"Hmm, fire resistance? Do I even need such a skill when I have the defense attribute?" Gustav muttered while holding his chin.

He felt this must have been because of the fire but he was somehow opposed to getting this skill since he had defense already and defense reduced the damage from the heatwave the last time he went against the solar worms.

​​

Gustav decided to check out the details on fire resistance. Its explanation would determine if it was useful or not.

He opened the system interface and went straight to skills and abilities before focusing his eyes on Fire resistance.

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»Fire resistance: Level 1

(Ability: Immunity to all high temperature attacks for five seconds)

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Gustav stared at the notification with a look of surprise.

"It isn't actually useless," He muttered with a look of astonishment.

He remembered that defense only reduced the damage of the high temperature within the surroundings but didn't make him immune while this one had the ability to make him immune from high-level temperature attacks.

"This looks too good to be true," Gustav muttered with a low tone. Even though it could only last for five seconds, with his high stats he could activate numerous times.

"Oh wait... Doesn't the system always put some kind of limitations on these kinds of abilities," Gustav recalled that the system did this to abilities that seemed too powerful.

"I should figure out what this one is before I use it in a battle," Gustav said and proceeded to activate it.

[Fire resistance has been activated]

[-100 EP]

[5 Seconds]

He couldn't feel any different after activating it but he was certain that fire wouldn't hurt him right now so he wasn't bothered.

"Hmm, it has a high energy deduction but still I should be able to activate it more than fifteen times so it's not very limited," Gustav wondered if the system made a mistake or something.

[4 Seconds]

He couldn't understand why the system wouldn't put a higher kind of restriction on such a powerful ability.

[3 Seconds]

Once the timer had finished counting down he understood why.

[0 Seconds]

[Fire resistance has been deactivated]

[Fire Resistance has been placed on a one hour cool down]

"What the...? A one-hour cooldown?" Gustav stared at the notification with a look of surprise

He knew what a cool down meant but he wasn't expecting this since none of his abilities had cooldowns.

"A really big limitation... That means this ability can only be useful at specific times," Gustav held his chin with a thoughtful gaze displayed on his face.

After thinking about it for a few more seconds, Gustav closed the system interface.

He stared at the information regarding the failed side quest next.

"Save everyone... Hmm..." Gustav muttered with a crestfallen look.

He already had a feeling that the side quest had something to do with this and he wasn't wrong.

Gustav kept reading the rest of the messages.

"Looks like it only shows if they're punishments for failing a quest now rather than the rewards but there's seems to be no punishment for failing the side quest this time," Gustav noted.

After he finished checking this notification, Gustav contemplated on a few more things before going to sleep.

----

-Three days later

The last two days had been really eventful for Gustav.

He infiltrated the border twice after coming back before patrolling the neighborhood in the night.

Although no mixed-breeds had appeared in the neighborhood, Gustav's last two days were interesting nonetheless.

He infiltrated the border from the east the day after training Angy.

He made contact with some pretty interesting mixed-breeds.

Unlike the west side where the first mixed-breeds he met moved in groups, most of the ones he met here moved solo.

This made it easier for him to gather more EXP. He didn't try to use the explosion from the absorbed energy of the border this time since he was still learning the energy technique he got from the system.

Also since this was the same part of the border where the bunny mixed-breed he killed the other time appeared from, Gustav decided to tread with caution.

He didn't want to alarm whatever was responsible for the happenings so he investigated while farming lots of EXPs.

He wasn't able to gather any useful information in the past two days since no mixed-breed appeared in the neighborhood but he was able to farm a large number of EXP.

He had the chance to do this due to most mixedbreeds moving solo.

Still, the credits he gathered were far from being enough to purchase lots of things in the system shop but he decided to keep amassing credits in the meantime.

There was something he noticed though although he had no idea if he was just seeing things or not.

For a split second when he was fighting against a gigantic frog, he made use of God eyes and noticed a reddish human silhouette in one of the trees nearby but the next time he checked he couldn't find anything like that.

He felt it was probably his senses playing tricks on him.

Gustav was hoping he might find some energy crystals to absorb like the last time but he found nothing like that.

The border on this side seemed to be very different. A few of the mixed-breeds still moved in groups and had a turf of their own yet nothing like energy crystals could be found.

Gustav felt he must have gotten lucky.

Right now he was in school and it was noon.

He was contemplating about which part on the map he should visit next after infiltrating the border once again today.

The sound of the automatic buzzer rang out, signaling that it was time for break.

The students walked out of their classes and headed towards the cafeteria.

Gustav also headed out. Ever since the incident three days ago, the school had to call in a new set of chefs that prepared food on the go.

These were the kind of chefs that traveled about in their vehicles, cooked within, and sold food but these types were reliable. They had been selling food in the cafeteria while the old chefs were now on some kind of probation.

"Gustav."

A female voice called out to him when he was about to enter the cafeteria.