Chapter 316

....

It was now morning, and the group could be seen getting ready to set out.

Dusting their clothes, they yawned once and then waited as the sound of the skeletons disassembling echoed through the land like an avalanche.

Biding their time until the final clatter rang out, Ray waited for the right moment.

"Now."

Without any hesitation whatsoever, they all bolted out of the bone cave and entered the open terrain.

"We need to cover more than a quarter of the region before the day ends," Van calculated.

And from there, they began moving rapidly through the landscape.

They were all quick on their feet.

Instead of traveling calmly, they were basically sprinting at high speed, though making sure not to accelerate too fast in case those like Van couldn’t catch up easily.

However, contrary to what they expected, mechanical spiders suddenly rushed down the tech genius’ legs, wrapping around his limbs and forming a contraption akin to thrusters.

His eyes shone a bright blue, and then—

"Keep up, slowpokes!" Van chuckled as he burst forward with rapid velocity, blasting past the others.

The group paused for a moment to look at him getting farther and farther away with each passing second.

"Wha—?!"

"Hey! Wait up!" Chloe shouted.

Making use of her telekinetic ability to boost her own speed, she began gliding through the air to give chase to Van.

This left Ray, Kai, and Trisha rooted to the spot in confusion for a few seconds.

Shaking his head, Ray broke the silence.

"Come on. We don’t have any more time to waste."

And with that, he increased his pace, darting forward with rapid velocity.

Trisha and Kai followed immediately, and soon, they were all gaining on Ray, who was closing the gap on Van and Chloe.

It looked like the tech genius was flying with the help of his thrusters as he hovered a meter away from the ground.

The littered bones crunched loudly against the soles of Ray, Trisha, and Kai’s feet as they continued running forward, keeping a good pace.

Luckily for them, Bone Ridge was easy to navigate.

It was just a land filled with bones that covered the ground, while a few bone structures rose to form cave-like systems.

No beasts. No hindrance. No rough terrain.

It was all smooth sailing for the group, who wasted no time in their movements.

Seconds stretched into minutes, and within an hour, Van and Chloe were beginning to lose steam due to their meta-force being depleted.

Grinning, Ray increased his speed as he bolted forward, whooshing past Van and Chloe with a smirk on his face.

"What happened? Can’t blitz forward anymore? Ha! Slowpokes," the Tribrid taunted as he leaped forward, landing on top of a bone cave before darting ahead to leap from one bone hill to another.

The hills barely rose two meters from the ground, and he was leaping effortlessly while leaving the others behind.

"Oh? You want to play?!" Van ground his teeth, feeling his meta-force waning at an impressive rate.

He looked down at his thrusters and then, with the last of his meta-force, he created a little slot through the sleek black metallic boot just below his knee.

Digging his hand into his pocket, he pulled out one of the cores and slotted it in.

WHIRRRR—!

It activated with a loud sound and then,

Bang—!

Van rushed forward like a meteor and within a second, he flew past Ray while throwing smoke in front of his best friend’s face.

"Woah! This is awesome!" Van chuckled loudly as he stroked his hands downward and then bolted upward with full speed, looking like a human rocket.

"Woohoo—! Hahaha!"

Ray paused for a moment as a small smile creased his face.

’He looks so happy and carefree. It’s been a while since I last saw a genuinely calm smile on him. I wish it could last longer.’

"Hey. What’s with the holdup?" Kai asked as he ran past a still Ray.

....

A few hours ran past with the teens traversing the landscape with good momentum and, soon enough, the sun could be seen slowly dipping.

They decided to search for a cave to camp in for the rest of the night.

It didn’t take long before they found one that was solidly okay, and they quickly took cover just in time as the skeletons could be heard assembling with rapid velocity.

"Haaa.... haaaa... that was close." Van crashed on the ground as he had fully exhausted the entire Advanced-rank core, and his contraption was beginning to break apart into a bunch of tiny mechanical spiders that were crawling up his body toward the bracelet slung on his wrist.

The dim core clattered to the ground and rolled for a few moments before coming to a halt.

The others lay on the ground, panting deeply and raggedly.

Only Ray didn’t seem to break much of a sweat as he leaned against the wall, staring at the others panting like they had been part of a twenty-mile marathon race.

Well, they had been sprinting all day and, with the competitive nature in their blood, a sprint had turned into a race.

In the process, they had covered a lot more ground compared to what they had originally estimated.

"Good work everyone. Today was great," Ray smiled.

"Just.... haaa.... haaa... shut up for a moment," Trisha growled amidst her pants.

"Ah... I’m so damn hungry," Chloe cried aloud as she rubbed her belly while still panting like the others.

".... And thirsty," Van chimed in while wiping away the beads of sweat that had gathered across his face.

Kai, though wet with sweat, still looked annoyingly beautiful.

He looked at the Tribrid, who couldn’t help but scowl at how good-looking the legacy heir remained.

"You can do things that seem basically impossible for humans. Don’t you have the ability to conjure maybe food or water?"

"Yeah. Because I’m a freaking walking grocery store," Ray growled.

Kai just clicked his tongue and turned his head away.

"So you are basically useless then."

"...."

Ray’s face was now red with annoyance.

"What did you say?! You beautiful bastard, just you wait for when a threat appears and we see who is more useless between us!"