Chapter 46: Tayo

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[The fury of the Minor God of Gravity has been stoked]

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Jaxir blinked. ’What did I do?’

He was just existing, and here came this god swinging his meat around again. He hadn’t even chosen a door yet.

Was everything here related to the Minor God of Gravity?

Jaxir clicked his tongue. He already had a Rare Mark of Ire on him. Because of that, every servant of the Minor God of Gravity gained a +25% boost to their stats when they attacked him.

That was why he had been so cautious against Rin. He didn’t want to face her head-on if he didn’t have to, especially since he didn’t know her original strength level.

Of course, what Jaxir didn’t know was that because of Rin’s level shroud, she didn’t benefit from the boost. He knew too little about the game.

"At this rate it’s going to upgrade again, isn’t it?" Jaxir chuckled. "Alright, I’ll play your game."

Jaxir looked ahead at the doors once again.

’What to do...’

A large part of Jaxir wanted to pick one of the other two doors to satisfy his curiosity. Were they representative of other forms of mana? He felt a tug in his very heart that urged him to learn more.

But the notification...

"Well fuck you too, then," Jaxir said with a grin.

He went right for the Twinkle Village door. There were enough people pissing him off in his life that he wasn’t about to get bullied by a few lines of code.

He didn’t notice that as he walked through the door, there was a flash of silvery blue in his eyes as though something was continuing to slowly awaken.

**

Tayo stood in the middle of a wide expanse of white, not quite understanding why the challenge hadn’t started already. It was like the dungeon was waiting on something, and that wasn’t good at all.

The three of them had already agreed. Telik would enter the Sparkling Village door and Zay would enter the Glimmer Village door.

Once they cleared the initial challenge, they would meet up together and finish the final hurdle together. Everything should go smoothly, they were well-prepared.

But this...

Tayo cursed. This delay only happened when a rare instance was being triggered. This could be caused by one of three things.

The first variable that could trigger it was the appearance of one of the full sets. The second trigger was the appearance of the three Epic items of each set. The third trigger was the acknowledgement of one of the Gods.

All the people who could get the attention of a God before Level 10 had long joined the game and moved on to much larger targets. But they had definitely gotten notifications about a Mark of Ire before.

But a Mark of Ire wasn’t the same as an acknowledgement.

As for the first two, Tayo, Telik, and Zay had all purposely avoided this outcome. The variables that could crop up if the dungeon mutated were too great.

Plus, as far as they could tell, the mutations didn’t have any impact on the rewards at the end, so the guilds had long decided it wasn’t worth it in this particular case.

All that meant was...

’Someone’s entered with one of the complete sets in all likelihood.’

Tayo cursed again. This was terrible. The stat boosts you got from just one of the Epic items were ridiculous, let alone the full set.

All of a sudden a rush of Twinkle Mana filled Tayo’s body.

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[A Target of Ire has been sensed]

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[Your Twinkle Mana has been temporarily upgraded to Rare Twinkle Mana]

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[Your stats have experienced a +25% boost]

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[Your Abilities have experienced a +25% efficacy boost]

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Tayo’s eyes widened as a figure appeared across from him.

**

Jaxir landed with a gentle tap to the ground. He spotted Tayo instantly. It was hard not to. The man was the only thing in this space that wasn’t just an endless white slate.

The second thing he spotted was the rush of Twinkle Mana that formed around him and the sparkling eight-sided star that glowed on his forehead.

Jaxir pursed his lips. ’Well, I guess that’s the boost.’

The uncomfortable feeling in Jaxir’s heart was a dead giveaway. It was like his own mana was running just a little slower than usual. It wasn’t a huge difference, but it was enough that casting would have a little lag to it.

’Why didn’t that girl have the same boost?’ He suddenly realized something was off.

He had seen a mark on Rin, but what he hadn’t felt was this same surge. Still, he was almost certain that she was stronger than this guy was. So what gives?

’Hm...’

No immediate answer was coming. Instead, the white room began to warp and twist until all of a sudden they weren’t in an expanse of nothing anymore, but instead standing on pillars with a drop off into infinity beneath them.

Jaxir looked ahead and found what looked like an obstacle course in front of him. There were rings and landing platforms and rock walls and... ℴℴ𝘮

’Is that one of those spinning obstacle course things where you run and jump at the same time...?’

Jaxir was a bit speechless about what he was seeing. Was he supposed to run across that?

He looked over at Tayo, who was facing an identical obstacle course to his own. The difference was that while Tayo was clearly a Melee Class, Jaxir was very obviously a Magic Class.

Jaxir chuckled. "Well, this isn’t very fair, now is it? First you give him a boost and now you expect me to out race someone meant to be a lot faster than me."

That didn’t stop Jaxir from doing a little hop and grinning ear to ear.

How long had it been since he ran with his real body? It had been too long. Maybe after this month he could start going on his runs again.

But first, he had an annoying servant of a God to dust.

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[BEGIN]

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Jaxir shot out like an iron ball from a cannon.