He couldn’t help but agree with her. It had been less than an hour since they met up, and they were already about to face these creatures who looked like a laboratory experiment between a frog and a monkey.

Long tongues tangled out of their mouths, and they all had creepy, large eyes. While they had the body of a monkey, their skin had the texture of a slimy frog. He could tell all the way from where they were that there was some kind of nasty substance on their body. He really didn’t want to touch them.