Noah watched the mace arc through the air, completing a few rotations before it made contact with the branch he had singled out. He was worried for a second, as his aim had been off by a few inches, causing the branch to violently jerk instead of landing a direct hit as he had intended. Thankfully, the weight of the mace was enough to give the delicately balanced box a slight nudge.

A loud crash from below that Noah resembling the sound of rotten wood splintering proved that his worries were for naught. Or maybe, they were only beginning, as he had practically sent out a flare broadcasting his location to both other challengers and monsters alike.

Before he'd begun climbing, Liam had told him to memorize the sequence of branches he'd taken on the way up, to make the descent easier. Since he'd climbed them once before, he had a rough idea of the structure and the grip the branches provided and knew for a fact that they were stable enough to support his weight. The testing was already done on the way up, so he didn't need to be as cautious on the way down.

When the branches were clustered close enough, Noah simply stepped past one after the other while keeping one hand on the tree's bark for support. When the drop was too much, he wedged his hands between the tree's bark and clambered down to the next branch. He was completely focused on the task, systematically scaling down the tree as fast as he could because he knew that his life was on the line.

Finally, he reached the lowest hanging branch. Noah tightly gripped it with both of his hands, and let his body dangle from the branch. Only his upper body strength kept him tethered to the branch, as Noah intended to reduce the distance between himself and the earth before entering a state of freefall.

A few seconds later, once he had mentally composed himself to brace for impact, he let go of the branch. The drop was only a few meters as he was falling at standing height, but he didn't want to end up with an ankle sprain and end up being a sitting duck, so extra precautions weren't uncalled for.

Noah landed with a thud, and despite his efforts to stay standing, he ended up falling flat on his buttocks. His ankles and knees hurt a bit, but the pain subsided a few moments later. Guess the extra points in Constitution did do something after all.

As he fumbled around in an effort to get back on his feet, his gaze landed on a pair of pitch-black boots that silently lay in the middle of wooden debris. Still slightly disoriented by the fall, he placed both his hands on the ground and pushed against it, while his feet supported the motion and allowed him to stand up.

Instead of acting rashly, Noah took the time to access his inventory and summon his one-handed sword. Only after that did he moved towards the boots, seeking to claim his rightful reward.

Boots of Minor Stealth, Common

Muffles the sound of footsteps while traversing on land.

+5% increase in sprinting speed

5% less stamina consumed while sprinting

Noah skimmed through the item description. While it was a common item, he was far from disappointed. In this dense forest terrain, with dead leaves and branches littered all over the place, making less noise while moving would be a definite advantage. Though he didn't know how effective the noise reduction would be, considering the boots were only common rarity. He wondered if he had just gotten lucky, or the crate contained items relevant to the terrain within the grid.

Either way, that was a minor detail he could clarify with Liam later on. He had been walking around barefoot all this while, and boots that were viable in this terrain were a godsend for his sore feet. Though he suspected that the 2 points he'd put into constitution staved off any minor cuts or bruises that should've popped up as he climbed the tree.

He quickly swapped to his swanky new pair, while looking around and keeping his ears open for any threatening sounds. Just as he was fully kitted out and about to leave, he heard the sound of loud footsteps headed in his direction from the North.

"Look kid, don't panic at what I'm about to tell you. Three goblin skirmishers are headed right for you from the front. To your right, don't look there, behind that thicket is a man lying in ambush. I've opened a telepathic channel between us for the next 10 minutes, so as long as you don't try and shield your thoughts from me I can hear them." Liam explained as fast as he could, though his voice remained steady throughout the dialogue.

Noah felt like a bucket of ice-cold water had been dumped over him, and it took all the willpower he had to not immediately tilt his head towards his would-be assailant's position.

"What should I do!?" Noah asked as he found himself in a situation well beyond his capabilities to handle.

"For now kid, loosen the grip on your sword or you'll crack your wrist swinging that thing" Liam replied in a lackadaisical tone, which ended up having a calming effect on Noah instead. As long as Liam could still joke around, there was definitely a way out of this situation.

"I can only detect enemies within a very limited radius, and only if they display killing intent towards you. So, I'd venture a guess that this wanker was drawn in by the loud crash earlier, and chose to conceal himself the moment he arrived. Then, he saw you descend that gargantuan tree and pick up those unique looking boots as if you were taking a walk in the park, so he's wary of directly attacking." Liam explained the reasoning behind his conjecture in a calm voice.

"..." Noah didn't say anything, knowing Liam would continue.

"But those boots you picked up are quite clearly a reward from the Tower, and you definitely have a few other secrets hidden in your inventory.... is what he's probably thinking. That's enough to kill for in this new world kid, get used to it. But he's a little rat, so he won't attack until he sees an opportunity that has the lowest risk to him personally. So for now, just pretend as if you didn't notice anything and be ready to dodge at my call" Liam instructed Noah, just as the first skirmisher came into Noah's field of view.