29. Ritualist
Urgent chittering woke Alex from a deep sleep. His mind did its best to kick into gear and remember where he was and what was happening. By reflex, Alex shoved his bag to the side and stood up in a crouch, looking around the dark alcove they’d been sleeping in.
Before his sleepy brain had fully recovered, light flooded into the small cave as the door made of webs was sliced open down the middle. A spider was on the other side of the opening. It moved back to create space for them and waited patiently.
A minute went by as Alex caught up to everything that happened, and he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He grabbed his pack and ushered Val out of the room as well. Alex stretched when he stood to his full height and felt very well rested, though still sore and battered from the experiences the day before.
The spider moved its mandibles and gestured for Alex to follow as it moved off out of the central nest.
Alex looked around the large colony of Mana Spinners once more before he followed the spider. As they walked, he thought through the events that had transpired the day before. It had all happened so fast, and his body was pushed to its limit.
He’d learned a lot of valuable information from Eura, namely, that the System integration could fail, which would result in all of Earth getting fractured into “broken worlds” to be used as Rifts. This terrifying thought added a whole new level of gravity to the situation. Alex wanted to berate himself more for taking the entire situation too lightly and not approaching this with his friends.
Then, after meeting a friendly spider and killing a half dozen monsters, he’d gained six levels. While Alex was elated with that, he couldn’t help but be a bit confused. Their levels had been so much higher than his, and he’d seen two levels received for the first kill.
So why didn’t I get more levels?
He was sure that it might be dangerous to do so, but he tried to apply video game logic to the System.
Am I getting some kind of penalty because I’m not doing the work?
If that was the case, Alex couldn’t help but think that the System was actually being quite generous.
The thing that was eating away at Alex the most, though, was the reward he’d received for accepting the hidden quest. The eye and Val’s bond were the only reasons he could navigate the spider tunnels with any certainty. The spider's webs were frequent and spaced through the tunnel, and they glowed faintly in the view of his left eye, giving him the ability to tell the depth and side of the walls within the dark tunnels. His right eye was largely useless in this environment, where the only thing he could really see was the occasional movement of Val or the spider he was following.
As they walked, Alex pulled up his Status Window and was startled to note that he could see the System window in perfect clarity through both eyes. He focused on the Heavenly Eye under “Bound Items” to get more details on it as a growth item.
| Bound Items E Rank Growth Item - Heavenly Eye of the Celestial Sage Rarity: Unique Type: Ocular Enhancement This ocular enhancement replaces the eye of the wielder, granting the passive ability to perceive mana and its movement within the environment. As the wielder's control over magic increases, the clarity and strength of this vision will enhance accordingly. The Eye lets the user focus their will to reveal detailed information about items, materials, or entities through the System. The accuracy and detail of the information obtained are contingent on the wielder’s Willpower being greater than the target's, with more details accessible as the gap in Willpower widens.
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