The portal dumped them back in the storage room where they entered the dungeon. Aiden cursed internally since he forgot that it was pitch black in here and he could barely see. Quickly drinking a Night vision potion he looked around. The portal leading to the dungeon was still there so they could go back in and do it again if they truly wished. The room was clear of any ant’s for the moment so he took a peek outside into the tunnel.
Both way’s seemed to be clear for now so he called out to Vicky and they went left choosing to go back the way they came from before. They sprinted at a steady pace as quietly as they could to not draw the monsters attention lest the break open another hole in the wall and start coming after them. Aiden wasn't that worried about it tho because unless the ant’s somehow tripled in levels they weren’t really a threat to them anymore, more of a nuisance.
Even killing them wasn’t really worth it from a time management stand point. If they were still at level 10 then they would be giving less then 100 essence per kill. He would need to kill over a hundred of them to hit the next level and he was already 3/4th’s of the way there. Although if they kept coming at him anyway he wouldn’t say no to free essence, he really wanted to hit lvl 25 and unlock his second class.
After a few minutes they started to run into solitary ant’s and where there is one there will soon be many. They sped up the pace a bit with Aiden leading the way hacking away at the monsters in their path. One slash of his new sword was enough to kill any of the ant’s in their way and they were making good progress.
The ant’s kept multiplying and eventually the party swapped places so Aiden could rest a bit. With Victoria now in front she swatted away at any ants and if there were too many to go forward she would cast Flame Cyclone into them and they would continue on. She had to drink 3 medium grade Mana potions to keep it up but it was working.
Once Victoria noticed the door that led to the train tunnel she signaled Aiden and they headed inside to catch their breath. After shutting the door behind them they both sat down for a few minutes with Victoria buying a few more Mana potions.
They were already more then half way to the exit. Victoria never felt like she had now. If this was still the old world she would be the equivalent to an army all by herself. No one would be able to stop her unless they dropped a bomb on her and even then it would probably depend on the size of the bomb.
It was a surreal feeling and she wondered how such a thing was even possible. The system yes, but how? Was it just because that’s how Mana worked? did they still look the same on a cellular level? She had too many questions and no real way to get answers.
One thing she did know was that she enjoyed the feeling it gave her. She wondered if the foreign energy was effecting her thinking since she never really considered that this type of life would be enjoyable before. It might be becasue she felt needed and respected now, with the way the other survivors had treated her back in the town.
When she was younger and even into her early adult years, people would make fun of her because she couldn’t talk. It always made her a little sad that people could be so prejudiced. That was one of the reasons why she liked Aiden so much. He just didn’t care. He even mentioned to her once that if she were to go through an Evolution from F to E rank it might fix her vocal cords and she would be able to speak again.
Victoria honestly didn’t know how to feel about such a possibility. It had been years since she had spoken last and she had gotten used to not being able to. Did she really even want to have her voice back? ‘Yes, It would be nice to be able to speak to people without having to rely on signing or writing things down. I wonder what my voice would even sound like? It’s been so long I don’t even remember what it was like before.’ Either way, even if that wasn’t the case she would be fine with it.
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Once they were ready to move again She once again took the lead. When Aiden opened the door she cast Flame Cyclone just passed the doorway, incinerating the awaiting ant’s. They quickly ran through once the flames died down enough and continued as before. She could see the door to where they spent the night a week previous and Aiden shouted that he wanted to go get his Mana lamp back.
Victoria rolled her eyes but complied and held the tunnel while he ran in and fetched it. When they reached the opening in the wall that presumable led to the hive Victoria cast two Cyclones one after another inside it and kept running. A second later Aiden whooped behind her saying he hit level 25. She smiled wondering what his second class would be, then started to think of what she would choose.
She had no idea. probably not a mage class since her current Battle Healer provided enough Int and Wis to be effective. The spell scroll they found with Flame Cyclone was also really all she felt she needed in terms of offensive magic. Although if she did chose a mage class she would be doubling down on those stats and presumably be a more effective caster. ‘I’ll ask Aiden about it later, he would probably know what would be best for me to get.’
They ran for another two minutes until they were back in the train tunnel. They closed the doors behind them and proceeded to the entrance of the tunnel. Aiden bought some paint and a brush in the shop, using them to write a message on the wall at the entrance of the tunnel. ‘Danger. Tunnel is caved in. Hive of monster ant’s inside’ He smiled and shrugged “You never know it might save some people from the kind of situation we just went through.”
They still had another 3 hours till nightfall, plenty of time to make it back to Eden with their increased speed, so they started to run back at a slightly quickened pace. It felt Invigorating to be back outside and not in cramped tunnels or caves. The forest seemed even more alive then before, with many new plants and animals everywhere. The tree’s seemed a little bigger too. She couldn’t really tell, but Aiden had mentioned it while they ran.
Victoria tested out her new ability's a little, now that they were out in the open an out of danger. She tried a jump, trying to measure just how high she could go. She couldnt really measure accurately right now but she though it was close to 6 feet in height? which cast speculation on how stats actually worked.
Her previous thought was that if you doubled your stats you would double their effectivness, but it seemed that wasnt the case, otherwise she would have been able to jump much higher. She wasnt sure of the math but it seemed like doubling you stats from 5 to 10 gave somewhere between a 20% to 35% increase in effectivness.
They managed to make it back about an hour later just before 6 pm. They went up to the gate and were let inside by an excited woman Victoria recognized as one of the ones that was held captive. They were soon mobbed by many people, too many, and it quickly became apparent that the Town population had expanded quite a bit since they were gone.
The tired pair were ushered in to the Community Hall and Victoria found herself sitting between Margaret and Lily writing to them about their impromptu adventure. Aiden was on the other side of the table talking to Cassandra and three others that were with her.
After they had eaten and talked to the others a bit with Aiden accepting all the new members in to the Guardians they excused themselves with her boyfriend letting everyone know that they were extremely worn out from their journey and wanted to take a bath and finally sleep in a bed.
Once in their room they quickly stripped out of their clothes and ran a bath. Once Victoria settled into it there was only one word to describe it. Heavenly. The warm almost scalding water felt so nice on her weary body she nearly fell asleep then and there.
Done with the bath they both changed into comfortable night clothes and settled into bed. Victoria knew tonight she would be ravishing her boyfriend for all he was worth. They hadn’t really done anything physical yet besides washing each other in the bath but that would change tonight.
With what she hoped was a seductive smile she crawled towards Aiden across the bed trying to look as sexy as possible. He raised his eyebrows in surprise but was more then happy to humor her it seemed, and they were soon ensconced in their sheets and exploring the physical aspect of their budding relationship.