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Tafel stared at her root bracelet with a blank expression. She hadn’t even finished all her preparations, but the unique hidden piece was already gone. She raised her head and looked at Jeremy, who was staring at his own root bracelet with an open mouth. “Didn’t you say it was really difficult to find the unique hidden piece?” Tafel asked. “How did they get it in less than a day?”

“What!?” The melon-shaped egg on the table flashed repeatedly. “The unique hidden piece of the first floor was found, and I wasn’t there to witness the moment!? You guys were supposed to take me with you! Do you know how many generations of my ancestors are disappointed right now? If all of them spat at you one time, you’d drown in spittle.”

Tafel’s expression darkened. She hadn’t expected Vur and Lindyss to find the unique hidden piece that fast either. In the end, who was it that won? If Vur fought Lindyss…. Although the Recordkeeper had claimed Lindyss would win in a fight against Vur, Tafel still wanted to witness it for herself. “I knew I should’ve followed them.”

“Why didn’t you?” the melon-shaped egg asked. “You should’ve brought me too! What were you thinking? Were you even thinking? Do you even think? My goodness, no wonder why my mama entrusted me to Vur instead of you.”

Without saying a word, Tafel’s horns glowed silver, and a portal to her cache appeared at the edge of the table. Tafel pushed the egg, and the caterpillar shouted as the egg rolled and fell through the portal, his protests cut short when the portal winked out of existence. After thinking about it for a bit, Tafel opened her cache portal in front of herself and retrieved the egg, holding it up in front of her face. “Are you going to behave?”

“What answer would I have to give you to prevent you from putting me back in the cache?”

“For someone with so many ancestors accompanying you and giving you advice, you sure are dense sometimes, huh?” Tafel asked and placed the egg down. She scratched her head and glanced at the papers covering the table. There were coordinates written on them along with descriptions of the setting at each coordinate. Since her usage of portals was the only advantage she had over Lindyss and Vur, she figured she’d scan the whole stage with them, eventually locating the unique hidden piece. Unfortunately, she was too slow; no, rather, it’d be more appropriate to call Lindyss and Vur fast.

“Hey,” Garlic said from inside his egg. “Just wondering, but … do you lose often? Or is this a rare occurrence I’ve witnessed that can help me grow?”

“Lose often?” Tafel asked, raising an eyebrow. The more appropriate question to ask was had she ever won. Then again, when it didn’t come to Vur, her success rate of completing her tasks was pretty high. A frown appeared on Tafel’s face as she glared at the egg. “Don’t use my failure for your growth.”

“It’s not like you’re giving me much else to work with,” Garlic grumbled in a low voice.

Tafel’s eyes narrowed. “What was that?”

The melon-shaped egg flashed once with a small light. “I said … I wonder when Vur and that elf will come back.” The egg lit up rapidly. “I want to know what the unique hidden piece is! Is it a skill? Is it a piece of equipment? Is it a consumable? A title? A blessing? A curse? I want to know!”

“Well, you’ll find out when they return,” Tafel said and gently nudged one end of the egg with her foot, causing it to spin like a pinwheel. She glanced at the root bracelet on her wrist again. Other than an announcement about the first floor’s unique hidden piece being discovered, there wasn’t any other piece of information. Was that the so-called grand announcement Garlic had mentioned before? One sentence?

“If you spin me like this again”—

Tafel nudged the end of the still spinning egg with her foot again, adding momentum before Garlic could finish his sentence.

—“I’ll—aaah!”

Tafel leaned back in her seat and stroked her chin. Even if she couldn’t obtain the unique hidden piece and lost a muffin in a bet, that didn’t mean she had to sit and mope around. There were still regular hidden pieces waiting to be discovered and eighty-nine more days to look for them. Depending on the activity, ninety days could be a long or short amount of time. A furrow appeared on Tafel’s brow, and she turned towards Jeffery. “Is there a way to clear this stage faster?”

“Yes.”

“I knew it,” Tafel said and nodded. If one had to spend ninety days on the first floor alone, wouldn’t that mean Mary was still partaking in this exam as well? It hadn’t been that long since the red-haired woman had disappeared and Vur had received the invitation. “What’s the method?”

“Within every region, demarked by climate, there’s a temple with a trial,” Jeffery said. “If you clear the trial, you’ll get a piece of equipment and, if you wish, pass the advancement exam. Of course, clearing the temples’ trials are much more difficult than surviving for ninety days, and to open a temple, you have to offer a month’s worth of food and water.”

Tafel raised an eyebrow. “Has anyone ever cleared all the temples in one go?”

Jeffery shook his head. “The regions are massive, and as I’ve said before, regions are sectioned off to allow the resources within them to regenerate. If you want to complete all the temples, it might take a few years for the closed regions to reopen.”

“I see,” Tafel said. Once Lindyss and Vur came back, then they could all go examine a temple. If the rewards were good, then they’d clear more, but if not, Tafel really didn’t see a reason to stay in this stage for all ninety days now that the unique hidden piece had been claimed.

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