His fist drove through the cracked shell, punching several inches into the body of the beast before stopping.

The scorpion went slack instantly, its legs locking and dropping at the same moment, the stinger falling from above it.

[You have killed an E-rank Deathstalker Scorpion]

Lukas pulled his hand free. Blood sprayed from the gap in the shell, the dark and thick liquid splattering across the red sand.

He didn’t stop.

He pushed off the dead scorpion’s body and moved, circling around to attack behind the next one.

The beast hadn’t seen where he’d gone, its focus occupied with dodging the other attacks. However, its stinger was still tracking the space he’d been occupying a second ago, unaware that he was gone.

He came in from its blindspot and punched again.

The fist went through the shell at the back of the head. The scorpion dropped without making a sound.

[You have killed an E-rank Deathstalker Scorpion.]

He pulled his hand free and straightened.

On the far side of the group, one of Karrakas’s arrows crossed the desert air and took the last scorpion through the side of its head. It folded.

They moved through the bodies quickly, each person pressing a hand to the nearest corpse and sending them into their spatial rings.

Karrakas fell back into stride beside them as they continued running across the desert.

"Deathstalker Scorpions are also poisonous to eat," he said. "Don’t try it." He paused. "They sell for less than the Chilopodas, since their shells are harder to process. But they still have value."

Lukas nodded, and they kept moving.

What followed was hours of running, fighting, and killing.

Beasts erupted from the sand at intervals, some alone and some in small groups. None of them posed a problem they couldn’t solve.

Soon, they found a flat stretch of sand between two low dunes, checked the ground around them carefully, and sat.

Karrakas and Lukas took a few seconds to raise a small shade to protect themselves from the sun before they joined the women under it, crossing their legs underneath themselves.

Lukas reached into his spatial ring and pulled out his water bottle, drinking deeply from it. Around him, the others did the same.

For a moment, the only sounds were the wind moving across the dunes and the quiet of a desert that had temporarily decided to leave them alone.

Of course, there was also the fact that they’d killed all nearby beasts which contributed to the silence.

Lukas lowered the bottle after drinking his fill and exhaled. Fighting non-stop in a desert was exhausting work.

He’d quickly realized that [Smite] had been the wrong choice for a quest like this. Everytime he used it, he sent vibrations through the sand, drawing more beasts to them.

If he’d known this was how it’ll be, he’d have picked [Cursed Blade] instead. Using it would’ve been quieter. He’d have been able to kill beasts without announcing his presence to everything buried within a hundred meters.

But just because he’d made the wrong choice, that didn’t mean he was willing to abandon the quest. He needed the two hundred Gacha Points, and wouldn’t be walking away from that.

He was overdue another draw anyway.

After another sip of water, he pulled up his status screen.

[Lukas Valentine]

[Race: Human]

[Rank: E-Rank Adept]

[Class: Thief, Hexblade, Necromancer]

[EXP: 2.94%]

[Stats:]

[Strength: 9053]

[Agility: 8325]

[Constitution: 8879]

[Mana: 10,094]

[Skills: Pickpocket, Lockpick, Cursed Blade, Hex Shield, Blood Armor, Resurrect, Death Bolt, Smite, Wing Fortress, Cursed Ground, Bone Wall]

His [Thief] class sat greyed out alongside [Pickpocket] and [Lockpick], unusable until his class change quest was complete.

He’d expected that.

But what he hadn’t expected was the experience number.

After everything they’d killed today, the Chilopodas, the Deathstalker Scorpions, and the continuous running battles across open sand, all he had was 2.94%?!

He stared at it, sighing before closing the screen and looking out at the dunes.

Grinding experience on the Second Floor was a different world from what they’d been doing on the First.

He’d need to rethink his approach. He knew that if he, Akira and Melody unleashed their full skills and fought the beasts head on, they’d be able to level up faster than the average Adept.

His mana pool and skill list alone made him a one man army.

In fact, he was certain that they could handle a monster horde if they fought with all their skills and [Items]. But they won’t be able to do that with Karrakas watching.

And especially not without something to heal their wounds if they ever got injured.

That thought gave rise to a question, so he turned to Karrakas. "Are there Adept ranked [Items] that can heal people?"

Karrakas looked at him for a moment before answering. "They exist. But forget about buying one."

"Why?"

"Because you’ll never see one available." He capped his own bottle and tucked it away. "Anyone who finds a healing [Item] uses it themselves first. If they ever decide to sell, they don’t take it to a shop. They list it with one of the top auction houses in the city."

"And those auction houses don’t let just anyone through the door. Access is by invitation. The people receiving those invitations are prominent families, top guild executives, and figures who have spent years building that kind of standing."

He gave Lukas a look. "Someone like me has never seen an invitation. Someone like you, new to this floor, wouldn’t either."

"Which means by the time a healing [Item] surfaces, it’s already spoken for by people with more gold and more connections than either of us will have for a long time. The price it sells for would make your head spin."

Lukas was quiet for a moment.

"So the only way to get one is to find one yourself," he said.

"That’s the only way," Karrakas confirmed.

Melody had been listening. She lowered her bottle and looked between them. "So what are our options if we get seriously injured out here?" 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

She gestured at the desert around them. "Are we just expected to push through it or die?"