22. Lies

"C'mon kid, a real man doesn't cry."

Slowly Scar patted Jin's back. He was still crying on his chest loudly like a little kid.

Shortly, the tears on Jin's eyes had dried out releasing his arms away from Scar.

"Are, you okay now?"

"Yeah *sniffs*"

Jin rubbed his eyes to remove the tears and smile was etched on his face showing how happy he was right now that Scar had finally returned.

"Where is Thorne?"

"Ah, here."

Jin opened his spatial inventory and retrieved Thorne. It has now become a useless weapon observing that its powers had dried out.

He gave it to Scar and as he grabs the weapon with his two big hands, he broke the sword in half.

Crack!

Thorne immediately dispersed into dust after it had broken. Seeing this, Jin was confused about why Scar had done that.

"Why did you break it?"

"Even if all its powers had all been drained, if it is able to contact itself with mana, the corrupted powers it had will slowly regain back that's why it is better to destroy it."

"I see..."

Ting!

Devouring Process has been complete!

You have slain Hydra!

+4,000,000,000 XP

Rewards:

+5 to all status

Ting!

ALERT! DUE TO THE ARCANE HYDRA'S EXTERMINATION, SHROOM TERRACE WILL DISAPPEAR IN 10 MINUTES!

00:00:00:09:59

"..!"

Jin couldn't celebrate too early. Immediately, he grabbed Scar's hand and dashed back inside the lair.

"Where are we going?"

"Just trust me!"

Jin didn't want to explain it right now, time was running out as hurriedly entered the portal back to the paused world.

When they were about to enter the portal, Scar halted on his movement. Seeing the giant crater in the middle of the lair, Scar couldn't help but feel a sense of loneliness in his heart.

"Wait."

There was something Scar needed to bring with him before they go. He walked towards the giant crater and slide down the steep side of the crater. Arriving in the middle of the pit, he dug down the ground with his sharp claws trying to find something on the dirt.

'What the hell is he doing?'

On the other hand, Jin was watching Scar in confusion. He thought that Scar might be trying to find some remains of Mufasa on the pit but there was no way anything would survive that explosion.

"Here it is."

After Scar felt a solid object touched his hands, he was sure that it was the thing he sought for.

He climbed back on top of the crater where Jin was looking at him in a confused expression.

"Let's go."

"Ah, okay."

Simultaneously, both of them entered the portal in which after the portal slowly dispersed out in the air.

Shurururug!

••••••••

Ting!

The ringing tone of the system reverberates through their ear. Gradually as they open their eyes, the place that they were just in recently had completely change.

"Where are we?"

Scar asked Jin. He looked at his surroundings, everything was entirely different. He could see mushrooms in different sizes, and the terrain was very marshy. There was also a giant pathway going underground just beside them that made it weirder for Scar to define what was happening.

"We are inside a hunting ground called Mushroom Terrace. Do wait here."

Hurriedly, Jin returned back inside the Arcane Hydra's chamber to get the items it dropped.

Dududududug!

"What the?"

Scar flinched back after feeling the violent tremor that had just occurred.

"This hunting ground is going to disappear in 10 minutes but wait here a minute, I need to get something first."

Quickly, Jin dashed down in the passageway and disappeared from Scar's vision.

'What is that kid doing?'

•••••••••

Jin arrived in the center of the chamber. One thing he realized after arriving was that he had forgotten the fact that inside here was pitch black. No single light could be discerned in the naked eye like darkness had absorbed all of it completely.

"Shit! How am I gonna find the loot drops?"

The reason he was here was for the boss's loot drops, he was one hundred percent sure that the Arcane would drop abundant loots not only that it was a hidden boss but it was higher in level than the mountain drake.

"Where is it?"

Jin began to scan his surroundings by waving his hands hoping he could touch something but this would take a lot of time. Added the fact that it was difficult to see in the dark, the center of the chamber was very wide.

"Uhmmm... What was it? Oh yeah! [Mana Awareness]!"

Waaaang!!!

A blue wave of light scattered out from his vicinity. Though the light only lasted for a short amount of time and it didn't really brighten the surroundings, Jin's vision had a subtle change.

"Woah!"

Jin exclaimed in disbelief. He blinked his eyes a couple of time but this was surreal.

Though the place was still dim and gloomy, in Jin's vision, he could see different types of light glowing from his field of view.

The walls on the chamber were glowing in faint blue color and almost all of the surroundings were similar in colors but when Jin averted his gaze in a certain direction, various types of colors glowed and formed a small pile.

"There it is!"

He certain that those glows came from the loot drops so immediately he went dashing towards the piles of items and placed it all to his spatial inventory.

"Hehehehe... I'm rich!"

Dududududug!

The ground trembled violently and rocks were slowly falling down in the ceilings. He looked at the countdown, it was now 7 minutes so he quickly put all of the items into his spatial inventory and went trotting back up to the exit.

[Mana Awareness] was still on active and this helped him see the vicinity on where he was running clearly.

He arrived on the top panting while trying to catch some breath. Scar held him in his shoulders to check out what was happening to him.

"Finally you arrived."

"Yeah, uck!!"

Thud!

In his surprise, he dropped down on the ground after seeing the glow on Scar's body. The glow was nothing he had ever seen, it was bright orange in color that expanded all over his body. All in all, it looked like Scar himself was engulfed in burning mana.

'So this is Scar's mana!'

He exclaimed to himself seeing the tremendous amount of mana. Sweat dripped down in his forehead fearing that Scar's mana might burn him in ashes immediately he canceled the skill due to his fear of what would happen if he go nearer to the burning mana.

Ting!

"Are you okay? You look nervous?"

"Ah! Sorry, I was just imagining things."

Jin stood up from the ground and brushed off the dirt in his butt.

'If that was the strongest color of mana, I wonder if I could get items with the same burning sensation like Scar's?'

He thought to himself. Thinking about what would happen if he was able to acquire items with the same power as Scar's made him shudder in excitement.

Ddudududug!

The ground continued to quake violently. This returned him from his senses after being disturbed on his daydreaming.

"Let's get out of here."

"Yes."

They dashed out of the hunting grounds safely. Reaching back in the entrance of the hunting grounds, the gate of the Shroom Terrace collapsed on the ground and everything had disappeared.

They huffed and puffed as slowly catch some breath of fresh air after recently just doing that long run. To make the thing clear for Scar, Jin needed to tell the truth.

"Scar."

"What?"

"I'm actually not your long lost brother, I'm sorry I lied."

"I know."

"Haaah?!"

Jin's eyes widened in surprise. Seeing that Scar didn't thought about it much that Jin had lied to him all this time. Jin thought he was being ridiculed by Scar so he pouted in regret.

"Humph! You knew about this all along?"

"Well, it was relatively easy. Your story almost made me believe that you were my brother but when you said you woke up in a temple was very stupid. Master Gred already died a thousand years ago but look at you, you're still so young."

"So you mean, you're a thousand-year-old man?"

"In exact, 1069 years old. If you ever wonder why this is possible, it is because I am the last race of elven kind well it should have been us but he's already dead."

"You're an elf? But why don't you have pointy ears?"

"As generations pass, our ears slowly shorten. It's because of our different offspring. The rate of birth for female elves were so low that if an elf could bear a female elf, the child would be instantly considered as royalty and must be taken care of like a princess. But the female elves had a smaller lifespan than the males and they were very fragile causing it to go extinct too early and the only option for the male elves to continue on for the next generation was to reproduce a child with a human being. This solution widely helped in maintaining the population of the elves in dropping but since humans had only a very short lifespan, the child they carry becomes a half-elf on which they're lifespan as elves cuts by ¼. The average lifespan of a true elf was a hundred thousand years but due to the fact that their offsprings were half-human, the lifespan slowly deprives down."

"So, does that mean your lifespan is almost at its limit?"

"Yeah, I think I might die at the age of 3080."

Scar became gloomy thinking that he'd die early but Jin was stupefied by this.

"Why are you saddened about that? I would be happy if I could even reach the age of a hundred yet you become depressed because you could only live for three thousand years? Are you serious?"

"Thinking about that, I may never find my true love and I might die lonely."

"Piece of shit."