Chapter 300: Crossing the Dark Sea (1)
Chapter 298
ONE WEEK LATER!
So far, the group had already spent a week in Hill Valley, hunting and taking down beast after beast.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing during these days for them, though.
They received grievous injuries here and there.
Most times, Ray didn’t come out unscathed.
But at the end of the day, they usually prevailed.
Most times, their traps failed.
Sometimes, the beasts were intelligent enough to feel the wrongness in the ground, therefore avoiding the lasso.
Other times, immediately after taking down one King-rank beast, they would be ambushed by another, which always pushed them to their limits and almost claimed their lives.
If it wasn’t for lady luck shining on them here and there, they would have been dead by now.
But at the end of the day, they were alive while the beasts were dead.
And in the process, Ray had managed to gather six King-rank and fourteen Advanced-rank cores too.
During the past week, they only took a day off to rest from all the hunting to eat and then do their own thing.
System-wise, Ray had already leveled up.
[Level: 19]
[EXP: 6000/ 19,000]
[END: 78]
[PER: 62]
[Stat points: 4]
He was getting closer to level thirty now.
Just eleven more levels and he would be forced to evolve.
Maybe this wasn’t so bad after all.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t gained any new skills, which made him sad, but he was still calm regardless.
The amount of resources he had already gathered in this valley was immense.
If he managed to get back to the human world and sold these cores, he would have a lot of money.
Also, if he could grow this strong in the Hill Valley in such a short time, what would the other areas of this world give to him too?
Also... Trisha and Chloe had already reached their bottleneck in terms of meta-force.
So, they would have to wait till they got back to the human world to search for the skill books for the next grade so they could continue to grow stronger.
Since she had already reached her limit, there was now no more need for Trisha to continue hunting King-rank beasts, hence they just settled for Advanced-rank beasts.
Getting skill books or the next grade book for their ability would cost a lot of credits.
If they could have more cores with them, they could either trade or sell them and have the necessary money they sought to grow stronger, hence they didn’t stop.
Today was just like any other day, with Ray punching an Earth Shaker, sending it crashing into a hill with its head cracked open.
Wiping the beads of sweat off his face, he sighed and looked up while hearing the sound of a sword rapidly colliding with scythes before Trisha finally defeated the beast.
Their boots had long run out of gas, hence they just became normal footwear for them.
"What are you thinking about?" Chloe asked as she rummaged through the dead beasts for their cores.
"Van, Kai, and the others that got sucked into the gate. I wonder where they are. I feel like we have spent a lot of time here. We need to get a move on and regroup with the others as soon as possible."
Chloe pulled out a core from the beast in front of her, then nodded.
"I agree. Staying here isn’t benefiting us anymore. And we need to leave this place."
She thought for a second,
"But how? There’s a sea surrounding this valley, and I don’t know about you both, but looking at it gives me the creeps that I can’t explain." She shuddered, thinking about the water.
Ray had been thinking of a way to get out of the Hill Valley for days.
Chloe was right; there was something about the dark sea that made him unsettled.
Was it perhaps because even the King-rank beasts avoided it?
Or because his Thermal Vision was snatched when he tried gazing at the sea with it?
But how could they escape without crossing the sea?
At night, it seemed dormant and calm.
He could testify because he had plummeted into it the first time he landed in this world, and nothing attacked him.
But during the day, the sea seemed to be so active that no beasts could even dare approach it.
So it would seem that at night would be the best time to cross it, right?
Well, it would have been that simple if nighttime wasn’t the exact time all the King-rank beasts were seemingly active for whatever reasons best known to them.
How were they to navigate tons of King-rank beasts to get to the sea unscathed?
That was a mountainous task to handle.
He knew that; Trisha too knew.
So at day then? Since all King-rank beasts would be slumbering?
But at that time, they would have to face the dark sea and whatever was making the King-rank beasts avoid it at that time.
The whole situation was scary and confusing, as no time nor day was safe for them to escape.
So how were they to regroup with the others?
Were they doomed to just rot away in this valley while worrying for their fellow Aspirants’ lives?
That was if they were even alive at the moment.
’No.’ Shaking his head, Ray steeled himself.
’Van would be alive. Kai too. They should be.’
Trisha heaved a sigh, then rose up after cleaning her blade and sheathing it.
"We will cross the dark sea. The worst time to cross is during the night. We aren’t strong enough to handle a single King-rank beast efficiently, talk more of hundreds."
Ray turned toward her with a raised brow.
"Huh? Are you saying...?"
"Yes. We will have to cross during the day. We have no choice in this matter."
Ray frowned.
"Can’t you feel how weird that thing is at the moment? Are you saying we will have to traverse it? That could be suicide!"
Trisha thought for several seconds.
"Yes. We will cross. Besides, it’s just a sea."
Ray was about to retort when Trisha interrupted with a thoughtful look.
"But for that, we will need a boat."
