MMORPG: Rise of the Primordial Godsmith

Whoosh!

Appearing a few meters from the campsite he and the others had set up, Valyr let out a wide sigh of relief as he rested near the fire pit. Letting out a brief yawn, the young man looked up at the sky, only to see that the sun was its zenith.

"How long have we been inside that place?" muttered the young man to himself, faintly sighing as he recalled how all of them were forced to enter the Gates of Enlightenment's trial ground during the dim night. With Loreina inadvertently being brought to the trial grounds, he and the three others swiftly headed out into the depths of the plains, fighting against the aberrations until all of them had the necessary fragments to enter.

With how all of them had been toiling away to obtain the needed fragments, only to be thrown into the harsh trials given to them by the Gates of Enlightenment, only now was Valyr reminded that he and the others had not gotten even a single wink of sleep for over a day already.

Coincidentally, just as the thought came to mind, the young man quickly felt a strong sense of lethargy washing all over him, making both his mind and body feel incredibly sluggish. Though he could head into one of the tents and take a rest right now if he wanted to, Valyr instead took out one of the vials of rousing Faulus had given them from his spatial bracelet, hoping that its effects would last long enough until the others returned.

Giving the potion some time to take effect, Valyr slightly sped up the process by doing a few basic movements. Within a couple of minutes, he felt his body and mind return to their energized state, prompting him to sit down as he pondered over the thought he had before leaving the Gates of Enlightenment.

"Since we gained the rights to enter the Gates of Enlightenment after slaying an inordinate amount of aberrations… then it would make sense that entering the Gates of Awakening would only need us to kill the enemies that linger around the four quadrants," said the young man to himself.

With how everything was laid out, where it be the part of the Four Pillars' Inheritance he was currently in, or the part of the inheritance that involved the Triad Gates, Valyr was inclined to think that the both of them were connected in a way. Because of such a thought, he had a strong hunch that heading to the four quadrants and slaying its wandering inhabitants would give him and the others the rights to take the trials that would allow them to become a member of the Gates of Awakening.

Then, once they had reaped their gains from becoming a member of the Gates of Awakening, they could then head to the center of the city ruins and slay the wandering inhabitants there to gain access to the Gates of Transcendence.

Naturally, thoughts of increasing his authority level within the Gates of Enlightenment still lingered in his mind from time to time, but he was certain that becoming a member of the Gates of Awakening was an instant ticket to everything the Gates of Enlightenment had to offer. The same thing would apply if he became a member of the Gates of Transcendence, which would give him free reign over the things within the Gates of Awakening.

With such a thought, the important task at hand was not to find ways to increase his authority levels, but rather to find a way back to the respective gates.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Just as Valyr had a soft smile as he had come to this conclusion, the young man's smile widened after seeing Hal return from the Gates of Enlightenment. Though, not long after, Vera and the others had appeared near the campsite as well, making Valyr think that the four had met up at the Gates of Enlightenment before returning together.

"I'm so tired," said Faulus with an exasperated sigh, heading to one of the chairs they set up around the fire pit to rest his legs. "If it were any other time, I would have definitely refused to go through something like that."

At those words, he slightly grinned. "But the rewards I got from completing the trials definitely made up for it."

"Come and sit down." Seeing the tired expressions on everyone's faces, Valyr urged everyone to sit around the fire pit for the meantime, beginning to talk about the trials they went through as the topic of their conversation. Within minutes, everyone animatedly discussed the hardships they had to go through, though the haggard appearances everyone of them had made everyone laugh out loud every once in a while, making the atmosphere around them lighthearted.

Eventually, after all five of them had discussed the respective trials they had to go through to survive, the five of them began to decide which one of them had gone through the most difficult trial. 

Though all of them unanimously agreed that Loreina had gone through the most struggle during her trials as she did not have the vials of rousing Faulus had given the others, the five of them had no doubts regarding the difficulty of Valyr's trial, wondering how he was even able to surmount such a gap for what was basically the entirety of the trial.

"Surely such a difficult trial would warrant a great amount of rewards, right?" said Hal at some point, prompting everyone to nod in agreement with him. Though the trials the others had gone through paled in difficulty to the one Valyr had to endure, the rewards they got were all things that could not be easily obtained from the outside world.

"Well…" Awkwardly smiling in response, Valyr thought about the conversation he and Hal had back at the Gates of Enlightenment, recalling how his final question had caused the man to become suspicious of him. Fortunately, just as he was about to give the others a vague answer, Loreina decided to interrupt the conversation as she asked the others a question.

"I know everyone's curious as to what rewards the others have gotten, but I just realized that with all of us entering the trial grounds, we don't know exactly how long we've been inside the inheritance anymore," said Loreina. "Does anyone perhaps know of a way to find out how long we've been here?"

"Let me check." Inwardly thanking Loreina for interrupting their conversation, Valyr swiftly volunteered to take a look at the time, opening up his status screen to take a look at the timer at the bottom. "All of you can take a look as well, I think. Just open your status screen and see if there's a timer at the very bottom."

Hearing those words, the four went ahead and did what the young man told them to do, focusing their attention on the timer that was on the bottom of their screen. However, while looking at it, the four slightly frowned as they did not know what to make out of the information.

On the other hand, Valyr was left at a slight loss for words at how much time had passed ever since the beta ended.

"Everyone… don't be alarmed after I tell you this…"

"But we've been in this inheritance for over two months already."