Chapter 28: Captain, You're Weak!

Before Nick could answer, his stomach protested loudly. The Teleportation Rune, which could only be used once a day, consumed a lot of the holder's stamina after use, and he naturally didn't forget this.

After chewing on some pre-prepared compressed biscuits, Nick slowly said, "Of course... This place is my camp. Apart from you, no one else should have been here."

"Oh!"

Sally's eyes were full of curiosity as she looked at the abandoned palace not far away, but she didn't wander around. After all, Nick was the owner here, and she was just an outsider.

Nick naturally saw through the girl's thoughts, and he said, "I've already explored this palace... There's nothing else, and there's a risk of the palace collapsing."

"Just set up the temporary camp outside."

"Okay, Captain!"

Sally nodded obediently. Her eyes held an inexplicable meaning as she looked at Nick, because this man was more mysterious than she had imagined.

She looked at Nick's weary face. After setting up the temporary camp from the miniature altar, he squatted beside the stone campfire, preparing to solve tonight's food problem.

"Captain, does the Teleportation Rune consume a lot of stamina? You looked so energetic just now... But in the blink of an eye, you're listless, you seem very weak?"

Sally asked, placing two bags of instant rice on the stone campfire to heat up.

"..."

Nick glanced at Sally, his face unmoved, and set up camp next to her. After such a short period of time, he had figured out the girl's personality.

She was quite sensible, the only downside was that she had a mouth.

He roughly categorized the pile of survival resources accumulated in the camp, but did not organize them in detail, after all, there were many useless resources among them.

When Nick was almost done organizing, Sally brought the heated instant rice to his camp. She sat down in an empty space beside Nick, without any regard for her image.

"Captain, food is here..."

"..."

Nick glanced at Sally's dusty appearance, and the corners of his mouth twitched slightly. Although Nick could roughly guess her situation before she met him, this little cat-like image was indeed very comical.

He didn't stand on ceremony. After simply replenishing his energy, he handed the iron container filled with distilled water to Sally and said, "You should pay more attention to your image..."

"If it weren't for instant rice, I wouldn't dare to compliment your cooking."

Sally poured the water from the iron container into her palm. The water was cold and crystal clear. She looked at Nick with some surprise in her eyes.

The most precious thing in the dungeon was water resources, but this guy gave her so much just to wash her face?

"Isn't this a bit of a waste?"

"You don't have to worry about water resources. I have a solution. If I can find a few more Runes, let alone simple washing, even taking a bath won't be a problem."

Nick didn't want to explain too much and skipped this topic.

He poured the water from the iron container into the basin obtained from exploration, added fuel and medium to the Rune Water Purifier, and continued to operate it.

Sally stood aside, her bright eyes filled with disbelief. If she wasn't mistaken, this thing should be some kind of equipment that could produce water resources.

She didn't hesitate. No girl could stand being dirty. The previous situation was due to circumstances, and there were also a few reasons to protect herself.

After teaming up with Nick, these two points were the things Sally needed to consider the least.

"..."

Nick didn't pay attention to Sally. He took out the [Gene Breakthrough Potion] obtained from hunting the Desert Worm. The light blue liquid emitted a mysterious aura under the campfire.

The appearance of this Gene Breakthrough Potion seemed to open a door to a whole new world for Nick.

"Break through the bottleneck and enter the Transcendent stage?"

Nick frowned slightly. He had already taken three Gene Potions, and his overall physical fitness had far exceeded the level of ordinary people.

Nick wasn't particularly clear about how far away he was from his own bottleneck. The priority now was to continue collecting [Gene Potions].

Although the introduction of the [Gene Breakthrough Potion] in the identification function was very brief, with only a few points, Nick could vaguely feel that after breaking through the Transcendent stage, the dungeon's power system would gradually surface.

This also indirectly pointed out a new path for Nick. In the dungeon world where the crisis level was gradually increasing, even if his overall physical fitness was strong and he had many Rune weapons, if he didn't break through to the so-called Transcendent stage, there were many dungeon creatures that he was destined to be unable to contend with.

Nick gathered his thoughts and slowly got up. He put this [Gene Breakthrough Potion] into the box and stored it separately. Only when the [Gene Potions] were completely useless to him would this thing come in handy.

Finally, he looked at the pile of survival resources that occupied most of the camp, piled up like a small mountain. Classifying such a large amount of survival resources was a challenge in itself.

However, in the dungeon world, only Nick could feel this kind of trouble.

"Let's fix it first..."

Nick whispered softly, took the wooden box piled up in Sally's camp, and simply classified the collected survival resources. Just as he was organizing the survival resources, a figure quietly walked up to him.

Compared with the previous embarrassed appearance of being covered in dust, Sally's current appearance made Nick's eyes light up.

The cleverness in her clear and bright eyes could not be concealed. Under her curved willow eyebrows, her long eyelashes trembled slightly, and her fair and flawless cheeks were tinged with a bit of blush.

When Sally looked at Nick, there was some awkwardness in her eyes. After all, this was the first time she had appeared in front of Nick in this image.

Faced with Nick's surprised and particularly pure gaze, she still subconsciously protected her flat chest. Before Sally could speak, Nick interrupted.

"Don't worry, I'm not interested in you."