Volume Dragon: Start by obtaining the Infinity Gems

Chapter 335 Loop
After coming out of the cellar that day, Nemesis set a goal for the two of them - to kill monsters, kill as many monsters as possible.

They need a lot of experience points to upgrade, so that they can eventually go to the Dark Castle to destroy the lich Vecna's phylactery.

Emma strongly disagreed with his plan.

"Although I really want to return to the real world, I don't want to die!"

What Emma said represented her point of view. Having lived here for three years, she had seen all kinds of monsters and dangers.

Most of the time, she carefully lurked, looted supplies, and lived in safe houses. In the past three years, she had always avoided conflicts with those monsters unless she had to take action.

This is also the reason why Emma has been here for so long but is only a level 5 swordsinger.

"Don't you want to return to reality and live in this weird world for the rest of your life?" This is how Nemesis answered her.

Emma had an indescribable feeling, but she forced herself to answer: "Of course not! I must go back! My family is waiting for me!"

After saying this, Emma still remembers the intriguing look in Nemesis' eyes: "Your family? Do you have many family members?"

But she didn't think much about it. She just said hesitantly, "Family, of course. My parents died in a car accident when I was five years old, but I still have a dog, Biscuit, who has been with me since I was a child."

When talking about her family, Emma's eyes became extremely gentle, if you ignore the burst of garbled data flashing in her pixelated eyes.

But Nemesis at the time just said meaningfully: "It seems that your family has a long life span. In this case, for the sake of your cookies, you should try harder to return to reality, right?"

So, after that, they began their leveling journey.

Nemesis showed his talent of ten times the magic slots, which made Emma extremely envious. After leaving the initial village and coming to the nearby Rime Town, both of them reached level seven.

With a fourth-ring spell slot, Nemesis is far ahead of others on the road to leveling. There is no group of monsters that cannot be dealt with by a [Fireball]. If you encounter monsters that are immune to fire, use [Lightning Beam] or [Ice Cone] to melt them.

There are many villagers in Wusong Town who look very mechanical and dull. They are like NPCs in the game in this virtual world. They issue various tasks to the two. Apart from that, normal communication with them is possible, but once the topic of this world being fake is involved, they will immediately reshape their consciousness and forget the conversation.

"These people are so pitiful, they don't even know they are fake." Emma sighed.

Each task the villagers completed gave experience points, not much, but fortunately a large amount. By completing various tasks and clearing out the monsters around Wusong Town, the two quickly rose in level, from level 7 to level 12 within a month.

If it weren't for the fact that the demand for experience points increased in the later stages and Nemesis had to get enough sleep every day to restore his spell slots, the two of them would have been able to upgrade faster.

Even so, for Emma, ​​who has survived here for three years and is only at level five, everything still seems a little unreal.

"I remember when I first came here, I encountered a raptor one night. I was so scared that I lay in the grass and didn't dare to move." Emma sighed after killing a raptor with one sword.

The leveling process with Nemesis went smoothly, but they soon ran into a problem: there was no experience points.

After receiving the last mission from the mayor of Wusong Town - to eliminate a level 13 necromancer, there were no more missions to be taken in the entire Wusong Town, and all the monsters in the surrounding area had been cleared by them.

But they only reached level 13 by relying on this.

So they had to leave Rime Town and start the journey to the Dark Castle.

There were no monsters on the road to the Dark Castle, so they lit a bonfire and rested peacefully on the roadside at night.

In the bright night sky, a square full moon hung in the sky, the purple bonfire cut Emma's face into pieces, and the pixel firewood burst into hexadecimal sparks in the flames.

Emma stared at the campfire with empty eyes, and said with a heavy heart: "Hey, do you think we are strong enough to face Vecna?" Nemesis wiped the stains on the mithril dagger: "Whether it is enough or not, this is our limit."

Emma looked at him suspiciously, expecting an explanation.

"Look around you. Have you been here before?" Nemesis asked.

Emma was stunned for a moment, as if she was recalling something, with a trace of data code flashing in her eyes: "...I have been here before. At that time, I heard about Vecna's deeds and wondered if I could defeat him to get the qualification to go home. But after leaving Wushuang Town, I found that this road was too dangerous... Wait."

Her eyes suddenly widened as she looked around at the empty space. The desolation of the wilderness made her feel a little scared.

"Why, I remember there should be a lot of monsters here before—"

Nemesis suddenly interrupted her and said indifferently: "Because we have reached the upper limit allowed by this illusory world."

"It won't allow us to level up anymore because it's too dangerous for it, so it deleted all the monsters that can provide experience points."

This explanation unexpectedly made sense to Emma. Yes, since they could leave by killing the final boss, then in order to prevent the intruders from completing the task, wouldn’t it be better not to give them experience points and let them level up?

But if so
"Then why doesn't it let us face the final boss in the Novice Village? That would definitely be foolproof." Emma said confusedly.

Nemesis looked at her face illuminated by the bonfire and said meaningfully, "Because it is also bound by rules."

Emma frowned and thought for a while, but found that she couldn't find the answer, so she simply gave up.

The campfire fell into silence again, making the entire empty wilderness seem even more peaceful.

Nemesis wiped the dagger and casually brought up the topic: "You said you lived here for three years?"

Emma answered unconsciously, "Of course, since the day I woke up." She pointed to the campfire and said, "Look at the cracks in these charcoal. They are exactly the same as when I burned maple trees last fall."

Nemesis sneered in his heart. He remembered it so clearly, even the cracks in the charcoal? But he just forgot that there were supposed to be monsters on this road.

Instead of saying this, he asked, "Maple tree?" He picked up a piece of the vaporizing slime with his dagger and put it in his mouth. "Does the pixel world have seasonal changes?"

The bonfire suddenly turned indigo. Data waterfalls flowed through the depths of Emma's pupils: "Of course there are! Data flowers bloom in the swamps in spring, and the heat waves in the desert in summer can cause rash on the skin." Her voice began to tremble, and the hilt of the sword carved a chaotic geometric pattern in the sand.

The mage's arcane vision suddenly caught something unusual - Emma's shadow was spinning counterclockwise. He pretended to be nonchalant and asked, "So, which numbered bottle did you use to collect the maple syrup in the fall?"

"Use it." The girl's silver hair suddenly showed mosaic ripples. She stood up suddenly, and the sound of armor colliding was accompanied by the noise of program disorder. "I suddenly remembered that there are still three goblin camps in the north that have not been cleared!"

Nemesis pressed her shoulder armor, and the touch felt like he was caressing flowing metal code. He pointed to the sky, and the square moon had turned into a blood moon, divided by countless hexagons: "Look at that moon, does it look like the one you see in your hometown?"

Emma's sword clanged to the ground. She looked up with the exact same precision as if it were a pre-set animation, and a disk-reading sound came from her throat: "Seasons. Are cyclical. There is no need to remember the specifics."

This strange and creepy sound continued for several minutes, and suddenly her whole body froze, and then relaxed. The data code on her eyes and armor disappeared, and she opened her eyes in confusion.

She looked at Nemesis's hand on her shoulder and shyly moved away, "Why did you put your hand on me? I have to tell you, I actually have a boyfriend."

Nemesis smiled and took his hand back: "Nothing, I just saw a data bug on your shoulder."

Emma shrugged, then looked at the bonfire and said thoughtfully: "Hey, do you think we are strong enough to face Vecna?"

(End of this chapter)