Chapter 303: Full Strength [GOLDEN TICKET BONUS]

"That’s actually impressive. You’re controlling kinetic energy well enough to keep yourself stable in the air, which isn’t something I would have expected someone to accomplish so quickly," Joseph commented as he watched Alex hover.

Emma, however, seemed more interested in something else.

"Are we sure we’re experiencing the same amount of time? How come you’re getting stronger so quickly compared to the rest of us?" she complained with a pout, making Alex chuckle.

Sarah leaned forward slightly, her curiosity getting the better of her. "How fast can you fly? If you’re fast enough, you might be able to explore the area without spending so much time walking around."

"I’m not entirely sure because I haven’t measured my speed yet," Alex admitted as he slowly descended. "I should be able to fly pretty fast eventually, but I need to improve my Body Reinforcement Spell first. Otherwise, my body might not be able to withstand the strain if I accelerate too much."

As soon as his feet touched the ground, a notification appeared before him.

[Mana Shuriken Spell has leveled up. Level 7 → Level 8.]

Alex smiled slightly when he read the notification, pleased that his spell was continuing to improve even through something as simple as practicing flight. He dismissed the notification and returned his attention to the group, who had already begun discussing their next move.

"The biggest problem is that we don’t know whether those four Mountain Spiders are the only powerful monsters in the area. They might be guarding the portal from other creatures, or they might be keeping one another in check. Either way, approaching the portal without understanding their situation would be dangerous," Joseph said after thinking for a while.

Yulia added, "Reaching the portal seems impossible right now. The four Mountain Spiders appear to be working together to me, and even if we somehow managed to defeat one of them and all the smaller spiders living on its body, the others would probably come to its rescue before we could recover."

"What if we lure the spiders away from the portal and take control of it while they’re gone?" Emma suggested, although she didn’t sound particularly confident in the idea.

Sarah smiled wryly as she recalled their previous experiences. "We tried something similar during the Titanreef Crab Dungeon, and that didn’t end particularly well for us. I don’t think we should try the same here."

"Sarah is right," Alex agreed. "Even if we managed to lure the Mountain Spiders away and take control of the portal, they could simply return and drive us out again. We’d be back where we started, except that we’d probably have made four powerful enemies in the process."

"We could search for another portal instead. Besides, do we really have to find one ourselves? We can’t be the only group in Hell Difficulty searching for a portal, so perhaps another group will manage to conquer one and bring more Ascenders here" Sarah suggested after a brief pause.

She sounded uncertain even as she spoke, and Alex could understand why she was considering that possibility. However, he wasn’t comfortable leaving such an important matter in the hands of people they didn’t know, especially when they had no idea how long it might take for another group to succeed.

"I don’t want us to depend on someone else to solve our problems. What if nobody else manages to conquer a portal? I’d rather we find a way to defeat the Mountain Spiders ourselves than sit around hoping another group will find a portal and bring more Ascendants to Hell Difficulty," Alex said firmly.

The group fell silent for a while, each person considering his words. Eventually, Frank let out a sigh and nodded in agreement, although his expression suggested that he understood how difficult the task would be.

"Alex is right. We shouldn’t build our plans around the hope that someone else will solve this problem for us, but I think we’ll need more people if we’re going to stand a chance against those monsters. If we can gather more Pioneers and work together, we might be able to come up with a strategy that gives us a reasonable chance of winning," Frank said.

"I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but gathering more people in Hell Difficulty doesn’t sound very realistic to me," Sarah replied, her expression growing serious as everyone turned toward her.

Sarah continued, "Hard Difficulty already had a survival rate of only one percent, and from what Alex told us, Hard and Hell Difficulty were fairly similar during the day, except that Mid Rank Species were already appearing in our areas. However, Hell Difficulty becomes drastically more dangerous at night, so I would be surprised if our survival rate even reached 0.1 percent."

She paused for a moment before continuing, seemingly reluctant to say what she was thinking. "There were around ninety-eight thousand participants in Hell Difficulty when everything began, so we might not even have a hundred survivors left by now."

The group fell silent as they considered her words. Even though they had experienced the dangers of Hell Difficulty firsthand, hearing Sarah put the situation into numbers made it much harder to ignore how terrible things had become. If her estimation was even remotely accurate, almost everyone who had entered Hell Difficulty would eventually die.

Alex remained quiet, but unlike the others, he was busy calculating the possible outcomes of a battle against the Mountain Spiders.

He still had no idea how powerful they were, yet he couldn’t help considering whether he could defeat one of them with his strongest attack. After all, if he could kill a Mountain Spider in a single hit, the situation might become much easier to handle.

’If I go all out with Mana Railgun and combine Fire Element Mana with Kinetic Element Mana, I might be able to kill one in a single attack. However, even if I succeed, the other Mountain Spiders will probably get involved, and I’ll be too exhausted to fight them afterward,’ Alex thought

..

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