In the end, Jake had to spend thirty thousand coins to buy the armors that granted him the wind, electric, and ice resistance. He also wanted to buy a sword with a nice effect, but he didn't find any. So, he decided to keep saving his coins for later.
"If you guys don't have tents, we can lend you some," Clark said. "By the way, which part of the watching want to take."
"The last one is fine," Jake replied.
"Are you sure? That is the most difficult one, you know," Clark said.
"I am fully aware, and I am thankful for the tents," Jake said.
Clark's group really came prepared for the mission. Not only did they bring extra tents, but they also brought some provisions since Reptilians' meat wasn't edible. They had brought salamanders meat… it was quite spicy, so Jake liked it, and the girls sweated Bullets while they were eating.
Clark tried to liven up the mood for quite a while before some of the groups went to bed. Thanks to that, Jake realized that his teammates were quite quiet… Either they didn't have much freedom to do what they wanted during the missions, or they really didn't feel like talking with strangers.
Nevertheless, they went to sleep around nine in the evening, but Jake only sat inside his tent, and then he began to meditate. As if he would sleep soundly with a group he had just met… still, after just a couple of minutes, Jake began to hear Lana snoring. Her caution level was absolutely low… as for Louise, Jake couldn't tell if she was sleeping or not.
"Hmm… leveling up Meditation is good and all for Mana Blade, but I guess I will train flames of wrath," Jake thought.
Jake couldn't use that extra mana without making noise, after all, so meditating seemed like a waste of time when his mana was full. In any case, Jake tried to see if his dark flames could go really deep underground, but they vanished before they could even reach half a meter of depth.
"It seems while the skill has no costs, the level puts a lot of limitations," Jake thought.
As he had expected, Jake didn't manage to relax and feel sleepy during that night. While he kept training Flames of Wrath, he also kept his eyes on the dungeon, but he never saw a single monster leaving since one of the groups was fighting them inside. Three hours after the first group entered the dungeon, they left, and Clark with another two entered. Thanks to that, Jake managed to relax a little since he imagined that they wouldn't do anything rash without their leader…
Three hours later, Jake woke up the girls, and then they headed toward the dungeon and took Clark's place. Louise seemed exhausted, as if she hadn't slept. As for Lana, she was tripping on all the obstacles along the way since it looked like she was sleeping and walking at the same time. While they were going down the stairs of the dungeon, they met with ten or so reptilians, but Jake used Mana Blades to eliminate them, and Louise helped.
Once they reached the real interior of the dungeon, they found just a regular cave with numerous plants and vines covering the walls, just like the abandoned city outside…
"Sorry guys, if I make a mistake, please forgive me. I am not a morning person," Lana said.
"We don't need to advance. This place seems good enough to fight them," Jake said. "Well, I think we can take it easy now since we can use those innate skills. Feel free to get some sleep."
"All right… call me if you need some healing," Lana said and then put her back against the walls and quickly fell asleep again.
"Why don't you do the same?" Jake asked. "You didn't sleep even a little bit, right?"
"I can't seem to relax," Louise said. "Aside from their leader, that group is too quiet, and your choices surprised me."
"No pain, no gain," Jake shrugged. "If you don't take risks, you can't make quick progress. Besides, while I also agree that we need to be wary of other humans, we can't just act under the assumption that they are trying to screw with us. That has to happen at least once before we have any real reason to act like that."
Louise knew that it made sense, but now that she had experience in dealing with people that seemed too good, she couldn't help but raise her guard. Fortunately, Jake knew well how to deal with others that he didn't trust completely, and he had the steel nerves not to show that.
"So, how are you planning to proceed with them?" Louise asked.
"I am going to ask where their guild is, and then I will check the area around to see if he had told the truth about other guilds," Jake replied. "If he told the truth, then it will be safe to approach. If not, then we can pretend that we never met them. If he avoids the question and asks where we are to pick us up, that will be suspicious, and I will lie to him."
"It makes me relieved to see that you really were just acting back then… for several moments. I thought you were really considering joining their guild for no reason," Louise said and then forced a smile.
"You guys really have a low opinion of me…" Jake frowned.
After a while, they decided to focus on the monsters since Lana was sleeping and the dungeon wasn't that large. Jake hoped that they would obtain some nice items, but his guess was wrong… he only obtained crappy items, but at least he managed to master the armors he bought. He also decided to keep wearing the one that granted him resistance against electric attacks since its wild design and light green tone suited his tastes. When Jake got bored because of that, he let the Reptilians hit him with Water Balls in order to do some training where he tried to repel their attacks with Flames of Wrath.
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