"Are we there yet?" Blue asked for the umpteenth time.

"No, Blue, we are not," Hera replied, the sweat dripping from her nose.

"Can I go on Nimbus?" Blue asked.

"It's not your turn. I'm next," Alex replied in a cold tone.

"Can Daskka do the thing?" Blue asked yet again.

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! We are miserable here, and we don't need a fucking child on top of things," Bonnie snapped.

The group was now only two rooms away from their destination. After the Belly of the Beast, they went to the Obsidian Mines, a massive mine spanning around 10 million square meters. The pit itself was so deep that it took them a full day of travel just to reach the top, and they were not even at the bottom when they arrived. Then came a room with a large cliff with a beach underneath that would only appear when the tide was low called Rising Giant. After getting up from the pit, they all had to climb all the way down to cross to the room they were currently in. Red Dunes. A vast and extensive desert of red sandy dunes without a single drop of water or vegetation to be found anywhere, which made the room prime for sandstorms. To make things worse, with one exception, all the dungeons or doorways seemed hidden beneath the sands.

Currently, they were on their fourth day of travel in this room. Nimbus was almost permanently on his griffon form carrying one of the party members, while Helena called her Wasp Guard every now and then to do the same. Unfortunately, because of the dunes, they couldn't have the Sentinel carrying everyone in the makeshift sled that Adriel could make, not to mention that his drones were struggling a lot with the sands. At the moment, only the one that was his relic was active. The other two got clogged up with sand and were currently out of commission, which meant that his only drone was being used to carry everyone's stuff. Mostly the meat and rations they got from the previous rooms. If it wasn't for Hera's bottled creek, they would be in a lot of trouble, but even a party of this size wasn't able to burn through the 10 liters it would recharge every hour.

No one was happy about the situation. During the day, it was extremely hot and uncomfortable, and at night the entire place became like an icebox, forcing the group to huddle together to sleep while the blades kept watch. Hera couldn't even try to use her stone wall to make a proper cover since there was no stone around. To top it all off, Lurize had to stay in his weapon form the entire time. Because of his large body and weight, he would sink into the dunes as if it was quicksand.

To top it all off, some sand monsters could appear out of nowhere. Some would make traps like an antlion, while others were sand snakes or hydras disguised as dunes. Fighting them was relatively easy since this place was on the 10th layer, but it was annoying. To kill the monsters, they had to either destroy their core, as if they were slimes, or use spells to destroy or remove the sand fast enough so they wouldn't be able to recover. A couple of the creatures were even more annoying, being able to recover their strength by absorbing some of the sand from the ground into their bodies. Luckily, the rate at which they did that wasn't that high, but the mere concept was enough to keep the entire party on edge;

"Daskka, how is your mana?" Hera asked, ignoring Bonnie's yelling.

"I need about 10 more minutes before I'm full. I could use it now, but then it won't last as long," Daskka replied.

"That's fine. I'd rather have a break right now under the midday sun, even if it's a bit shorter," Hera looked around to see Bonnie and Blue still arguing, but she had already developed the ability to tune that out. Opening her [Explorer's Map], she looked at how far away from the doorway they should be. It was hard to tell exactly how long the trip would take, but they were getting close. The worst part was that to find this specific doorway, they had to travel on a set path that looked almost random. Instead of just moving forward from A to B, they had to make turns and go on large twisting paths that were not actually there. If it wasn't for the information Hera got from the guide of this room, a mermaid made out of sand called Aria, they would have to do something very different.

The name was a bit on the nose since it was very close to arid, and it seemed like this guide would want to talk to Hera every now and then, although the two of them didn't hit it off that well. Not because either of them said anything wrong or something like that, but there was no flow to their conversation, even if they had a specific topic to talk about. Overall it was just an odd vibe that made it seem like they wouldn't be close.

Either way, Aria told her that a mirage hid the doorway, and there were a couple of ways of breaking through that. She could go through the hard mode of a specific dungeon in hopes of getting a specific item that could remove the mirage one time. Another was to complete all the dungeons in the room within the span of a week to receive a quest that would ask them to do yet another dungeon that would only be opened for those doing that quest. Then they would receive an item that would allow them to bypass the mirage as many times as they wanted. Lastly was to travel the path of the sands that would reveal the hidden doorway instead of hiding it. Moving through the path in this specific pattern would trigger a specific kind of magic in the room that would protect them from the effect of the mirage. It was very much like a spell circle, but it wasn't a complete loop as what Hera was used to, but just a squiggly line. That made her think about how she treated spell circles and that maybe she could do something different. As the Empress was thinking about the guide, the room, and the spells, she felt a cold feeling wash over her body.

Looking to the side, she saw how everyone was covered in a light blue mist, and a pair of glowing red eyes were hovering above her, "Thanks Daskka. This feels much better."

On the first day that they started traveling through this room, the snake had that idea, and it didn't take long for her to change her giant snake form also to be made out of cold mist. Since the basis of her silver snake form was to become mist and condense her body to become tangible, all she had to do was to disperse her mana to cover a wide area.

"Water check. Everyone drink water, and let's refill. We can also take a small break," Helena called.

One by one, they downed their water and gathered around Hera for her to refill their bottles. Even if they had enough water to go around, everyone had the instinct to ration it as they were moving through the desert, and that was a dangerous thing. It was not uncommon to find people who got lost in the woods or in the desert and ended up perishing with bottles filled with water nearby.

"Oh, Hera. I just remembered. Can I take the Naga Essence today?" Shane asked when Hera finished refilling everyone's bottles.

"Yeah, sure," Hera picked a small vial and created the essence from her bracelet, "Did I drink my share?" she asked herself.

"You did not, Empress," Lurize replied right away, excited to be able to help, even if Her could check that herself by looking at the bracelet status.

"Oh ok, then," she waited for Shane to drink it so she could clean and reuse the vial for herself, but her friend froze as soon as she drank the essence.

"YES!" Shane yelled, "Finally!"

"You got a skill?" Hera asked.

"Yeah! Naga scales. I was hoping for something to do with my eyes so I could read their writing properly, but I'll take this," Shane said excitedly.

"Do you think that skill will help with the ruins? Maybe there is something related to touch there?" Hera suggested knowing that she was being way too optimistic about this.

"No clue, but I don't care. I feel closer to them now, and maybe this skill will give me a unique insight into what it was like to be a Naga. As they say, you never know someone until you walk a mile on their shoes," Shane was grinning from ear to ear.

"Please, please, please. Don't start using miles for measurement again. It took way too much effort to make you all stop using those nonsensical measures," Adriel gasped.

"Were you guys responsible for that?" Bonnie asked.

"Yes. Not us elves, but everyone inside the MAZE. Do you know how annoying it is to have to convert every single measurement because people decided to measure things with the foot of an old king? So many mistakes were made because people didn't mention if that particular project was in metric or imperial."

"Yeah, yeah, you already complained about that before. Get a new thing," Alex mumbled.

Adriel got a bit annoyed with the reply, but he didn't say anything. No one was feeling great with this heat, and walking through the sands was anything but easy. Each step would sing a few centimeters into the sands, and they had to quickly move away or risk being swallowed by the dunes. This meant that even when they were eating or drinking, they had to do something like that. The only way of having solid ground was to burn the sand to turn it into a sheet of glass and then wait around for it to cool down enough so they could climb on top. Or to get lucky and find a large boulder somewhere, which was the group's preferred way of sleeping.

Hera just shrugged and asked for the vial back before cleaning it and putting the second dose of essence on it, "Bottoms up," she said to herself and drank the Naga Essence, not expecting anything, but she could never imagine what would happen next. As soon as she swallowed the liquid, her entire body became cold. Not freezing, but just unbelievably cold. However, the temperature quickly rose, and suddenly, she felt like she wasn't under the scorching heat of the desert anymore but in a place warm and comfortable.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Quest Triggered:

Explorer's quest - Crafter Skill

You have acquired abilities that mirror that of a crafter. You may attempt the crafter role test to unlock the crafter-related skills.

To begin the quest, head to a doorway, and the option to travel to the test area will appear.

Restriction: Quest must be completed within 24 hours of arriving in the test area.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Quest Triggered:

Naga Inheritor

The Naga are a species that went extinct a long time ago. However, by developing one of their skills to the point where it becomes one with your own self, completing important tasks left by the Naga, interacting with their culture, and giving their history a chance to exist in the MAZE again, you have become a part of their culture. You are now close enough to the Naga for your ascension.

To begin the quest, head to a doorway, and the option to travel to the ascension area will appear. Inside that area, you will know more about the process.

You are able to leave the ascension area without completing the ritual.

The ascension area will remain available while you have a Naga skill at rank 6 or above and possess a legendary grade item that was made by a Naga.

There is no time limit to this quest.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"What the hell?" Hera gasped.

"What happened?" Shane asked.

"Hang on," Hera replied while opening her status window. She wanted to check one thing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Naga Poison (Rank 6)

You are able to create poison effects as they are natural extensions of your body. Your poisons can become more varied, and you can imbue different types of mana to the poison itself. The poison permeates your body, changing its temperature to maintain the optimal conditions for its production.

When attacking, you can coat the weapons you are wielding with poison at no cost to your mana.

Poison mana efficiency + 150%

Poison effectiveness + 60%

Poison resistance + 90%

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Ok… so my Naga poison got to rank 6, and I got two quests because of it," Hera replied.

"Damn, you had to one-up me," Shane teased.

"Sorry."

"No worries. What are the quests?"

"One is the crafter role quest. I guess making poison inside my body counts as crafting?" Hera turned to the group, but no one could answer her, "Either way, the next one is… Weird. It's saying that I can become the inheritor of the Naga and that by doing that quest, I can go through an ascension. I have no idea what this is all about. Does anyone know?" again, no one had answers. Hera read out loud the notification and discussed with the party what that could mean. Unfortunately, this was the first time anyone had ever heard about an ascension or something like that.

"Damn, those requirements are brutal. Not just the relic, but the rank 6 skill is awful," Shane scratched the back of her head.

"Is the skill that much of an issue? I mean, I have a couple of skills that are at rank 5 already. Rank 6 doesn't seem that far off," Blue asked.

"It is. Rank 6 is considered a milestone. Usually, it takes years to go from rank 5 to 6 unless you have some external factors helping you. To get a rank 6, you need to be able to use the skill without even thinking about it, and it can't be an accident. It has to be as natural as moving your arm, and that takes a lot of time to practice. In some cases, it is borderline impossible to do that. I mean, imagine if you have a passive like Hera's. Did you ever consciously think, 'I'm going to make Naga poison?'" Helena turned to the explorer.

"I can't say I have."

"That's my point. It's supposed to be something that becomes natural for you, but how can you do that with something that is always active? Aren't passives already on that level by default?" Helena continued, "Either way. I think you should get to that ascension area to know more about whatever you are going to do. Not to mention you should do the test right away. We don't know what we need to do to get rid of the curse you guys have, and I'm sure having more abilities and skills won't hurt."

"Not to mention, the crafter role is one of the best for us. It lets us change our relic. Also, it's not like you have much of a choice. If you refuse the test when you touch the doorway you will need to raise the skill to rank 7 to get it again," Adriel added.

Hera nodded, "I agree. So let's get moving. According to the map, we are not that far from the doorway. We should be able to get there today, and I can see what this is all about."