According to everyone else, fighting Mandy in the final phase was the easiest part of their raid. Zen wisely kept his comments to himself. It was nice everything worked out, even if they failed to clear their first dungeon run in five minutes.
Zen shuddered when he recalled how Mandy exploded ten seconds after entering her final stage. Nobody held back, attacking her from all fronts. Zen had never seen a boss’s health bar drop that quickly before. He didn’t get time to blink before she was pulverised. If it weren’t for this mausoleum's puzzle element, they might finish it within a minute.The anticlimactic ending was very befitting of their party. Zen would have it any other way. As terrifying as it was having two of the academy’s most fearsome assassins on his team, there was also reassurance.“What did everyone get?” Sasha asked after receiving her reward for helping to defeat Mandy.Loot drop was random, and most of them recThere was no need to consider what to do after the lift brought Godly Food back to the mushroom meadow. Nobody stopped to listen to the peaceful lute music or admired the peaceful scenery. In fact, nobody got out of the lift because they were counting on Akiko, who was trying to jam the door shut again. However, after fifteen seconds of trying, they were forced to alight.“They should have an automatic re-run option,” Oritha growled as she stepped out of the magical lift.When everyone got out of the magical lift, it disappeared into thin air.The girls were the fastest to get to Mandy’s statue. Everyone was ready for the next round, but Zen did not accept the mausoleum invitation.“What’s wrong?” Sasha asked. “You don’t want to farm loot?”Zen shook his head hesitantly. Sometimes he wondered if he was pushing his limits too much in front of these assassins. However, communication was of dire import
“Six minutes and thirty-nine seconds,” Sasha sighed after they stepped out of the elevator. “The mausoleum is too big, and Gloomie’s mini-game is too difficult!”Oritha laughed. Unlike Sasha, she cleared the Simon Say game faster, even after messing up the sequence once. That wasn’t her fault. Liu Feng had no idea if “Mike” was a microphone of a man’s name in the context and hesitated too long, resulting in their failure. She did her part perfectly.“It’s ok,” Zen quickly positioned himself between his self-proclaimed big sister and the Amazonian. “We will improve over time. I’m sure we will be speed-running the mausoleum blindfolded by the end of the next run.”Without missing a beat, Liu Feng chimed in about how easy that would be. Why blindfold when being blind is more permanent?Laughing at the dark humour nervously, Zen ushered the party to the next run. They descended
“I think we can break the five-minute record with more puddings and better armour,” Zen panted after their sixtieth run. Even if he wasn’t doing much, keeping up with their pace was already challenging.The girls were getting faster as they became more familiar with the mausoleum. However, it still took five minutes to finish a run, even with the fastest path. They had been doing this for nearly six hours. Zen couldn’t continue. He needed to rest before waking up to prepare breakfast.“We can gather the ingredients,” Liu Feng offered helpfully. “What do you need?”Checking his recipe, Zen told them the basic speed slime pudding required one boss slime eye and five green slime goo. The monsters were relatively easy to find, but it was tedious to fight alone. Not to mention, the slimes came in groups. Zen would spend more time retreating than killing slimes if he did it alone.“We’ll need one hundred boss
Zen woke up.Zen finished making breakfast.Zen ate his breakfast.But nobody was up.Despite the short few hours of sleep after last night’s mental breakdown, Zen felt better. Sleep deprivation was scary, and he wanted to apologise for the outburst. However, none of his party members was awake. They must have spent all night farming for pudding materials. The busy chef did not have time to check his inbox, although he received multiple notifications about gifts from them.“Maybe I should send everyone a message and deliver the food to their rooms,” he decided after checking the time.Zen woke up near noon. That was usually when the kitchen would be bustling with activity and starving folks who had just completed their morning training. However, most people were asleep today from the excitement of last night. Unlike Party Godly Food, the other students were most likely busy preparing for the treasure hunt event and trading
Zen finally logged in after delivering lunch. His inbox was flooded with notifications. His party members sent so many gifts that Zen had no idea where to start. They didn’t only send him pudding ingredients, even if that made for more than seventy percent of the mail. The game developers should increase the in-game item mail cap so that Zen did not have to deal with a hundred gift messages. His members also sent what they received from sixty runs of the mausoleum. It was too much to read, so Zen spent the next fifteen minutes mindlessly opening gifts and storing them in his inventory.Thankfully, he had enough Steel Silk to work with. However, those weren’t the only things his party members sent. Zen spent a reasonable amount of time reading through the different talisman cards they gifted. Some of those talismans had wonderful effects. On the other hand, there were also talismans with random trash-sounding abilities.Either way, Zen was grateful.T
With little progress at the blacksmith, Zen left to check on Paul. However, the armourer wasn’t in his workshop. Hence, he decided to walk around town for a while to kill time. His crafting inventory was still hard at work when it gave Zen an idea.Stopping outside the restaurant where Martha’s fruit stall initially was, Zen saw Chef Marvin standing around. The friendly chef waved to Zen and warmly welcomed him with a heavy back pat.“It’s good to see you again! Have you been eating well?”If Gilda were here, Zen would have been glared to death for ‘flirting’ with Marvin. Smiling awkwardly, Zen asked if he could borrow the kitchen to make some slime puddings.“Of course!” the cheerful NPC grinned and showed Zen the kitchen at the back of his restaurant. “Let me know if you need any help!”Dismissing the touchy-feely chef, Zen looked at the kitchen.Cooking on a real range was faster than
Following the weaver inside, Zen noticed a massive loom near the back of the house. Closer to the window where there was light, Zen spotted a desk with many needles, threads, and unfinished products.“Here, let me show you the different basic stitching styles,” Annabel introduced after ushering Zen to sit on a chair in her living room. The lady brought her sewing materials over and passed some to Zen, who held it with uncertainty.The weaver turned out to be a great teacher. She was patient and clear with her explanations, even going so far as to give a demonstration. Zen listened attentively and followed her example. He picked up a needle and chose a thread with a similar colour to the fabric he was using for stitching practice.Annabel threaded the needle fluidly and watched Zen struggle with his. The thread refused to go into the eye of the needle as it was too thin.After five attempts, Zen finally got a small part of his thread through the needle
After crafting enough Steel Silk armour for his party members, Zen sent it to them with a message asking them to meet him at the starter town after they logged in. Then, he logged out to prepare lunch.Zen spotted other students ordering instant noodles as he whipped up something quick for himself. There were more instant noodle flavours now than before, but Zen couldn’t overlook the importance of nutrition. Out of the kindness of his heart, he prepared extra toppings that would go well with the noodles while he cooked for his guild members.“Can I place orders for other instant and frozen food on top of the regular ingredients?” Zen asked the kitchen invigilator on duty.The gruff lady with many tattoos raised a brow.“Why not? Write them down, quantity and all. We’ll still have to wait for the next shipment. By the way, instant noodles have become quite the hit. It’s good for us because we don’t know how to cook. If you