Almond told Lily about the secret area’s rewards as the duo continued, with Almond leading Argamon in the direction of the secret area.
“You said you reached the 30th floor fast, right? How old were you?” Lily curiously asked.
“Twenty-four complete when I reached there, I think. But I’d need more memories to confirm.”
“Cool,” Lily smiled.
“Would you have felt weird if I was an old man?” Almond asked with a chuckle.
“I’d have felt a bit weird briefly, but that wouldn’t have changed anything about our current status, my daarling~” Lily smiled and kissed him.
…
They arrived near the end of this forest soon and saw an Icy Mountain’s base, which marked the beginning of Tempestcall Tengu’s area.
The secret area was buried in the snow and hard to detect unless one dug through it.
But there was a hint there on the icy stones in the surroundings.
There were no monsters here, so there was no chance of fighting, but the party that was friends with Almond’s party had a conflict with another party and mistakenly destroyed a particular icy stone.
Upon its destruction, that hidden passage deep within the snow was revealed.
This escalated the conflict, and it resulted in the annihilation of the enemy party, while four out of six members of the party that belonged to Almond’s friend also died.
That friend had told Almond about it, and then those two survivors joined Almond’s party and entered this area.
Almond told the entire story about how this was discovered to Lily.
“So where’s that stone? You haven’t seen it, so we have to destroy all the stones here, right?” Lily asked as he looked at the icy stones at the base.
“Yeah, the passage was here, so let’s destroy the icy stones here.”
The duo began destroying the stones, and in just a few minutes, they triggered the secret passage’s opening.
The cave entrance appeared at the mountain’s base.
Before entering, Almond summoned Infernal Knight, Dark Pope, Nyssara, and Viperfiend.
“Once we enter, close this entrance with snow and you all explore this forest in the west and east directions, kill monsters, and level up. When you reach Gold level 40, wait here for us.”
“Understood, my lord. Good luck in your journey.”
…
Lily and Almond entered the cavern, with Lily appearing a bit thrilled.
“We’ll be doing our first challenge,” Lily smiled. “We’ve skipped all repeatable challenges on other floors and rushed, but I guess you want to do them now.”
“Yep. The challenges from the 2nd floor to the 4th floor aren’t much, but from the 5th floor onwards, some challenges give interesting rewards. Of course, we’ll only aim for the one-time challenges. Repeatable challenges aren’t worth it unless we are talking about the ones that appear on the 9th floor and onward. They give stat-boosting fruits.”
“Haha, I am excited since you have all the information up to the 10th Floor now and will get more info after you clear more floors,” Lily said with a giddy grin.
Repeatable challenges didn’t mean that one person could do it multiple times. It means that even if one party or person completed it, it would stay open for other people to complete and get rewards.
However, one-time challenges were different. Once a party or a person cleared it, it would disappear. However, their difficulty was also high, and it often forced some conditions onto the challengers.
But their rewards were super extraordinary and mystical, more often than not, they were not physical rewards but mystical stuff.
The one Almond and Lily entered gave a reward called Synthesis Forge of Eternal Power. They couldn’t take it with them, but this forge would appear there, and both of them could use it one time each…for something wonderful.
As Almond and Lily entered the cavern and walked thirty meters into the passage that curved after fifteen meters, they arrived inside a cavern with icicle stalactites on the ceiling thirty meters high.
At the center of this cavern was a solid stone circular platform with eccentric patterns carved over it.
As the duo arrived there and stood on the platform, a magical window with a misty orange-black aura appeared in front of them, displaying texts.
[Here lies the challenge of Delfer Tol’ Zemek, the master of weapon arts.]
-Requirement: Gold-rank.
-Task: Defeat Delfer Tol’ Zemek’s Avatar.
-Applied Conditions:
—> All class skills will be sealed.
—> Your skills that can be released through your weapons or enchanting the weapon will work, but the other skills will be sealed.
—> Equipment and items are prohibited. But you can choose a weapon from the challenge.
—> The difficulty will go up depending on the number of party members.
-Reward(s):
—> One use of Synthesis Forge of Eternal Power to each party member.
Almond’s eyes trembled as the brutal memories of this challenge surfaced in his mind, his heartbeat racing.
Lily sensed it and grabbed his hand, and she managed to understand why he felt that way as well after reading the third applied condition.
“The eight of us entered here in my past life…” Almond muttered as he had calmed down and sighed. “And only I left this cave alive. It was also then that I decided that I wouldn’t team up with anyone and trained like a maniac alone, getting stronger on my own. I only maintained relations with seniors to learn and get stronger.”
“I will not leave you alone,” Lily looked at him with resolve, her grip on his hand tightening. “That will never happen.”
Almond gently smiled and nodded, “I believe you. I believe in your talent and potential.”
“And I’ll make sure that your trust in me is not in vain,” Lily said, her eyes blazing with maddening resolve, “I will keep up with you even if that means I have to go through hells and purgatories.”
Almond felt his heart ablaze at her words as he grinned and couldn’t hold himself from kissing her passionately.
Both of them were drowned in the fiery passion of promise until they ran out of breath a few minutes later.
“Let’s start the challenge now,” Almond said as he took a deep breath.
“But darling, you lit a fire in me with that kissing session that will require you to douse it…” Lily said as she licked her lips, her right hand sliding down as it touched Almond’s crotch area, “Look, you’re also stiff…”
Without saying anything, Almond popped out Magic Tent from his storage ring and carried Lily inside.
…
Twenty minutes later, the duo emerged in new adventurer clothes and began the challenge.