After taking care of Hope for a while, Carl could clearly feel that the little bit of unfamiliarity between the two had quietly disappeared.

If Hope was grateful to Carl before because he saved her, now she is slowly treating Carl as her real "companion".

At least in the past, Hope would not take the initiative to have such close contact with Carl.

During the mechanical movement, slippery sweat flowed down the bodies of both people.

The fabric was wet with sweat and stuck to my body.

During the intense exercise, Carl clenched his teeth to prevent himself from releasing the anger in his chest.

Once he exhales this breath, he will definitely collapse to the ground.

Time passed by minute by minute, and before they knew it, they had completed most of the exercise.

Finally, as the two began their last set of training, both sides used up their remaining physical strength and launched the final sprint.

"97, huh~, 98, ha~, 99, uh hum~, 100! Alright! I've finished ten sets. Now I can take a break."

After hearing what Hope said, Carl fell directly to the floor.

Hope also rolled off his back, and the two of them lay side by side, greedily breathing the air that had become "sweet" after exercise.

Sweat soaked the floor, and the only sound in the room was the heavy breathing of the two people.

"I didn't expect you to last this long. I thought you'd give up halfway through."

"Ha! If you just stand by and supervise me, I might give up halfway through."

Carl blinked his eyes as his chest heaved like a bellows, feeling that something was not right about the conversation between them.

Hope didn't fully understand what Carl said, but she also knew that boys always had some strange desire to win in some aspects, so she just thought that Carl was competing with something.

"Strange desire to win."

With such an emotional sigh, Hope lay down, closed his eyes, and regulated his breathing.

"Humph! If we were to switch positions, I could hold on until you strain your muscles!"

Carl said this to himself in a very tough manner, and tried to turn his body over, but his arms were like noodles and he had no strength at all.

'It's broken, it's over-exercised.'

Looking up at Hope who had his eyes closed, Carl gritted his teeth and said nothing.

He always felt that if he asked Hope to help him turn things around at this time, he would lose.

Carl squirmed his body forward, used his head to push against the floor, and with the inertia of his twisting body, he finally changed from lying prone to lying flat.

After a while, Hope helped Carl do weighted squats.

Outside the house, the whistling wind and the sound of rain formed a monotonous melody.

Inside the house, young boys and girls were sweating.

…

In the goblin tribe near the fluorescent mushroom forest, ordinary goblins, who are generally only about 1.4 meters tall, are huddled in the tribal tents, ignoring anything happening in the outside world.

These guys who are often bullied by the bear goblins and hobgoblins always find opportunities to slack off, and this kind of weather gives them all a reason to slack off.

None of the goblins noticed that while they were fishing, a strange rusty red bug had quietly slipped into their tribe's arsenal and was licking a rusty sword with satisfaction.

Rust Monster, a subterranean insect that feeds primarily on ferrous metal ore oxides.

The Adventurer's Guild rated their combat power at one-half level, which means that ordinary people can barely deal with them.

This strange creature can quickly corrode non-magical metals and is the underground creature that dwarf miners least want to see.

Soon, a long sword of decent workmanship entered its stomach.

But after eating all this, the Rust Monster was still not satisfied.

It began to look for something "more exciting" in the warehouse.

Following the metallic "smell" in the air, the Rust Monster crawled deeper into the warehouse.

In the increasingly dark cellar, a small hill made of various metal parts appeared in front of the Rust Monster.

The parts looked well made, but as the Rust Monster crawled through them, a faint stain of rust began to spread across the parts.

The Rust Monster naturally would not miss the opportunity to feast, so it lay on the gradually rusted parts and ate with big mouthfuls.

As the parts were gradually eliminated by it, a metal door panel hidden underneath the parts gradually emerged.

There are magic patterns etched on this door panel, and the magic power protects the metal from being easily affected by the rust monster's abilities.

But the rust monster was not a stupid beast without any intelligence. With its front legs slightly raised, it actually opened the trap door.

“Buzz——”

Some kind of strange magical power spread out in all directions after it opened the trapdoor, but neither the goblins nor the rust monster itself noticed it at all.

Lifting the trapdoor aside, the Rust Monster followed the tunnel below and crawled deeper into the cellar.

In the tunnel, strange crystals emitting deep blue or deep purple light are embedded in the walls of the tunnel. The surface of the crystals flashes with some special patterns, giving people an eerie feeling that their souls will be sucked in at any time.

This is the Khyber Dragoncrystal, the crystallization of the power of the Yellow Springs Dragon.

Unlike the highly versatile Eberron Dragoncrystal, the Khyber Dragoncrystal possesses the ability to bind magic.

Eberron's current airships and lightning trains use elemental binders made from it to store elemental creatures for energy.

In addition, it is also often used as a raw material for lich phylacteries.

There are so many Khyber Dragon Crystals in this passage that it can be considered a veritable gold mine.

Crawling in this tunnel, the Rust Monster kept sniffing the metallic smell in the air and moving forward.

Soon, it came to the end of the tunnel.

This is a place similar to a ritual site, but it is much more rough than the one of the Mind Flayer.

The long-rotten corpses, wearing armor, were distributed radially around a giant sword that was inserted into the rock.

The blade of the giant sword is similar to some kind of black rock, but it is filled with evil energy.

What attracted the Rust Monster here was the armor on the corpses.

The etched magic patterns on these equipments made of fine materials had long been destroyed and they had lost the ability to withstand the passage of time.

But they are the best food for rust monsters.

The Rust Monster ran happily to a corpse, shaking the insect tentacles above its head, and was about to continue eating.

However, a stream of black and red energy shot out from the black stone sword in the center of the ceremony site and pierced the rust monster's body.

A phantom floated out from the rust monster's body and slowly flew into the black stone sword.

Lines of magic patterns briefly lit up on the sword, but soon dimmed again.

(End of this chapter)