During lunch, Mana was being calmly silent despite the table being filled with heated discussion about Zurefgar and, to a certain extent, Clashing Realms. The worst part was that others purposely left the seat next to Pras empty so Mana would sit there when she returned.

It’s just that Pras wasn’t comfortable with the returning pressure from the aura of jealousy that bombarded him.

Luckily, the remaining hours at school were relatively pressure free, other than the temptation to keep glancing at Mana.

As what their group had promised each other, Pras dived in around five minutes before 7.30 PM. There he met Rushvatte who was already restless at the meeting location, Camp Wok’giri.

It was rather odd to see Rushvatte’s character - a level 38 blond handsome elf still with Eggi’s face features, leather based clothing, eyes glowing in light green, and cloak made from some animal fur - moving around the camp which only housed some orcs, rakhs, and dwarves. The camp was also a literal camp with just tents and a bonfire - which was about to die out since it was almost dawn.

“You guys are late,” Rushvatte sighed. “And how did you reach level 40 already?”

“Look at the time,” Tier defended himself with facts, “I am actually early.”

“You haven’t answered the other question.”

“Profession,” Tier shrugged.

Tier then opened his friend list and saw both Renma and Flick were online, their location was shown as Northwestern Grand Savannah. It shouldn't be too far, and they’re probably on the way towards the camp.

“So, the group division is probably gonna be two and three. Ega is definitely going for the duo group,” Tier explained as he tried to waste some time before the others arrived.

“Yeah, I’ll just follow you, man.”

“Okay, let’s defeat some minotauros while waiting.”

“Sure.”

The two started attacking the minotauros around the camp with relative ease. Despite having slots for 2 transformations, so far Rushvatte had only chosen 1 form which is a big cat in the form of a white javan tiger.

Rushvatte tends to go stealth by using [Prowl] before attacking, seeming eager to dish more damage in a shorter time. It made perfect sense considering he needed to conserve energy, which is a resource pool for mystics to use their ability. Energy is much smaller in number than MP - which is available for typical casters classes - but regenerates much faster as well.

Further, Rushvatte’s tiger form really emphasized more on damage alone without thinking much on his survivability. This caused him to take more frequent breaks to replenish his HP, as well as caused him to be more effective when facing a single target rather than multiple targets.

For that reason, Tier asked Renma to go with Rushvatte after the priest arrived much earlier than Flick. Further, with Renma’s limited play time, it’s wiser to let him go first to level up since waiting for Nubram would definitely take a lot of time.

Flick came not long after, riding on a white stallion. God knows where he got one, but Tier didn’t bother much about it other than Flick’s level that was currently 39. As a rakhs, Flick had turquoise skin, short dark wavy hair like in the real world, and rather medium sized ivory bones. The thing was, just like all of them, he had his face being applied automatically to his character. Thus Flick was an inexplicably handsome rakhs.

Without much words, they quickly attacked anything they could near the camp. As far as Tier had seen, Flick didn’t fight like Rushvatte or a typical rogue-like class that utilises stealth for surprise attacks. Even if he did use stealth, he mostly opened up a fight using disabling moves rather than high damage ones.

Flick was more keen towards heated fights. To be more exact, Flick seemed to use his moves to put his opponents at a disadvantage thus he would surely have the upper hand.

For example, when they tried to fight a human bandit near the camp. Flick ambushed them with [Cripple] to slow the target, which enabled him to have a major advantage in swiftness. He would easily evade and parry attacks with his twin axes then counter with blinding speed. On the other hand, Tier would just steadily unleash his arrows.

Fights tend to take more time compared to when he’s with Rushvatte, but Flick rarely needs to rest other than to replenish his stamina.

Both rogues and warriors use stamina as their resource. When someone uses an ability, the stamina won't be cut directly but instead they would have their stamina deplete much faster. To back them during long fights, there are abilities and items that can be used to enhance stamina replenishment rate during battles.

As far as Tier knew, Flick picked the path of Subtlety and Assault. Subtlety focuses more on the rogue’s shiftiness in battle with all sorts of tricks to manipulate people and stuff. On the other hand, Assault was more about, well… assaulting with hand to hand combat. Though, Tier suspected that Flick definitely focuses more on Assault than Subtlety which was also kinda weird since he saw guides that say people tend to focus more on Subtlety.

At least Assault suits Flick’s dual wielded axe more than Subtlety or Assasination. Similar to Tier, Flick was using a bigger version of those one handed axes due to their race’s passive ability. The intriguing thing was that Flick also brought a huge two headed axe on his back. As of the current day, Tier still didn’t know what was the usage of said weapon.

It could be a secret weapon that only rogues had slots for and Flick was just pulling a reverse psychology there. However, there was another problem Tier saw with Flick’s character. One particular custom ability.

“[Backpace]!”

Flick kicked a bandit, then used the force to somersault backwards. Unfortunately, the handsome rakhs failed to jump far enough to get a nice distance with his opponent. In turn, it created a rather golden opportunity for the bandit to attack Flick. At least he was still saved by Tier’s [Ankle Break] which Flick quickly followed up.

“What’s the use of that ability again?” Tier questioned as he shot the next bandit.

While throwing his axe at the bandit, Flick answered, “To take distance, duh, [Sleek Strike]!”

“Over here!”

He whispered once more as his body appeared behind the bandit when his axe struck. Flick quickly retrieved his axe and performed a brutal slash.

“‘[Blaze Bolt]!”

Someone else shouted, then a blue fire ball flew from behind Tier, bounced off the ground, and hit the bandit for 1960 point of damage.

“You boys wanna see something more awesome? [Backpace]!” Flick somersaulted again. While grinning like he was the most handsome stuff on the planet, he exclaimed, “Thou shalt behold, my new custom ability, [Extreme Collision]!”

What happened after that was far beyond what Tier perceived. Flick suddenly dashed very fast at his target and slashed wildy at least a dozen times from what Tier can guess from the number of noises made. At the end of the whole motion, Flick spun like a spinning top through his target.

“And that’s a giga nice custom ability, right?” Flick shook his head in arrogance, complete with a disgusting smirk.

“Show off,” grumbled Nubram, the one that threw the blue fireball earlier. Without a walking staff, the level 39 wizard walked limply approaching Tier. “Too much waste on style alone.”

Nubram had skin like a dry apple, had a bald head with clear lines of veins, and fingers like dark claws. He wore dark purple clothing with torn robes. Similar to the undead Tier had seen when choosing a race, only Nubram’s lips moved when he talked. His jaw was completely shut as if bound by a certain mechanism inside his mouth.

“On the contrary, buddy, I felt that was kinda cool.”

Said another voice that Tier remembered.

“Zackhs?”

“Hi there, old buddy,” Zackhs greeted jolly. “Apparently I could keep up with the leveling.”

Zackhs was definitely an avenger now. He wore a used and rusty plate armour that covered his entire body, including a helmet. He also wore a grey torn cloak and this time he used a two handed sword as a weapon. There was a certain eerie aura emanating from him, though not as strong as his overwhelming positivity.

“Glad I helped Nubram so now I can meet you again, and you too Flick.”

Though Zackhs and Flick happily shook hands, Tier was rather concerned with the claim mentioned. “Help Nubram with what?”

“Oh, he tried to solo an elite quite far from him.”

Zackhs answer triggered both Tier and Flick. Snorting in fury, Tier questioned Nubram, “An elite? So we are waiting here for you to attack an elite monster on your own?”

Nubram shrugged, he laughed awkwardly, “Ahahah… I thought you guys would be late and I have a mission against that thing, so I just go for it since it’s in the same direction from where I started.”

“Goddamnit, Marbun!”

Tier and Flick were really on the edge for striking Nubram right there. Unfortunately, Zackhs managed to defuse the situation and offered to help them fight against the elite that Nubram mentioned.

Therefore, after taking the missions from the camp, they journeyed southward and took down anything on their path. Especially minotauros since they had to beat around 50 of them.

They didn’t split the group and went together. Zackhs existence in the group had given a lot benefit since he could easily handle two or three minotauros at once while giving chances for the others to quickly take down the minotauros.

However, it also gave Flick too much confidence in their fighting capability. Slowly but surely a problem was apparent due to the different resources they use for skill usage. While Flick could reliably conserve stamina, both Nubram and Zackhs required MP while Tier needed to calm his instinct.

It was finally cultivated when Nubram was completely out of MP and he needed to sit down to use a recovery item. “Than, gimme a break, we need to replenish mana.”

“Whoopsie. My hands slipped.”

Flick just grinned when he threw a rock at a minotauros despite Zackhs and Nubram clearly sitting down and were using MP recovery items.

“Your friend is surely enthusiastic, buddy.”

“More like insane, Zackhs,” Tier grumbled. “You two rest first, I’ll help that idiot.”

At first, the fight against the minotauros was quite smooth. Until Flick decided to use [Backpace] right when the minotauros was charging at him.

“Akgh!”

Flick failed yet again to gain significant distance, causing the minotauros’ charge to hit him square.

“For Christ’s sake! [Winterblade]!”

Nubram decided to act before he was completely recovered by casting his custom ability. The moisture from the air had gathered around his hands, creating ice blades. The wizard swung his hand, sending five simultaneous ice blades that heavily slowed his target by freezing its limbs.

Tier used the chance to prepare [Eagle Aim] while Zackhs just dashed forward.

However, before they could do much. Tier saw weird heated rocks appear right under the Minotauros frostbitten leg, melting the ice.

Then he saw a suspicious wind whistling at the feet of the minotauros. Tier cancelled his aim, he tried to roar a warning to his friends. But he was too late.

“Argh!”

The minotaur dashed much faster than usual, shoving aside everything on its path including Tier and Zackhs who both lost more than 2300 HP in an instant.

“Toy, watch out!”

Flick’s warning was futile. An axe flew from afar and pierced Nubram’s back, forcing him to fall flat on his belly. Dark clouds gathered for a brief moment before a ferocious lightning struck the undead wizard. However, despite the great visual effect of the attack, it only hurt Nubram for 450 points.

“[Sleek Strike]! Over here!”

Without showing the slightest sign of hesitation, Flick threw his axe towards an orc that charged at them. Even when his axe was deflected, Flick still appeared at where his axe was flying to. Swiftly taking his axe, Flick commenced a spinning diagonal slash towards the attacker. Only dealing a mere 50 damage to the orc.

Tier scrambled to stand up, drew his bow, was shocked for a moment when he saw their attacker. He met the orc before.

“You really thought you could hurt me?” said Lyra. Flicks flashy movement had made him wide open, allowing Lyra to choke him with her electrified right hand.

“Racial active, [Mimic switch: Rhino]! [Insularis’ Assault].”

“[Phantom Charge]!”

Tier roared, more towards himself than the opposing side to overcome his fear. Seven poisonous arrow - each accompanied by silhouettes of green, yellow or blue viper - were released rapidly to follow up Zackhs charge towards Lyra.

“[Flame wall!]”

Yet, all the arrows were burned when Lyra slams her axe to the ground to create the literal thing of her ability name. Worse, Zackhs was also knocked back by the flaming wall, unable to help Nubram and Flick.

Tier heard the roar of minoautors from his right flank. From the sound and rumbling, Tier knew the creature was too close and he had been distracted by Lyra too much to pay attention to it.

Even [Cobra’s Maneuver] would be pointless at this point since it requires him being attacked first before he could take advantage of the slowed time. Now, he could only try to jump aside as far as he can, hoping it would be enough to avoid the full clash. At that moment, his map showed something else was closing in rapidly towards his position.

“[Soul-saving Arc]!”

The Minotauros was stopped by a light wall made from the sweeping spear of a blond female human clad in plate armour.

Tier’s heart skipped a beat as he remembered the girl was the one he saw days earlier at the entrance of Cliff Labyrinth. For a moment he wondered again if she really was the girl who saved him long ago, but then he realised that this girl might be someone he knew better recently. The name she used and her proud-yet-bored pretty face was unmistakable.

Especially when that player named Manna turned her head toward Tier and greeted, “Glad I found you, decent deskmate.”