After defeating the guardian, Alex checked the chamber that the guardian was protecting, and as he expected, it was a storage room filled with various weapons, armor, forging materials, and other valuable things.
However, the passage of time had taken its toll on the vast majority of these items. The weapons and armor were now mere rusted relics, the once sturdy materials reduced to frail remnants, and even the once intricate blueprints had crumbled into dust.
But everything wasn't lost, as other than finding a few weapons and armor in the damaged state that could be restored or dismantled into precious metals, Alex also discovered a fifth Ranked forging flame in a deteriorating state and six blueprints.
Two of the blueprints were what Alex was looking for, being a fourth Rank battle puppet and fifth Rank flying warship in completely fine conditions, while the remaining four blueprints were incomplete conditions, and the most valuable among them was the blueprint of a fifth Rank Mana Pulse Cannon.
Alex was extremely thrilled to see the blueprint, but his excitement died down quickly after seeing that the core machinists of the Cannon were missing from the blueprint.
A bit disappointed, Alex moved on to exploring other areas of the city and hunting creatures to level up, as he was still far from reaching the level 300 cap.
Alex's leveling speed after advancing to the third Rank had slowed down vastly, and as his level progressed, it was only progressing slower, but compared to any normal player, it was extremely fast thanks to him hunting fourth Rank creatures.
In the following three days, Alex continued with his routine of exploring and hunting, and at the end of the eleventh day, his level had reached 287, and he expected to reach the level cap in four to Six more days.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtAlex was currently seated on a building rooftop before a massive crimson cocoon that reached over twenty feet tall, covered in veins, pulsing with life under the eerie red light from the energy barrier.
'The cocoon has stopped growing for the last few days, which should mean the bloodline evolution is at its final stages,' Alex thought as he placed the cocoon back into the beast companion space.
Alex then opened his organization profile to check for anything new, and while he was checking the member chat, he found the only discussion currently happening was about the massive black barrier that had appeared in the Ice Kingdom.
The dark barriers covered the entirety of the Dorthon Mountain Range and even a small section of endless forest, with its total area being tens of kilometers.
The barrier allowed any player to enter or exit as they pleased, while nothing unusual was happening inside the barrier, at least not for now.
Alex quickly moved to the game forum to see if the barrier was related to some special event because, in his previous life, nothing of such nature occurred.
After spending some time on the game forum, Alex learned nothing of value besides seeing a few pictures of the barrier and wild theories players had about it.
'This is strange. I have no memory of such a thing happening at this time or in the near... OH Wait, IT CANT BE THAT,' Alex thought as he remembered something very similar to the barrier.
'In my past life, The Demons appeared in the Dorthon Mountain Range, and they did utilize four large barriers similar to this one, and those barriers prevented anyone above fifth Rank from entering while also being unbreakable,'
'The location is the same, but there are too many changes for the demons to be responsible, as not only the demon invasion is more than a year away, but the barrier also doesn't match as it is much larger in size, and most importantly the mega portal is also not present that will be pouring out thousands of demons every second,'
'Let's wait and see what is up with the mega barrier,' Alex thought as he stood up, ready to continue hunting.
Alex closed everything and moved to a building infested with shadow Rats, not knowing his thinking was correct, and minutes after he left the game forum, players started going nuts with the appearance of two mega portals inside the barrier.
After two hours, Alex was engaged in a battle against a towering mouse that was appearing and diapering from the darkness of the floor, trying to ambush him.
'Now,'
'Death Illusion' 'Reaper Slash'
The giant rat silently appeared beside Alex with his giant mouth wide open, filled with razer sharp jagged teeth covered in poison fell, but it fell flat on his face as he experienced the illusions of his death.
Alex appeared above the creature's head and decapitated him with a single slash, claiming his life.
'These rats had quite a handy ability to hide in the darkness,' Alex thought, but his thoughts were interrupted by a system notification.
[Player is receiving a communication request to his Thunder Knight Badge.]
Alex felt surprised seeing the notification, but he didn't dwell on it and quickly took out his thunder badge and accepted the call.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm"Aeon, I hope I'm not interrupting anything important." Lady Telyssa's voice sounded from the badge
"Not at all, Lady Telyssa," Alex replied politely, hearing the voice of Elf, who took his thunder Knighth trail.
"I need you to come to the main city of the Order, and no, this meeting is not about me convincing you to become an Order Chosen," Lady Telyssa said, her voice sounding urgent.
"Is everything alright?" Alex questioned, knowing that every time he had a conversation with Lady Telyssa, she had a new proposal to convince him to become chosen by offering him various lucrative benefits.
"A barrier stretching for tens of kilometers has appeared in the Ice Kingdom, and now two massive portals have appeared inside it that demons are using to invade the Human continent, and worse of all, no one stronger than Fifth Rank could enter that barrier,"
"It has already been more than an hour since the invasion started, and by now, hundreds of thousands of demons have already arrived on the human continent, and thousands are coming with every passing second," Lady Telyssa said.
'What The F***'
"Arrive at the main city," Lady Telyssa said before closing the call.
'What the hell is going on? Why the **** are demons invading more than a year early,' Alex thought as he tried to make sense of the situation.
Alex had plans for the demon invasion as it was the first major event that started the chain of multiple major events, namely the Mythical Beast Continent and the Devourer Beast Invasion.
After the demon invasion, the world would be plunged into chaos, with mess going on in almost every major continent, and Alex had made plans to benefit from those events and was slowly preparing for them.
But now he didn't know how he should react because he himself was not strong enough, didn't have enough connections, and most importantly, his organization was at the start of development, and he didn't have any strong individuals by his side.
'The whole situation is a complete mess,' Alex thought, feeling pissed at the circumstances.