Chapter 67 - Trust No One (3)

[You have received the title: <Adrion's Ally>]

[Adrion's Ally (Level 1): Whenever the user is under attack by any species originating from the Cold Lands, the user's attack and defence are increased by 50%.]

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Additional Rewards will be provided for your extraordinary feat.

HP: 1500 ---> 2500

Depravity: 62.10% ---> 82.10%

Knowledge: 53 ---> 65

(Due to the host's low level, only partial integration of knowledge is possible at the moment. As the host's level increases they will be able to access more knowledge from the reserves of Adrian's vast knowledge.)

Strength: 98 ---> 128

Defence: 49 ---> 69

Control: 2.75 ---> 42.75

Accuracy: 40% ---> 45%

You have cleared the Instance Dungeon in your first attempt! Bonus Exp will be provided.

Level: 18 ---> 28

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The rewards kept coming, but Zok had more important matters to deal with. But the most important of them all was to heal Cero back to health. Just like the giant, whose name as the system revealed was Adrian, had said, there was a stack of herbs hidden deep within the pile of bones. 

Without any further ado, Zok jumped headfirst into the pile and dragged the herbs out. Thankfully, these herbs did not require to be cooked or mashed as the one had priorly. Instead, these yellow coloured herbs could be fed directly to those in need and would immediately take effect. 

Zok did not know these things before, but the little bit of knowledge he had obtained after killing Adrian helped him to recognise the useful herbs.

"Come on Cero... eat up..." Zok pushed Cero's mouth open with all his might and threw the herbs inside it before closing his mouth once again. 

Still, Cero remained motionless. Zok had already checked him for his vitals thus he knew Cero was alive... for now. But if he didn't use his mouth then that would not be the case for long. Seeing no other way, Zok took the matter into his own hands.

He grabbed both the upper and lower jaws of Cero and forced the unconscious beast to 'eat' the stash of herbs in his mouth.

"Come on, Come on... You do not have my permission to die yet!" Zok kept mumbling while forcing the jaws to munch on the herbs, "Get up you bastard!"

Suddenly, Cero's legs twitched a bit, and after a couple of minutes, his eyes opened up as well. At that moment Zok could not hold his emotions back and wrapped his hands around Cero's humongous neck while the beast gently licked his face. 

***

Zok spent a couple of hours by Cero's side and proceeded to fulfil Adrion's last request. Just like he had told Zok, there were two things hidden inside his body. A giant white egg that was almost half as big as Zok himself and a rectangular piece of metal. 

As soon as Zok touched the two items their information popped up in front of him as usual. The things written on the screen proved everything that Adrion had told him to be true. Within the egg, there was a new and stronger beast, waiting to walk over the planet once again.

As for the piece of black metal, well, it was indeed the 'key' to exit the dungeon. There were weird drawings and scriptures all over its surface. Zok couldn't understand what was written on it, nor did he need to know it. 

"Let's just put them all inside the inventory and then head back to Zus before leaving this forsaken place." Zok mumbled to himself and put the egg inside the inventory, "What the heck?"

The egg swiftly went inside the inventory, but when Zok tried to do the same with the key, the inventory did not accept it. He tried it again, but the result was the same. 

"Is the inventory full?" 

Zok took out a bunch of useless stuff from within and tried again. However, the system still didn't accept it, but it accepted the things Zok had taken out of it. This pissed of Zok to no limit. But the system did not care about whether Zok was pissed or not.

[Learn to read the notifications, you lazy bastard!]

The system had an outburst the next time Zok tried to access the inventory. 

"The hell? This never happened before..."

Zok was a bit surprised by how the system reacted. But he did what the system told and unmuted the notifications and saw hundreds of the same notifications.

[Quest exclusive items can not be stored to be used later. To use the Key, head back towards the entrance of the dungeon and use it to leave the dungeon.] 

"Ahem... I understand."

[Lazy bastard.]

"What the hell is going on? You know what? I don't even care. I'm just going to get out of here as soon as I can."

After saying so, Zok salvaged whatever he could from the cave and rushed back to get Zus. However, there was one thing the system failed to inform Zok about. A final test waited for him near the exit. 

The moment Adrion died, all of the beasts living in the cold lands got to know about it. Thus they all rushed over to the place where anyone who wanted to leave the dungeon had to go through, the so-called exit.

It was the dungeon's mechanism to ensure that all of the creatures within living within were dealt with before the dungeon closed. Otherwise, if the dungeon opened up, all of these beasts would break out of there and cause a stampede. 

This also served as a final test for the ones who killed the dungeon boss, to see whether they were actually capable of doing what they did or did they steal the rewards from someone else to exit the dungeon.

In other words, it was the dungeon's way to ensure only the ones who deserved to leave the place left it. While those who didn't have to perish there one way or the other.. That was the rule of the wilderness.