Chapter 36 - Running behind in time.....

Saachi was happy only for few moments. That was before he remembered his timed quest. Nearly a day and night had passed within the game. Time remaining had shrunken even further but he could not enter the game before signing the contract and it became valid.

The searches were not yielding much and his memory of time spent in village level was hazy at the best.

Then he had that moment! The ' Eureka ' moment! The moment a light bulb glowed within his brain.

It need not be his old avatar's memory. Someone might have triggered this quest in his previous life too and talked about it, whether it was finished or not. There would be certainly more talk regarding one of the early timed quests. He just had to think of his college days or later ones to remember any anecdotes resembling such stories.

Genius! He can't remember what he went through but wants to remember what he had heard in passing.

The result - Saachi got a bad headache. Even after signing the contract and saving the copies in various methods, he was frowning heavily. Now there was added pressure of doing well while being watched. Irrelevantly he wondered if ever a groom felt like this before his first night with the bride, knowing that some naughty person might be keeping an ear over the door or the wall.

There was not much time left. He set the timer within the pod to maximum and entered the game.

After checking through the supplies, he left the village. No one stopped him. No one followed him too. The intrusive gaze stopped soon after he left the village fields. Must be one of the spies from new group of players.

The first stop for the stone. It had not much requirement unlike the void seed which had to be used before it's outer shell fell off naturally.

Saachi had not heard of Nilipt stone or null stone before. The first assumption would be that the stone would be found near mines, near other stones and ores. He started in opposite way. The null stone would be hated subject to goblins who loves ores and shiny things. So he went diametrically opposite of known goblin settlement site. Good news was that the monsters were manageable level, not monstrous level. Bad news was it was boggy Marsh. He could get struck anytime and monsters would pounce and tear the moment his concentration wavered.

Brown skinned alligator came in groups. Now that's cheating. Their skins were hard, tails were weapons just like their sharp teeth. The wand in one hand, staff in other. Jumping up and down and over bodies of alligators, dashing here and there... veritably he was in virtual acrobatics centre.

The worse part? After fighting for what seemed hours and decimating all monsters, just as he was about to forage a patch of marshland, new batch of monsters would have spawned.

Three cycles later....

Saachi's abilities had increased a notch. He had collected lots of things in few patches of the map. He got fed up. He decided to go to alligator nest, at the spawn point to tackle the matter.

This time he was lucky. Only three had spawned and they were moving towards their area.

Two AoE attacks of ice and lightning later, the three monsters and just about to be spawn monsters taken care of. He would begin to forage in the areas around the spawn point and rule it out.

Six cycles of monster annihilation....

He did not even notice when he had sweeped in the Nilipt stone. He was like a automaton now. Anything moves, kill. Collect everything you see.

He f***king hated marshland. Unless any quest requested items from here, he would happily not enter at all. Even if it turned out to be best level grinding spot.

With this mentality, is it a wonder if he did not notice collecting the stone. Only when he sat down to replenish mana and health naturally and rearrange the items within the inventory bag, he noticed the stone. He took it out of inventory bag.

The stone looked like a normal pebble . It's extraordinary feature became apparent when placed near some metals or ores. There was a feel of resistance....just like magnetic resistance between same poles. He started looking at battle logs(correct term would be activity log), all the while casting AoE spells around him to prevent any monsters to come near. After hunting so long and collecting nearly a bag full of alligator skin for future fashionistas, he knew ice and lightning spells works best on them. He was spamming arc lightning and ice blast alternatively and chugging mana potions or casting recover in between.

Aha! Found it. Now, to see if his luck is good enough to get one more stone and then he will leave this map to enter deep forest.