CHAPTER 81: THE PEACEFUL DAYS

The next few days were rather peaceful for Leon, but it didn’t mean that he took rest. Instead, he worked even harder and was busy every single second of the day.

After learning of the schemes, he once again realized just how weak he was and how terrible this world truly was. Even if he didn’t count the Corruption, humans themselves were also a very big threat.

But he didn’t think too much about his enemies. They were far too strong, so thinking about them would only hinder his progress. It was just as Amber had said.

He only needed to focus on getting stronger, because at this point he was nothing more than a pawn in the chess game of big players like Jade Cross. If he wanted to escape this fate, then he needed to become strong enough to change the board itself.

And that’s what he did for the rest of his vacation, along with spending time with his mother.

He had taken the talk of mental health very seriously, as he understood the dangers of this world more than anyone else. So, spending time with his mother was just one of the ways he found to boost the well-being his mental health.

That became the reason for his pause in hunting monsters inside the Dungeon. He wanted to get stronger and he needed those kills, but much more than that, he needed to find a method of going back to the real world without dying.

Leon knew very well that these repeated deaths would eventually lead to his actual death in the real world if he kept going this way. So, he chose to focus on finding the root of the problem and the solution for it.

He started with trying to sleep since that was the only thing that had led to his previous exit. However, it didn’t work this time even though he tried a lot of different poses. After all, if there were Runes that responded to the World’s Laws, then what if a specific pose could also lead him outside?

But even that didn’t work. No matter the position, he simply couldn’t fall asleep like before. It was as if the very concept of sleep was running away from him. And without sleeping, he couldn’t exit the Dungeon.

But he didn’t give up and continued everything he could think of. He even thought of touching the Boundary to see if it could lead him outside. Fortunately, he still had some sanity left and didn’t try it recklessly.

That whole process took him a total of three days, and so many failed attempts left him exhausted beyond words. Yet even after all that, he still couldn’t sleep, which frustrated him to no end.

It was also then that he was thrown out of the Dungeon, making one of Leon’s guesses correct. There was certainly a time limit in the Dungeon, and it seemed it was exactly one full day outside.

Due to the time dilation attribute of the Dungeon, one day outside meant three days inside the Dungeon, and that’s what it took before he was forcibly thrown out of it.

It was so unexpected that he was both shocked and also glad, since at least he found one way to get out of that damned Dungeon. He just needed to wait three days before the Dungeon itself would spit him out.

Though this almost caused a big trouble for him, since he didn’t come out of his room for a whole day. Fortunately for him, Amber handled the situation by telling Evelyn that he was cultivating and was in a critical condition.

While Amber was also concerned about this new change in him, Leon gave her a rough idea that this was the only way to not experience the pain of his secret, which relieved her a lot.

He also got to know that if he spent the full day inside the Dungeon, he couldn’t enter it for another day. It was like some sort of cooldown period.

Still, Leon wanted to find a way that could allow him to exit the Dungeon whenever he wanted. That was the best outcome, and he knew it was possible.

He had once come out of the Dungeon without spending three full days there and also without any deaths. There definitely existed other methods, and he wanted to find them.

But there was also a pressing need for a power-up, so he decided to use the time dilation for his benefit. He asked for a few techniques from Amber, like the Hammer techniques and also a few advanced Sword techniques.

Amber was basically a walking treasure trove, and he could find anything through her, so it was quite easy.

That led to him going through a few training arcs where he used all three days of the Dungeon to practice the techniques and master the weapons.

Sadly, there were no good techniques for his baseball bat, so Amber personally made one for him... which quite shocked him since creating those techniques wasn’t supposed to be this easy.

After all, from Tier 2 onwards one also used their Essence or Mana, so the techniques needed to suit that too. Different Essence flows in the Pathways could lead to entirely different results after all.

A technique suited for Tier 2 needed to have both body stance and also the proper flow of energy in the pathways. Tier 2 allowed the Awakened to circulate their respective energy at all times according to their will, so they could use it to boost their bodies.

From Tier 3 onwards, they could use Mana externally too.

So, Leon’s routine became quite simple. He would spend the day either sleeping or spending time with his mother, while his nights were reserved for the training of various techniques.

He wanted to ask for some Skills, but figured that these techniques took priority since Tier 2 was mostly about strengthening the physical body.

As Event 2 neared, Leon knew he needed to be as strong as possible. Of course, he didn’t give up trying to find the method of exiting the Dungeon at will.

But there were still no results.

As for Amber, she was busy in her own business the whole day, and Leon could speculate what she was actually doing. She was definitely building some factories for this company, but there was no way she was giving all of her time only for that.

She was definitely investigating the Academy staff and the higher-ups to get to the real culprit. But even then, she found no results aside from a few vague clues which led to nowhere.

It was as if the enemy knew they would be investigated and had already covered their tracks. And they were so well hidden that even Morgon and Amber couldn’t find them.

They could have started with the fact that Leon was infected, but they couldn’t reveal that to the public. And they had no clue how he and Silver got infected in the very first place.

She didn’t give up, but Leon knew there was very little room for success unless Jade found something.

That was how their days went by, and Leon considered them quite peaceful. But everything comes to an end, and his vacation was no exception.

It was 16th January, the last day he was going to enter the Dungeon before going back to the Academy. He planned to spend three days here, so when he woke up, it would already be the night of 17th January.

That way, he could have a night party with his teammates and then go back to the Academy on 18th January. That was the plan since he wouldn’t be able to enter the Dungeon on the night of 17th January.

"Alright, time to lock in!"