The four students neared the mountain of goods.
They all had an amazed expression as they looked at the amount of wealth piled on the ground.
Errol was the first to speak.
"Just the value of these Obsidian Credits is more than a million! And there are more than a thousand inscribed items!"
There was some greed in his eyes as he kept staring at the rewards.
'This is only the reward for one layer and it is worth a ridiculous amount of money. Isn't it way too much for just three hundred rank 3 magical beasts?'
Noah thought while keeping his eyes fixed on the items.
With the exception of their value in Credits, there was nothing that really interested him.
Errol, on the other hand, neared a big metal mace with many runes on its body.
He swung it a few times and then inspected it carefully.
After a few minutes, he nodded happily and raised his head to look at the others in his group.
"No one minds if I take this?"
All three of them shrugged their shoulders, the Royal family wouldn't really care if one of two of these items were to disappear.
Also, they were all from poor environments so they could understand the need for better equipment.
Errol happily put away his new weapon and asked a question looking toward Nigel.
"So, how should we divide everything?"
Nigel answered in a calm voice.
"Let's just split it into four piles of equal dimension. Like this, the remaining space in the space-rings will be the same for all of us. We will see if we need to change this disposition in the next layers."
He was quite sure that they could clear more floors.
After all, the battle had been tough but not extremely so, they were all uninjured.
The youths split the goods equally and put everything in their black space-rings, June, Nigel, and Noah had uncaringly seized a few thousand Credits for themselves in the process.
When the pile of rewards was moved away, they noticed that a staircase had appeared in the terrain below it.
"We should all rest until we return to our peak form. When everyone is ready, we will go to the fourth layer."
The other three agreed with Nigel's plan and freely rested on the plain.
Half a day went by before all of them entered the staircase for the next floor.
They were already wielding their weapons with Noah being shirtless and they slowly moved on the steps of the stairs.
It happened the same switch of directions and they came out from the terrain of the fourth layer.
The environment was covered in white fog with faint purple shades which limited the field of view of the students to less than ten meters in every direction.
They looked at each other and nodded silently, Nigel pointed toward a direction and the others followed.
'I feel that something is looking at my mental sphere, the sensation resembles the one that I felt during the test of my nature.'
Noah thought.
He had felt that his sea of consciousness was being observed since they arrived on the floor.
However, as he thought of that, he noticed that the fog had become denser around him and that he had lost sight of his companions.
'Is this an illusion? It's impossible that I really separated from them, right?'
"Noah."
A female voice sounded from the fog and Noah's eyes broadened listening to it.
A figure moved through the fog toward his position.
Little by little, its features became clear.
Large icy-blue eyes, thin eyebrows, long black hair, it was a face that he remembered perfectly.
"Noah, you've become strong my child."
Lily appeared in front of him, her expression was one of pain and bloody tears fell from her eyes.
"Mother."
As his emotions were stirred, his mind became hazy and he unconsciously answered her.
She drew close to him and continued to speak.
"Can you save me now? Have you become strong enough to take me away?"
A bit of guilt assaulted him, he could not control his emotions as he usually did and they began to attack his mind.
"No."
He honestly answered, even though almost three years had passed from her death, he was still very far away from the power that he needed to avenge her.
Her expression became uglier and more bloody tears came out of her face.
"When will it be enough? You had many chances to take me away if you just had chosen to give up on cultivation! We could have lived a simple life, away from all these struggles for more power but you chose to leave me in the mansion! Do you know how many abuses I had to endure? Do you know what your father did to me every day? You could have stopped all of that!"
Noah lowered his head, the guilt became uncontrollable in his mind.
He had always known that if he had put his mind into it, he had a chance to take Lily away before she died.
A favor from William and a life as fugitives would have done the trick but that implied that he had to give up to any ambition regarding the cultivation world.
She wasn't his real mother, not in his mind at least, but she gave him nothing else but love.
Without a doubt, she had managed to leave a deep mark on his second life.
"If you had known, would you have given everything up for me?"
She spoke again and Noah's expression became complex.
He answered honestly.
"I don't know."
He mostly suppressed those thoughts with his constant training but as the question was asked, he had to admit that he really was conflicted about the situation.
On one hand, there was the search for power that he desired.
On the other one, the woman that gave everything up for him.
Lily touched Noah's cheek and lifted his face so that he could look at her.
Noah saw how her beauty wasn't covered even with all the blood that came out of her eyes.
"Don't worry, I forgive you. Now, just stay still."
Her hand flickered and reappeared next Noah's throat.
Before it could hit him though, Noah grabbed her arm and squeezed it in anger.