As Marcus and Kira approached Almond, a senior Adventurer who was already in the hall built a wooden table for twenty of them and said, “Sit here, the mystic food will be coming soon. It’ll recover you fully and get you to the best condition before the next round begins.”
“Let’s sit and talk,” Almond said as he walked towards the table.
Natalia took up the corner seat while Lily and Almond sat beside each other, with Marucs and Kira sitting across them.
“So, what I wanted to request was, how about I come with you to the 2nd floor?” Marcus asked, looking at Almond with a grin. “The four of us are at silver level 10, anyway.”
“I don’t mind,” Almond smiled. “But you’ll have to follow my schedule and help me complete it if you want to join me.”
Maya, who was sitting next to Kira, quipped in as she looked at Almond, “Sorry to interrupt, but can I partake in this meeting? I am interested in your schedule. You have powerful pets on top of being a strong combatant yourself. I am assuming you will trigger the floor boss, so I want to participate.”
“I feel the odd one out as a silver level 30 here,” Kira said, her elbows on the table and hands on her cheeks. “Anyway, you finish the discussion first, I’ll wait for my turn.”
“You won’t feel that after listening to our schedule,” Natalia snickered.
“Well,” Almond smiled. “I do want some people to speed up my work. For starters, here’s the schedule. On the 15th of December, when the labyrinth opens, I want to clear the 2nd floor by the end of that day by triggering the Floor Boss.”
“Move to the 3rd floor and also clear it by triggering the Floor Boss as soon as possible. I am going to continue until I clear the 5th floor this month alone, which means I will be entering the Labyrinth on its 2nd cycle as well.”
Lily and Natalia knew about the plan, so they did not react, but the others were dumbfounded. Continue your journey on empire
“You serious?” Kira blinked.
“Absolutely,” Lily flatly smiled.
“So you want to make multiple groups that focus on going to the important areas to get Floor Boss triggering items for you?” Maya raised her eyebrows. “Sounds good. I am in.”
“Me too,” Marcus grinned. “Sound fun. I haven’t fought the Floor Boss on the first floor, but I do want to fight them on the other floors if possible.”
“Then I guess I’ll also have a chance to fight the Floor Boss when you all come to the 4th floor,” Kira grinned. “But everyone here at silver level 30 will enter, and they plan to trigger the Floor Boss as well.”
“Good, you can do it on the first cycle,” Almond nodded. “Because it’ll be 18th December when we enter the 4th floor, which means it’d be the second cycle of the Labyrinth, and we’ll be able to trigger it again.”
Ron, who sat beside Almond and was hearing them, laughed, “Sounds good on paper, but you want to clear three floors in three days and not just want to pass the floor but trigger their floor bosses and defeat them? Sounds unrealistic. We cleared two floors the previous month but didn’t trigger the floor boss. It’s faster this way.”
“It doesn’t concern you whether we can do it or not,” Lily flatly said.
At that moment, the waiters arrived with lid-covered dishes arrived, and put them on the table one by one.
Gelato also arrived with them and said, “Rising stars, this food is enriching, made by the adventurers with mastery in their chef-related subclasses. They will increase your stats based on how you absorb them but know that this is a one-time opportunity. Stat-increasing food only works once, so better digest it and absorb its power properly.”
Everyone was surprised.
The waiters opened the lid, and all twenty dishes in front of the participants were the same—A steak with a thin leaf wrapped around it and meat juice leaking out from the cracks on the leaf.
“This steak is your first dish of this feast. It will increase your Health by up to 5 stat points if you manage to fully absorb its effect. Use Mana, process the food’s energy as you eat it, and digest it properly.”
Gelato grinned and added, “Five more dishes will arrive one by one, each one increasing one of the remaining five stats up to 5 points depending on how you absorb it. Now, go ahead and start digging this one.”
…
Everyone was careful as to how to eat the food, aside from Almond, who already had his stats peaked for the silver rank.
After finishing the steak, Gelato told them to focus on absorption, so everyone had their eyes closed as their Health stats increased.
A few minutes later, the effect was fully absorbed, and most of them increased their Health stat by four while a few of them increased it by 5.
The next batch of dishes arrived, with the effect of increasing their Mana—a soup bowl.
Everyone was focusing on the important food now, and nobody was talking much. It was very important, after all.
“Almond, you are eating a bit too leisurely, you sure you got five stat points from the steak?” Gelato raised his eyebrows as he saw Almond finishing the soup and leaning back on the chair.
“Yep. Absorbed it fully and got 5 Health points,” Almond waved his hand and burped. “The soup is also nice, very delicious.”
“If you say so…” Gelato wryly smiled. ‘The kid’s too carefree. Look at others, everyone is focused on getting the most out of this one-time opportunity.’
Gelato felt Almond was lying about getting full stats, but it didn’t concern him enough to care. It was Almond’s loss, not his.
Half an hour later, everyone finished all six dishes and got a boost in their status except for Almond.
Afterward, Gelato determined who would fight whom in the next round based on sticks again before it was finally time to start the next round for the winners.
“Ladies and gentlemen! It is finally time to start the round that will determine the top 5! The match has been decided, and here are the match-ups!”
The center hologram in the sky and the other eight holograms showed the match-ups.
Match-1
-Xavier Rozerf vs. Emma Ziken.
Match-2
-Almond Crowshade vs. Maya Himdar.
Match-3
-Ron Lexus vs. Finn Arelion.
Match-4
-Anya Fuego vs. Lily Darkwood.
Match-5
-Kira Ryugi vs. Eliara Venholm.
…
The first match began without further ado as Xavier, the Piercing Light, and Emma, the Toxin Mist, arrived at the center of the platform.
‘All or nothing,’ Xavier’s eyes were focused, and his expression extremely resolute.
As soon as the match began, Emma used her usual tactic of using her class skill to create a thick toxin mist area of 50 meters radius, covering Xavier, who was 20 meters away from her.
But Xavier had launched his attack as well, going all out with a single attack right from the start—A super fast piercing golden light tore through the mist and directly struck Emma, who failed to dodge it or defend.
*Beep!*
The arena was silent briefly before huge cheers erupted at the instant defeat of Emma!
“And this is it for the first match!” Gelato shouted. “Xavier the Piercing Light wins!”
***
[A/N: Yo, dear readers. Did you know that if this book gets 4 more reviews, I’ll publish a bonus chap, which means two more chaps today if the goal is met today? xD]