Back to Grinding.

As I was thinking about plans for how I would escape from the island and survive, I got interrupted by Eve's sudden enthusiastic gasps and "Ah, right!" moments.

'It seems that I'm too distracted to come up with anything good... I don't wanna ruin her mood as well, so I'll just postpone it till tonight...', I gave up on thinking.

"Samuel, look at this skeleton! I bet that creature was so majestic!!!", she said while pointing at the colossal skeleton of a storm dragon.

"Well, according to the history books, Storm Dragons were quite the prideful creatures... they were driven to extinction by the hunters and the demons though...", I responded.

"Yeah... I wonder what it would have been like to be face to face with such a monster!", her enthusiasm had no end in sight.

'Well, in the later chapters of the novel, there were a few dragon fights, so look forward to that?', I thought in my head.

"Students! Come this way! The trip is about to be over!", a female staff member announced.

"Aw, man! Already?!"

"But we just got started!!"

"Whoa! Look at the time! We spent around 5 hours here!"

"Wait, really?! It felt like 10 minutes!"

Everyone was sad that the trip was over, and so was Eve.

As for me, I was relieved. It meant that I would get more alone time.

"Toway was a wow of bun, rwight, Shamuel?", Eve asked, stretching her hands and yawning.

'So unrefined... but I don't mind...'

"Yeah! It sure was! I'm looking forward to the next year's trip too!", I answered.

"Let's go again together!", she exclaimed.

'I can't promise you that...'

I simply nodded my head and started walking toward the bus to go back to the hotel.

---

'I purposefully didn't talk to Eve too much. I think she actually noticed it, although she didn't say anything about it. I want to keep my relationship with Eve strictly as a 'Friend' and nothing more than that. There's absolutely no way I'll ever make any serious attachments to this world.', I thought as I took a shower.

After getting out of the shower, I immediately crashed to bed. After all, at night, I would be going out Artifact hunting again.

This time, my target was a pair of boots. The {Spirit Boots} were a pair of boots used by a villain who had a very high agility stat. It increased the wearer's agility by a whopping 15%.

On top of that, it increases the wearer's stamina recovery speed quite well. It isn't anything too crazy, but it was definitely noticeable in the middle of the battle. This little ability made the villain who used these boots an extreme pain in the ass for the protagonist to defeat.

After the fight with the Golems, I realised that just training stamina wouldn't take me very far... I needed to have some kind of equipment that either increased my stamina or increased my stamina recovery speed.

The boots were perfect for me.

To get it, however, I would have to fight some plant-type monsters that can use deadly poison too. The poison was no problem with my Energy magic and the Ring of Pestilence, but the plant's physical attacks were no joke either...

...

As I was thinking about things, I fell asleep just like that.

--- After Several Hours ---

I woke up to the sound of my phone ringing loudly. It was the alarm I set.

Sluggishly I got up from the bed and turned off the alarm.

The time was 12:30 at night.

'It should be about time that William casted illusion magic on me...', I thought.

After washing my face and brushing my teeth, I got ready to go fight some monsters.

The Weight robes, check. Amaranth, check. Mana reserves, check. Determination, check.

After confirming everything, I left the hotel room and sneaked outside.

'The {Spirit Boots} are supposed to be in a forest... The Mystic Forest, to the exact... We are actually supposed to go to that forest tomorrow, or I guess today, because of the time...', I thought.

I had used my phone's GPS to navigate to the Mystic Forest.

Inside the Mystic forest, there should be an unusually blue colored tree, named the 'Elvish Pine'. It was a species of trees brought in by the elves.

If I just chop down a single branch of the tree and bury it in the soil next to the tree, a quest should activate and let me into the place where the spirit boots are located in.

The problem is, that at night, all of the nocturnal plant-type mosters awaken and assault any other creature that dares to venture in.

They usually use poison, but because poison has little to no effect on me, I should be fine.

Until the plants start using physical attacks, that is.

'I'll just have to do my best dodging them...', I thought to myself.

Also, finding the Elvish Pine tree will be a pain, since the novel didn't specify the exact location. It just said 'On the western edge of the Mystic Forest, there was an unnatural-looking tree. It was azure in colour and was quite tall.'

I had to deduce the location of the tree using that vague information.

After power-walking for hours, I finally reached the entrance of the Mystic Forest.

After going through the traumatic experience of fighting the ancient golems, I had a burning determination to get the boots no matter what.

'I got lucky the last time... there's no telling what might happen the next time...', I thought.

As I walked deeper into the forest, the moonlight started to get obstructed by the canopy of leaves above me.

And soon, total darkness enveloped my entire body.

'Dark Vision.', I chanted and immediately, the darkness wasn't a problem anymore.

'But this consumes mana... I have to quickly deal with the fighting if I don't want to run out of mana before reaching the destination...', I sighed and prepared for the long haul.