On the second day of advancing towards the goblin tribe, the influence of the earth element on the dungeon began to gradually become apparent.

Frequent earthquakes began to occur inside the underground city, and gravity began to increase to varying degrees.

This incident caused great harm to Carl.

The impact of gravity is all-encompassing. Just walking every day consumes most of Carl's physical strength.

Hope's situation is better than Carl's, but only to a limited extent.

"Huff~ Hope! Stop for a moment, let's take a break!"

Halfway up a rocky mountain, Carl, wearing power armor, held onto the rock next to him and shouted to Hope breathlessly.

In terms of physical fitness alone, Carl's physique is indeed quite outstanding.

However, physical fitness is the integration of immunity, body healing speed, recovery ability and other conditions, while mountain climbing is a category of strength attributes.

12 points of strength is not a small amount, but it is not enough if you want to climb a mountain in an environment with increased gravity.

In particular, the mountain roads in the underground city were not artificially excavated.

In the past, Mount Tai and Mount Hua could cost some people their lives, not to mention this kind of primitive rock where one needs to find their own way to climb up.

"What's wrong? You want to rest again? We've only been walking for more than two hours."

Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Hope forced himself to stay awake and spoke in a very stubborn tone.

The rapid rise and fall of her chest formed a sharp contrast with her casual tone, but she stood firm in order to maintain her dignity as a "physical professional."

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, I can't hold on any longer, let's stop and take a rest!"

After perfunctorily giving Hope an excuse, Carl took off his power armor and lay directly on the rock.

After taking a few breaths, Carl felt much better.

This is the benefit of having a good physique.

Seeing Carl lying directly on the ground, Hope didn't hesitate and lay down with his head resting on Carl's stomach.

With a long breath, Hope's heartbeat gradually stabilized.

This resting place is one of the rare "spacious" locations on the mountain road. Whenever Carl encounters similar places, he always takes a rest whenever he can.

After all, no one knows when the next place to rest will appear.

Maintaining sufficient physical strength at all times is the first priority for adventurers.

If a not-so-strong monster appears and kills you when you are exhausted, it would be such an unfair death.

"It seems to be almost noon. Do you want to light a fire and cook?"

He took out his pocket watch and checked the time. Hope rubbed his head against Carl's stomach, making Carl feel itchy.

"Sure! But I want to eat the giant lizard meat I hunted yesterday. Do you have any honey and red wine in your backpack?"

With that, Carl lifted Hope's head and pulled out from under her.

Placing the backpack filled with various materials under Hope's head, Carl opened the backpack and began to search for ingredients in it.

Carl marinated the monitor lizard steaks with a little honey, a little red wine and some salt extracted from brine.

Taking out a frying pan made from a fire lizard's spear, Carl placed the rune stone next to it and began to preheat it.

Looking at Carl's skilled appearance, Hope turned sideways and waited quietly for the signal to eat.

Soon, the steak was placed on the pan.

The sound of "sizzling" spreads around along with the Maillard reaction and the aroma of honey and grapes.

"Are you the only child in your family?"

In her opinion, the reason why Karl could do so many housework should be because he had a younger brother or sister at home.

"No! Eruden implements a relatively strict family planning policy. After all, if there are too many people, not only will it affect the natural environment, but it will also cause internal competition in education and basic work."

"Most families have only one child, and we call this eugenics and good parenting."

Unlike industrial countries such as Breland or Karrnath, Eludin, as an agricultural country, does not actually have such high requirements for human resources.

However, precisely because of the emphasis on eugenics, the number of professionals in Eruden is the highest among all countries.

The public education in the industrial country of Breland is the best, but it sends more than 60% of its young people to work in factories.

As he was talking, a piece of steak was cooked and Carl picked it up with chopsticks and tasted it.

"Well, it lacks some spice, so it doesn't taste as good as I thought it would."

As he was commenting, Hope leaned over and took the steak in his mouth and swallowed it whole.

Wiping the gravy from the corner of his mouth, Hope commented sincerely, "No way? I think it tastes pretty good."

Giving Hope a pitying look, Carl sighed in a low voice, "What kind of life did you live before..."

They picked up a few more pieces of raw steak and placed them on the pan, and the two of them simply finished today's lunch.

Starting again, both Carl and Hope became more energetic.

Carl would stop to meditate from time to time, comparing the simulated map in the dream world with their current locations.

Thanks to the ability to surface memories in the dream world, Carl can now draw maps as easily as dispelling the fog of war in a game.

"We're about two kilometers off the track. Once we pass this mountainous area, we'll need to correct our route to the north..."

At around six o'clock in the afternoon, Carl confirmed the two people's positions again.

The two have not found a place to rest yet, so they might need to travel across the mountains overnight.

Of course, with the light in the dungeon, there is no difference between day and night.

"If only your jet could keep running long enough, we could fly over this mountainous area in no time."

Looking at the rock wall ahead that seemed to be too far away, Hope sighed.

Suddenly, there was a shaking on the rocks in the distance, and a strange creature with a brown body, three arms, three thighs, three eyes and a mouth on the top of its head jumped out from the rock.

Xor, a relatively neutral earth elemental life form.

It can move through nonmagical, unprocessed layers of soil and rock, burrowing underground without disrupting geological continuity.

Carl knew something about this creature.

Because Xorns have a unique sense of smell for precious metals and gems, some organizations often use them to find mineral veins.

Looking at each other wandering among the rocks as if in water, Carl and Hope showed envy in their eyes.

It might take them half an hour to walk those few steps.

"Do you think this thing was also summoned from the Earth Elemental Plane by the goblins in Salamander's memory?"

Just as Hope was about to move on, this question suddenly occurred to him.

As the saying goes: once there is one, there will be two, there will be three. There is no way those goblins would stop after summoning one fire lizard.

But for this behavior, Carl can only say: "Well done!"

Maybe they will open a portal to Eberron someday? (End of this chapter)