Ding! Ding! Ding! Di…!

After constant dining messages Hydra was not only being thrown asunder in a pile of branches, he was now being annoyed by constant pop windows. As he was clearly too busy with his sloppy swimming techniques to worry about what those messages were he tried his absolute best. He was trying so hard that even an olympic swimmer couldn’t possibly put out such wonderful exaggerated swimming movements. Luckily although constant damage markers were bombarding Hydra there was no significant damage and it was after a few minutes of being dragged around that he finally arrived at the pathway with the orange leaves.

Being thrown in the pathway the branches that couldn’t fit fell off the side, luckily Hydra wasn’t one of those that fell with them. On the flip side Hydra wasn’t alone and when he thought of Pan he immediately started to worry, digging himself out of the ass pile of branches Hydra was able to breathe comfortably again. As he saw his freedom and not Pan’s he quickly called out to Pan.

“Pan! Where are you?!”

“Arooo Arooooroooroorororoo!”

Hydra could only hear the muffled displeased cries of his pet. Following the sounds Hydra managed to finally arrive at the location closest to Pan. Then he started to dig Pan out by grabbing the branches and throwing them off the edge, luckily because they were part of the [White Winged Tree] he wouldn’t have to worry about another [Branch Avalanche].

When Hydra managed to finally pull Pan out of the pile, he couldn’t help but take a long drawn out stare. After that stare Pan stared back and knowing what his master was thinking he cried out pitifully asking for help, as Pan did Hydra burst into laughter.

“Haha! Pan you look like a porcupine!”

At this point Hydra finally realized why he had heard the multiple dinging and windows popping up. It was because Pan was technically picking up branches, however unlike normally Pan had picked the branches up with his fur! Thus the branches had got caught on his fur and now Pan was covered in at least 50 small twigs and branches that clearly gave the perfect image of a red porcupine!

Cleaning Pan of all the branches, Hydra realized the items were actually sort of useful and decided to keep them as their description was simple and beneficial to him! These [White Winged Tree Twigs/Branches] could be used in cooking for a 100% bonus in added stats and satiety recovery! And now Hydra had stumbled upon an entire mass quantity of them!

The only issue he realized was the moment he tried to pick the rest of them up they crumbled up and broke into thousands of particles! It would seem that only something like Pan could successfully loot these items.

Just when he thought about Pan picking up the items, he realized that Pan was close to leveling before so Hydra decided to check the level on Pan!

[Lucky Three-tailed Red Panda] (pet)

level 26 1300/1300 health260/260 mana

An animal blessed with luck and because it is blessed with luck it will only follow a user with the blessing of Hesria. As loved by the Goddess Hesria it is naturally blessed with over flowing luck. While no combat capability the Red panda can pick up items randomly off the ground, new miracles can happen in unexpected situations. A pet can not be be killed indefinitely and will only require a cool down of 24 hours if its health reaches 0.

As Pan is a non-combat type pet, he can only level after picking up the required amount of items! Picking up rarer items gives more experience! (Experience: 146/150)

Through the power of [Bread Buff], Pan was able to evolve into Randa a guardian beast! However as it was a miracle on top of Pan’s loving care for his master that the Bread God bestowed these powers. However as Pan is unable to cope with the pressure of evolution at its current level, evolution has been restricted until level 50!. Combat is possible when Pan evolves, and useable skills are as follows: [Tackle], [Tail-Whip], [Growl], [Find Loot].

Innate Skill: [Sharing The Luck]

Intimacy: Max!

Mood: Currently Displeased

“What?!”

Hydra couldn’t believe his eyes! Pan had leveled 25 times in literally 3 minutes?! Hydra knew that the amount of experience gained depended on the rarity of the branches and, thus he also knew that these branches could only be obtained here! This would make them incredibly rare, as such in the description it was indeed a rare material. However it was still amazing to level up 25 times in a single attempt, even if the methods were somewhat strange, Hydra couldn’t help but be happy for his pet.

It was then as he continued to read the window that he realized that Pan had learnt a new skill! As Hydra pushed his finger on the new ability [Share The Luck] the description popped up.

Innate Skills: Upon reaching level 25, pets will start to unlock their innate abilities after every 25 levels!

[Sharing The Luck]: The Three-Tailed Lucky Panda is a creature born from the luck accumulated in the world, and now Pan can share that incredible source of luck with his master!

Luck+50.

“Well, I can’t say that disaster was so bad after all.”

However the moment Hydra started to look smug Pan in full protest mode walked up to him and to reprimand him pawed at his leg softly, while cocking his neck fully backwards. Unable to win against those big black eyes, Hydra apologized as he picked Pan up and started to pet him softly. All the discontent Pan was previously feeling had disappeared and all that was left was a pet snuggling against Hydra’s hand every time he went to pet Pan again.

It took a few minutes, but Hydra finally managed to climb over the pile of branches blocking the pathway to the next level. Even though he had to start from the beginning again Hydra wasn’t discouraged. He was tired, he was sore, but nonetheless, he made a promise. To Hydra nothing as important as a promise, no matter the risk, the stakes, he would fight against the world in order to accomplish that one promise he made.

Knowing full well how tired his body was he dragged it into the slope that bombarded him with a sudden pressure. His muscles and bones creaked with every passing step and not even a few steps in Hydra was already sweating. Although when he was running away from the avalanche the pressure seemed to disappear that wasn’t the case and now it only felt like it increased. However in the end it meant nothing, Hydra dragged his body and climbed, slowly but surely with each stepped he was closer to the top!

-------------------------

“Hah! Hah! Hah!”

A few hours later Hydra finally, managed to reach the top! However although his physique wasn’t quite affected the game it was not the same for his mentality! He was tired after each step he took had taken sheer willpower to overcome, and even though Hydra wasn’t counting he was sure he made over a 10,000 steps to reach to the final spot. However what lifted his mood was an orange window!

[table=orange]Congrats! You have passed the third trial [Trial of Will]![/table]

When Hydra looked around he noticed that there was no small pathway but he an entire floor! Covered on the walls were branches with red coloured leaves! But that wasn’t the most important part, as Hydra’s gaze shifted to the end of the room, he could see two giant white doors!

These doors were similar to the entrance doors and at this point Hydra knew that he reached the his destination, the heart of the [White Winged Tree]!

Taking a few extra breaths to calm his exhausted body, he then with Pan made his way o the doors. Upon reaching the door Hydra could see on the lock was a black circular object similar to many objects he had seen before as he thought to himself.

‘So this is why they needed me no matter what.’

As he looked towards the shadow core Hydra pulled out his [Shadow Stealer] and with a light tap, the sword absorbed the core!

Ding! [Shadow Stealer] has absorbed an [Unknown Shadow Core] and damage has increased by 4!

A pleasant bonus in increasing his damage output was definitely not something Hydra would complain about and as he was just about happily cheer out about increasing his damaged the doors flew open!

Without time to register what was happening a little girl tackled straight into Hydra, knocking him straight onto the ground where he was mounted by the little girl!

“Ahhhh! Get it off! Get it off of my please!!!!! Big brother please get this off of me!!!”

Unconsciously Hydra’s hand was already moving towards the black bug like object that the little girl was pointing towards. For some reason Hydra failed to even get a proper look at the girl before he helped her remove the bug from her arm. It was just as Hydra removed the bug that a window appeared.

Ding!

-You have successfully completed [Destroy the infection within the [White Winged tree]] quest!

“Wha-

“Yay! I’m finally free! It’s been so long I was trapped in that boring stifling room and couldn’t doing anything! I couldn’t even control my body like I wanted too! Big brother thank you!”

As the little girl happily rejoiced not allowing Hydra the time to properly take in all that happened, she hugged him tightly with no intentions on letting go. After a minute of close contact Hydra’s jaw finally closed shut as he realized that the cute platinum blonde haired girl in front was either part of the [White Winged Tree] or the tree itself! He couldn’t help but be stupefied that the quest was literally that simple once he got to the top!

However at the same time Hydra didn’t know that the trials were much more difficult for him than for anyone else, a piece of knowledge that he would never be able to find out either!

After Hydra regained some composure he broke himself away from the girl and finally managed to get a good look at her. Other than he naturally flowing hair, her puffy cheeks gave a feeling of wanting to tug on them. She had endlessly deep green eyes that sucked Hydra’s attention and if he allowed himself he could get lost in time staring inside of them. If it wasn’t for the fact that he noticed on her forehead was a leaf like symbol, he probably would willingly stared at her eyes.

Hydra picked the young girl wearing a beautiful white leaf one piece off of him and just to make sure he asked her a question.

“Young lady, might I ask who you are?”

“Sure big brother Hydra! I am [Aspa]! The [Heart of the White Winged Tree]!

“!”