Liam’s consciousness and body felt like it was strongly yanked, like a rollercoaster plunging down the highest point.
When he flickered open his eye, he was no longer standing on the platform, but on a circular elevation above some shrubbery.
Liam’s gaze scoured the surroundings, and his senses spread throughout the area.
The air was no longer dry, but a warm, moist humid, causing Liam’s clothes to stick to his skin.
He seemed to be in a lush jungle of sorts.
A vast canopy of giant leaves blocked out the blazing rays of sunlight, leaving only a few cracks for it to bleed through.
Insects chirped and buzzed here and there, with other various wildlife roaming all around him.
Vines and other plants hung from the branches of thick, towering trees, which almost stretched to the clouds.
Instantly, Liam noticed something strange – ‘Ora’ fluctuated and swirled all around the plant life.
Almost as if… they absorbed it—
Liam’s eye widened as the vines shot at his body!
Instantly, he unsheathed his blades and activated the first form of his martial art.
Black flames burst on Liam’s katana and wakizashi as he swung against the vines, causing them to recoil and wither.
A further inspection allowed one to see the entire jungle slightly slithering, coiling around insects and wildlife, like flies caught in a web.
Liam heaved a short sigh of relief.
‘They’re not as strong as I imagined… but they’ll target any living being. I better not get caught by them.’
With that, he began moving.
He hadn’t spotted any other participants besides himself, but his senses would pick up on a scream, tremor, or loud explosion now and again.
‘If we all spawned in different locations, some might’ve gotten lucky and already found some gems.’
The landscape surrounding the jungle was uneven and rough. There were small underground caves, large hills and flowing rivers.
As he ran, Liam’s eye picked up on a faint trail of ‘Ora’, hidden along the thick shrubbery.
‘Could it be?’ he wondered, tracing alongside the world essence.
It took him half an hour to reach the source of that trail… but a smile grew on his face when he did.
Underneath the tall ledge he was on, was a large pond, the surface of which was covered with countless lily pads. All around, lush shrubbery enclosed the space.
Right in the middle of that pond, was a White Gem – sparkling brightly with the faintest light – atop a crystal clear lily pad.
Besides that, there were dozens of Rank 3 Pond Worms wriggling beneath the water, each one 2 meters in length, with the thickness of an adult thigh.
Pond Worms were parasites.
If they managed to pierce through skin, they’d slowly devour the body from within, consuming flesh and bone with their circular maws – adorned with rows of spikey teeth.
That being said, they had no particular defense or attack skills, just incredible speed.
Liam grew pensive.
‘The Gem might break if I jump over and make a big enough splash,’ he clicked his tongue in annoyance. ‘Killing them one by one is doable, but that takes too long.’
Suddenly, Liam sensed two figures rapidly approaching from the tree line, emerging from the wall of plants.
They were a pair of young nobles, a girl and boy, just a few years older than Liam was – robes tattered and hair muddied, they looked awful.
Their skin was red and bumpy all over – some plants in the jungle were particularly poisonous, through touch, smell and consumption.
Noticing the crystal flower in the middle, their faces beamed.
“Look! We’ve found one!” the girl smiled joyously, the tears swelling in her blue eyes instantly dried.
Meanwhile, the young man looked conflicted. Some muscle could be seen under his robe, but a pensive look gave him a scholarly air.
“But, the snakes…” the young girl pouted, sneaking a glance at her boyfriend. 𝚍ｎ𝚘ｖ𝚕．𝚘𝚛𝚐
Watching silently from afar, Liam felt mildly irked with her calling Pond Worms ‘snakes’.
“Don’t worry, Jane. You already know I come from an alchemic family, don’t you?” he huffed his chest and smirked. “All you have to do to extract the gems is apply some light mental energy and ‘Ora’ to it – it’ll exit the stem by itself.”
Liam took the liberty of naming the girl ‘Curly’, due to her unkempt blonde curls, and the boy ‘Depraved’, due to his interactions.
“I’ll distract them. You go the other way and extract it then.”
Curly and Depraved exchanged a nod, before the latter started to wave his hands in the air.
Powerful gales of wind began to whir around the pond, but precisely avoided the crystal flower in the middle.
Screeches that sounded like nails scraping against a chalkboard gathered volume from beneath the pond – the worms slithered out of the water and lurched at Depraved with unreal speed.
One after the other, the young man used wind elemental spells that pushed back the worms, cutting them down and spraying the ground with blood.
Nearly all worms slithered out the pond and hissed angrily at the invading human, while Curly beamed with a devious grin.
Carefully, she produced water-made platforms to hop on towards the flower.
Before she could get two steps close, a figure fell from above, black chains wrapped around his feet – the ends of which were tied to a pair of blades stuck on the ledge he dropped from.
Liam positioned himself upright over the flower, extending his chains just the right amount in order not to hit the water.
Before Curly could utter a word, Liam’s precise mental waves and improved ‘Ora’ manipulation enveloped the Diamora Blossom.
The stem gracefully twisted around itself, before blooming into a glittering treasure.
Liam grabbed the flower with a delicate touch, putting it safely into his ring, before pulling himself back to the ledge.
“W-what?” Curly stuttered, watching incredulously, jaw dropping from shock.
Watching the vagrant thief reel himself back over the ledge, the two could only curse as they saw him running away.