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"Let's wrap up the chit chat, give me the materials, I will make your potion."
"You can sit in the corner or you can come back after ten minutes," Lana said and reached out her hand.
"I'll wait here," Nova handed over the bag and sat in the corner.
He still didn't believe everything they said. Although they may have changed their original idea after learning about the situation, after their initial plan, Nova completely erased any form of trust in them.
'How about I escape after getting the potion?'
Nova felt this plan was plausible.
Everyone in the camp wasn't in their proper state, escaping seemed very easy and Nova felt he needed to execute it immediately before they could recover.
'But what about the consequences? Can I survive inside the kingdom while hiding from them? Will they leave me alone?'
More and more negative thoughts appeared in Nova's mind, and he stopped thinking about it altogether.
'I'll just go with the flow, and do my best to kill the King. If not,...'
As Nova was thinking, Lana took a small cauldron and placed the auxiliary materials inside it.
Taking the core in her left hand, Lana closed her eyes and placed her right hand below the core.
A few minutes later, a magical blue aura appeared on her hand, connecting her hand and the core.
The blue aura began to disintegrate the core little by little, and a small amount of white essence began to gather on her right hand.
In a matter of moments, the entire core disappeared and a milky pure white essence appeared on her hand.
Lana immediately opened the lid and placed the milky white essence inside the cauldron with the auxiliary material.
Taking the auxiliary materials, she repeated the same process. From the auxiliary material, different colors of essence appeared on her hand based on the type of material.
Soon, a total of seven essences were placed inside the cauldron, including the core's essence.
Nova watched the entire process with mouth agape. 'Wow! Sorcery is really cool, I want to learn it.'
Then fire appeared on Lana's hand. She placed the fire under the cauldron and looked intensely.
The cauldron began to heat up, a small red hue began to form under the cauldron. As soon as it appeared, Lana lowered the temperature and maintained it properly.
In ten minutes, Lana opened the lid and a mystical fragrance surrounded the entire tent.
'It smells really good, maybe a little addictive.'
Due to the heat, the essence was in liquid form, so Lana collected them in a test tube, similar to a potion bottle, but with a more luxurious one.
"Drink this potion within an hour, you'll lose a lot of benefits if you delay longer." She handed him the tube.
Nova took the tube carefully with excitement. 'I got a potion the very first time, maybe becoming an explorer wasn't bad at all.'
"Thank you for your help Miss Lana, I will come and see you tomorrow."
With that, Nova hurriedly moved towards the Shark Team camp. He wanted to set up his tent there and drink the potion without any disturbance.
After a short walk, Nova arrived at the Shark Team's camp, where Rock greeted him with a cheerful smile. "Nova, is it successful?"
"Yes, I'm going to drink the potion now," Nova replied with a smile.
"Can you help me with setting up my tent, it's going to be night soon."
"No problem, it's a small matter. Guys come on, let's teach Nova how to set up a veteran camp."
"Nova, take a step back and learn from our work. We have a lot of experience making a perfect tent for any climate."
Nova nodded and watched their work carefully. Although he knows how to build a tent, Nova was interested in learning from the Shark Team's experience and comparing their techniques.
'It's going to be nighttime soon.'
There is no sun or moon inside the labyrinth, so finding a proper time is hard.
The daytime lasts exactly twelve hours and the same goes for nighttime.
The change happens abruptly, so explorers need to prepare a lot before nighttime comes. Without any vision, surviving inside, even on the first floor, is dangerous.
Soon, the Shark Team set up the tent. Nova thanked them and went inside. He can't wait anymore, he already started dreaming about his abilities.
'The inside feels more comfortable and cozy, they did a really good job.' Nova smiled and placed his backpack in a corner.
"It's time to become a proper Stage 1 explorer."
Unable to contain the excitement, Nova opened the sealed test tube. The same addictive fragrance spread through his tent.
Nova calmed down a little and drank the potion in a single gulp. He closed his eyes and concentrated on feeling the changes.
A warm current spread through his entire body. Nova felt like he was in a hot spring, not in a freezing cold land.
The warm current first spread through his head, ears, eyes, nose etc. He began spreading from top to bottom of his body and again from bottom to top.
After everything, the entire energy gathered near his forehead and disappeared.
As soon as the energy disappeared, something broke inside Nova —a cracking sound can also be heard.
After that, Nova slowly opened his eyes with a smile.
He can already feel the changes inside his body. His physical strength, thinking power, and reflexes increased dramatically.
There are also other hidden benefits that Nova cannot feel right now.
"Maybe I can sense them during the battle."
But that was not the most important, he acquired an ability and not one at that, Nova acquired a total of two abilities.
"So this is the benefit of high compatibility." Nova grinned with satisfaction.
Other than ability, Nova also acquired another surprise. Initially, even he himself didn't believe it, but was very satisfied with it.
"Maybe, I can survive the battle, even if something goes wrong."
Nova's confidence rose a lot after learning about his new powers. He didn't need to learn from scratch, he learned everything intuitively, more like breathing.
'If I combine them correctly, I can almost escape any dangers.'
The first ability was the skill used by Toxsona to paralyze Nova. It attacks the person's spirit and physical body simultaneously.
The second was more like a passive skill, increasing the awareness of his surroundings, which includes almost everything like danger, sounds, air flows etc.
'The first should be called Sonic Boom and Sense for the second one.' Nova thought and gave a satisfactory name by himself.
"I can test more of my ideas tomorrow. For now, I need to rest."
Nova used his backpack as a pillow and slept on the floor. He was tense the entire day, worrying about others and dangers, now he wanted nothing more than a good sleep.
For tonight's guard duty, Shane and Head will take turns, while tomorrow, Nova, Amelia and Rock will be on duty.
Although Nova doesn't need a night guard anymore since his Sense ability will activate in case of danger, he doesn't want to disclose this ability to anyone.
….
"Sleeping twelve hours feels weird, I haven't slept more than seven hours since I grew up," Nova said to Rock while yawning.
"Ha ha ha! You'll get used to it. I think we need that sleep, our work in the morning requires a lot of energy."
"Captain, I have to say something," Nova said seriously, intending to bring up his conversation with Dave.
He wanted Rock's opinion on this matter. Their lives were on the line and Nova didn't want to gamble on it.
Seeing his serious face, Rock nodded and called, "Amelia, Head and Shane, come to the campfire right now, a secret meeting."
After everyone gathered, Nova began to slowly explain everything said by Dave. He even added his own thoughts about the situation.
Everyone fell silent, unable to digest the truth. Unlike them, Amelia stood up and kicked Rock away.
"You asshole, if you listened to me from the start, do you think this would've happened?" Unable to hold back, Amelia cursed out loud, while clenching her fist hard.
She began to kick and punch Rock hard on his stomach. She didn't care whether Rock was her husband or captain of a team.
Unlike Amelia's anger, Rock felt guilty. He was the sole decision maker in choosing this mission, so the entire responsibility fell on his shoulders. He didn't even dare to resist Amelia's punches, even blood splurted out of his mouth.
Unable to watch the scene anymore, Nova went behind Amelia, grabbing both of her arms and tried dragging her away.
"Amelia, calm down. Calm down. Nothing will change by beating him."
"Leave me, Nova, I need to teach this bastard a lesson." Amelia didn't listen and resisted Nova's grasp. She shook her hand and even dragged him near Rock.
Realising he couldn't overpower Amelia, Nova shouted in her ears. "Calm down, Amelia, you are making the situation worse. Just Calm down."
Amelia didn't listen to Nova's advice and pushed him away in anger.
'You leave me with no choice, I can't let this happen.'
"CALM DOWN, AMELIA!"