"Umm why?" Owen wasn't sure why, maybe it was that he read too many stories where the hero loses an important fight, because he had been betrayed. He then mentally slapped himself, not only was he not some hero here to save the world from the evils that the system would bring with it, but a normal guy.

"Well, we are fine with you joining us climb to the top of the mountain, but we wanted to make sure that you won't hold us back." Peggy said quietly. It didn't make a whole ton of sense to him, but before he could think on it for too long Myra spoke up as well.

"Peggy said the half truth, we want to make sure that if you come with us, you don't have a way to kill both of us when our guard is down. Basically we don't trust you, since frankly I'd rather be stranded with a bear than some guy, but I'm slightly more willing to risk it since Peggy thinks you might be sane."

Owen both appreciated the honesty, but felt slightly offended, he held his tongue and just nodded. "I wouldn't trust a random somebody either," he said as he made it so that they could view his status page. He felt antsy as the conversation turned to silence, as both women were viewing his status. He wasn't sure where his strength would land when pared up against others.

The silence was broken when Peggy chimed in, "Why are you so... balanced?" "What do you mean?" Owen asked. He didn't feel like he was balanced, to tell the truth he felt like he was strong. "Well, most of your stats are decently well spread, but I don't know. You are decently high level compared to us, but we both have 1 or 2 stats that are higher than 10. It's impressive, but you feel weak to me."

Owen wanted to feel angry on his own behalf, but he didn't want both of them to think more poorly of him than they probably already did. So instead, he just nodded and did his best to explain. "I came across a boss monster and had to pour most of my free stats into agility, to be able to dodge or just generally do anything against it. My agility starting at 3 certainly didn't give me any benefits either."

Peggy nodded, but Myra then spoke. "You fought a boss monster as well, by yourself?" doubt had crept back into her voice, but Owen just nodded. "Yeah it's the only reason I have that Polymath's skill." Myra nodded and pointed to her breastplate.

"I got this for killing a weird snake boss in the desert area over their." "And I got this, " Peggy said pulling out an ever so slightly glowing rapier. "Everyone in our party got something, but I haven't seen anyone get a skill yet, but I guess that we've run into very few people."

Owen nodded and then waited hesitantly, but no one said anything. "I showed you mine, are you going to show me yours?" As soon as he finished speaking he wanted to bury his head into the closest tree.

And while Myra scowled at him, Peggy had a slight smile on her face but shook her head. "I need you to understand, we are on good terms now and even though I'm pretty sure you wouldn't give us too much trouble even if we were to fight. It is better for us to wait until we have reached the last goal. Then I'd be more than happy to show you my status."

She put the slightest bit of emphasis on the word status, which only made Owen feel more uncomfortable. Myra looked at him and grinned. "I don't trust you and it'll take a lot for me to trust you. Especially after you stared at my chest apologized and then went right back to staring. Even if the snake does look pretty cool."

Peggy looked between the two before scowling slightly at Owen, "Wow, very classy." Owen wasn't sure it was smart to travel with these women at all anymore. He was already being labeled as a pervert, even if it was a little bit his fault.

"Alright Owen, you're going to either have to walk next to or in front of us. If a fight starts, none of us have shields so you'll have to stick to frontline work." Myra barked out. Owen nodded and moved to the front of the group. He kept his perception as trained in on them as possible. Then they started to move towards the final goal.

*Gain a minimum of 4 levels - Completed, Gain at least 1 combat skill - Completed, and reach the rest zone at the peak of the mountain in the center of the island. 27:16:47secs.*

It was a short walk to the foot of the mountain, the whole time Owen had his perception trained in on both Myra and Peggy. They had little conversation during the walk, but all of them stopped talking completely as a system message appeared.

*You have reached the foot of the mountain, this area is considered special. As such you'll fight against a myriad of enemies in your path towards the peak. Recommended Level 5.*

All three of them took their time to read through the message before Peggy called them all together.

"Since, we will have to fight a ton of different enemies, we should come up with a strategy. Owen you have the most mana, so we will need you to hangout in front to spam that spear attack you have. If you get injured move back and another one of us will take a turn, but I think if you start us off we will have the best chances of reaching the peak quickly." Owen nodded. "I will be able to use the fully powered spear attack a total of 4 times before I'll need to recharge mana." He looked at his HP and MP menu while he spoke.

*You have 130 out of 500 health points. You have 900 out of 900 mana points.*

"I also only have 130 out of my normal 500 health points. Do we have a way to plan around that?" Both Peggy and Myra just looked at him with puzzled expression on their faces. "As long as you don't get hit by anything that will kill you immediately, that much HP should be enough to regenerate any mortal wound." Myra said, as if it was the most obvious answer.

"Really, so your answer is basically don't get hit and you'll be fine?" He was having a harder and harder time not blowing up at Myra. Peggy gave a small laugh, but waved a hand to try and calm Owen down. "We are just giving you a hard time." she said still smiling. Myra didn't look like she was joking, as she threw a poorly hidden look of confusion at Peggy.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"I have a skill that lets me transfer up to 50HP every 6 hours." With that, she gave a light flick to Owen's forehead, which instead of hurting, felt like it refreshed him slightly. He looked back at his total, surprised.

*You have 180 out of 500 health points. You have 900 out of 900 mana points.*

"Was the flick required?" He asked already knowing the answer. "Hmm probably," Peggy said, while grinning. It had been a long time since Owen had felt like he had real friends. HIs coworkers had always acted like his friends to get things from him. And he supposed that at least right now Myra and Peggy were doing close to the same thing, but they weren't trying to hide it from him. Jared had tried to hide it, though it was poorly done.

The feeling he felt was hope, as cheesy as it sounded even to him. This might be a chance to make friends that last, at least until the end of the round.

They began trudging up the foot of the mountain and a silver cloud like wall created almost a tunnel around them that guided them towards a path up the mountain. They all tried to step through it, but it was as real as a wall from home. They followed the path they were walking, making it closer and closer to the top of the mountain. Several monsters got in their path, but most of them were only level 3.

Owen was concerned though by the relative ease with which they continued their trek. The biome had had been in only had level 5 monsters at least that he had seen, never lower. He calmed down by reminding himself that the only reason was because it had been a hidden glade, which the system labeled as a challenge.

Despite the relative ease, Owen managed to gain another level, though he didn't immediately use the stat point. He wanted to be able to use it when it would matter more, but also just wanted to dump it into vitality immediately. When he had done that earlier in the day, he had immediately gained 100 more HP at his disposal. Continuing to follow the path they met with an interesting crossroads.

The path led into a cave built into the side of the mountain and the other path just continued up the trail they had already been following. Owen turned to Peggy and said "I wanna go in there and see if there are treasures." A voice echoed the same words out at the exact same time. Owen looked over to see that Myra had also turned to Peggy. Peggy just laughed, but Myra gave Owen the faintest nod of approval. "I guess since both of you want to see what's in there, we can go take a look, we still have almost a day left before the end of the challenge."

They started to explore the cave entrance and as they moved deeper, they saw a new world open up before them. Luminescent moss scaled the walls in spider web like patterns and mushrooms and fungi were everywhere. They didn't see any enemies or at least any of the creatures that they were familiar with being attacked by. The stone walls inside the cave paths that the group followed glowed a dim blue.

Owen loved it, it truly felt like he was in another world for the first time. "Have you learned anything from that Polymath skill?" Myra asked as she watched a golden and red mushroom crack and bloom a flower. Owen felt so dumb and immediately tried using his skill on the mushroom that Myra was holding.

*Bloomshroom, this mushroom grows to being a full sized mushroom that blooms into a flower when it is removed from its mycelium which can cause it to burst, launching spores everywhere, letting it begin its life cycle again. This mushroom is extremely deadly if its spores are inhaled.*

Owen ran over and stole the fungi from Myra who shouted in anger, but before she could stop him, he tossed it with all of his strength away from the group. As if it were a grenade, it exploded midair a couple meters from the group. Myra went and grabbed Owen's collar, before he could react. "What the hell was that for, are you trying to kill us?" Owen flinched back, but without saying anything, shared the system message he had gotten when using his skill.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you had done something to make it blow up." Myra gave him an awkward pat on the shoulder. "Thanks for saving my life." Owen gave a pained smile but nodded. "No problem, I had completely forgotten the skill, until you mentioned it." Peggy grinned. "Looks like we might just be able to become a team after all." They began to move forward again, slightly slower than before with a little more caution sprinkled in.

Owen began using his skill on everything that looked like it was even remotely interesting. Which them being in a new world ended up being nearly everything. After they had spent a couple hours hiking and talking about life before they had started the tutorial. The cave began to gradually open up wider and soon they were standing in front of an enormous door.

Being a door, it stood out from its surrounding, but the door itself also would've stood out among any door, Owen thought. It was decorated with every kind of precious gem Owen had ever heard of. An interestingly drawn wheel was engraved into the door, that was split into 12 different sections. Each section had an animal emblazoned into it. As he identified every animal, something began itching in the back of his mind. Monkey, rabbit, snake, horse, dog, pig, rooster, dragon, ox, goat, tiger and rat.

Owen really hadn't needed to identify all of them before realizing they were the animals in the zodiac. "Are you guys noticing what I just noticed?" Owen asked silently. He got nods in return as they all stared in wonder. Just then, the door began to creep open. It wasn't very noticeable at first, but it gathered a bit of momentum before it finished opening all the way.

The group threw caution to the wind as they saw the silvery cloud path continue into the room behind the now open door. It wound throughout what was easily identifiable as a palace. Decorations of vases, cutlery, paintings and furniture were scattered along the path as if it had been looted. Each of them had tried to grab some of the items, but the path they were following blocked off access entirely. As if it had pushed everything out of arms reach on purpose.

Owen tried identifying things with his skill as well, but his skill seemed to be blocked off by the wall as well. They continued through the palace slowly and after several minutes of seeing fortune after fortune that would have made them the envy of everyone of earth if they could grab any of it. They made it to a center room that had 12 thrones set in a semicircle at the far end of the chamber. The guided path they had been on expanded to encapsulate the thrones as well as turning into a familiar sized dome.

He was the first to realize it was approximately the same size as the one he had fought the boss in.

He called them to a halt and gesture for Peggy and Myra to come close. "Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd be willing to bet that this is a boss room." Both of the women nodded and Myra spoke up next. "Do you guys think that It will be just one enemy or 12? I don't like how this is looking to add up." Owen nodded this time. "Yeah, I'd bet it'll have more enemies than just a single boss. I wasn't able to run from a boss fight earlier, but it did give me the option as to whether to start the fight or not."

Peggy nodded. "Do you guys still want to try anyways? Cause from the looks on your faces, neither of you seem actually worried to me." Owen gave a sly grin and Myra chuckled. "Yeah, I'm not too worried, I think the 3 of us make a good enough team to give it a go. If it's a boss, we can just leave it be since it also asked us if we wanted to accept when we fought our boss. But if it's normal mobs, then it's fair game to me." She gave Owen a hard slap on the back and Peggy laughed. "Alright, let's give it a shot then."

The three walked forward into the dome and a system message popped up.

*Congratulations, You have found the hidden boss 'Herald of the Zodiac'. Fight will begin in 10 seconds.*

"Oh fuck." They all said in unison.