A few hours passed after Hazel and the other players finally returned home. Once they were at the Jetport base, Zoe gathered the other cursed players and then went over everything that had happened. They specifically talked about the reapers and how the difficulty of the stages was becoming more severe with each passing day.

Hazel figured that they would deal with something sooner or later. Usually, when players in video games are dealing with stages or climbing towers, the next stage or floor within the tower would be more difficult than the previous one. Of course, in video games, this was to keep the players entertained and challenged.

And while Hazel and the others certainly felt challenged, they certainly weren't entertained in the least. There were many times when any of them could've died during this stage compared to the previous stages. And that boiled down to the main culprit of it all: the reapers.

The players were barely able to hold their own against the new spider species from the third stage. Not only was their speed a problem, but their relentless bloodlust to kill was an even bigger issue for them. It didn't help that they were on par with the sentinels in terms of levels. None of the players below level twenty, which was a good majority of the group, could handle fighting against these creatures. Even if the low-level players attacked as a team, their chances of surviving were frighteningly slim.

The only players capable of dealing with them were Hazel, Astrid, Chegyaeyi, Zoe, Kane, Anais, and John. During the swarm battle on Hazel's side, Astrid, Chegyaeyi, and John assisted in dealing with the reapers. The remaining players focused on dealing with the small fries since that was all they were capable of doing at the moment.

Of course, there was also the issue with the change of the swarms between waves. The infant spiders should've been the only things appearing during the first stage, but for some reason, all of the new ones, including the reapers, appeared with them instead. And if Hazel was right, that meant this was going to happen again in the fourth stage.

This meant that they couldn't use the first stage as a warm-up in preparation for the other spider creatures. What was even worse was that the system didn't inform them about the change either. Hazel wasn't certain that it was supposed to, but that wasn't going to stop her from blaming something or somebody for what happened.

Since the waves were different than before, they would have to adjust to the situation accordingly. Aside from that, they only had one more day before they reached the fifth and final stage. Which meant tomorrow was their final day to prepare for absolutely anything and everything.

Zoe soon dismissed Hazel and the other players who were part of their meeting while heading down to greet some members who had joined the Valiant Guild. According to Kane and Anais, Zoe sent players out into Portland to try and locate other players who had no place to go after surviving the hellish thirty days of the Tutorial Dungeons.

She's been doing this ever since the tutorial was over. Zoe knew that there would be players out there who would need help, so while faced with the upcoming battle with the spider queen, she's been keeping track of the newly appointed members of the guild as well. Although Hazel didn't see it, she knew that the knight was running herself ragged with all the problems.

Once Hazel was dismissed, she immediately made her way over to the roof so she could continue her research in Runecrafting and also practice her Telekinetic mobility some more. The latter practically saved her when she nearly died from the first reaper that attacked. If she hadn't enveloped her body in the telekinetic force and moved away, she wouldn't be here right now.

Making it to the rooftop, Hazel picked a random spot before promptly sitting down and pulling her rune crafting book out from her storage bracelet. And much like before, to further train her telekinesis aside from Telekinetic mobility, she levitated her book and read it that way. A part of her felt like she had hit the pinnacle of laziness, not even bothering to read a book normally and simply using her telekinesis to do it.

While reading the book, Hazel also tried to levitate several small pebbles around her, attempting to train her concentration by focusing on multiple things at once. At first, she simply levitated the small stones like with the book, but every so often, she would also attempt to rotate them in certain directions. She would occasionally fail, either having the stones suddenly fall or even the book itself to descend instead.

Either way, this was good practice to train her concentration and ability to multitask. Could there be a skill like that? Like a parallel mind skill or something? The idea of there being a skill that allowed Hazel to handle multiple tasks at once certainly piqued her interest. In fact, maybe there was a spell where she could clone herself. That would solve a lot of the issues she's been dealing with.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

She'd have to look into that after everything with the spider queen and her curse was over and done with.

Hazel continued to read through the runecrafting book, making sure to memorize all the information it entailed. While she couldn't really utilize the information currently due to a lack of both experience and proper education on the subject, she could still read the text to further understand the concept behind it.

Aside from knowing the basics behind runecrafting, like the concept of words becoming power and certain ways that runes could be utilized, from enhancing a weapon or creating a seal or ward, she also learned that there were different systems and types of runecrafting.

Apparently, runecrafting could be used in two ways: single or formula. Single Runecrafting was where the user would cast a single rune of power into an item, enhancing it with a certain ability. From what the book stated, single runecrafting was used by beginners because it allowed them to not only understand the effects of runes but also how to apply them to objects.

Then there was Formula Runecrafting. It was a technique that only skilled runecrafters could perform due to how complex and meticulous the process was.

If Hazel had to make a comparison, Single Runecrafting was like basic mathematics, while Formula Runecrafting was college-level mathematics. Where in basic math all you had to do was do one plus one equals two, college-level math involved incorporating multiple symbols and variables into a formula to obtain a specific answer. This concept applied to Runecrafting as a whole.

Hazel creased her brows upon reaching this conclusion, already facing another hurdle.

"I was never that good at math," she mumbled disappointingly.

Math wasn't Hazel's strong suit. While she understood the fundamentals and such, she just never really got into the subject. She deeply despised word problems when it came to math because she could never figure out how to make certain formulas using the context clues from the sentences.

So, knowing that runecrafting was going to be similar to making math formulas, Hazel wasn't looking forward to studying the subject further. Hopefully, she would have a better understanding of runecrafting than she did math. Otherwise, it would be a miracle for her to do any of this right now.

"You're certainly hard at work."

Hazel heard a voice coming from behind her, causing her to lose focus on the book and the pebbles she was controlling with telekinesis. The items fell to the floor with an audible thud and crack as Hazel turned around to see the culprit behind her distraction. And it was none other than Astrid Skogr making an appearance before her.

"Oh, hey, Astrid," Hazel said. "I didn't notice you there."

"And you wouldn't have if I kept quiet," The dark elf informed. "You were quite focused on your training."

"Well, I have to," she shrugged. "Training my skills helps improve them. It also helps me understand my abilities as well. How else do you think I was able to make a new spell a couple of days back?"

"Yeah, you're not wrong. And I can certainly see where you're coming from. I do a lot of training as well, so I don't lose touch with my skills. It's pretty easy doing that when you're forced to fight for your survival all this time."

Hazel softly laughed. "Yeah, that's one way to keep yourself from getting rusty. Have you been around the village lately?"

Aside from staying up on the rooftop, Hazel had occasionally visited the village within the jetport field when she got the chance. She was curious about its development and would check it out to soothe her curiosity.

Astrid shook her head. "I have no reason to. Besides, that place is getting more crowded now that Zoe's gathering more players to join her group."

"Yeah, this place is getting a bit too crowded for my liking..."

It wasn't just Astrid who noticed the sudden influx of members compared to before. Even the Jetport building was bustling with more people these days. This was just the effect of Zoe giving other players refuge. Hazel had nothing to say on the matter since it was none of her business.

Besides, thanks to the increase in members, the progress in their village was increasing quite a bit. More members meant more workers, which meant the development of the village was also going much faster than before.

"So, are you going to head out to Portland tonight as well?" Astrid questioned.

Hazel nodded. "We're running out of time, so I want to try and level up a little more. And since the reapers would be coming out tonight when I trigger the barrier, I'll be able to gain more levels then. What about you? Gonna try and look for Dolk again?"

Astrid frowned before shaking her head. "Finding him right now would only end in dead-end leads. That bastard isn't going to show himself any time soon, so I just need to wait until I find something substantial I could use. I do plan to join you when you attack the swarm again like before."

"Well, I'm glad that you could join me," Hazel smiled while looking up at the sky.

The sun was slowly beginning to go down. From what she saw, it would only take a couple of hours or so before it crossed the horizon and disappeared altogether. Once it did, that was when Hazel and Astrid would head out to Portland.

It was only a couple of hours from now. Until then, Hazel went back to reading her runecrafting book while practicing her telekinesis spell again. As for Astrid, she stayed up on the rooftop while doing some training of her own.

The two players then waited for the sun to go down so they could perform another nightly visit to Portland like last night and the night before.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.