The Earth After Rebirth

"Yeah, because collecting herbs is so difficult." Kiro rolled his eyes.

"Of course it is!"

Kiro didn\'t understand that, herbs were very delicate and should therefore be handled by someone who knew what they were doing. The last time he picked herbs was back in beginner\'s village. Where he picked common ones.

From rare upwards, it needed a steady hand, a professional one, that was something he didn\'t know despite having watched the game in his past life.

In his defense, he never followed around any craftsmen. He was more into fighters, and the class didn\'t have anybody who stood out from the rest back then, so he didn\'t care much about it. Hiro was clearly a very unique person, who was lucky to have bumped into Kiro.

They all stood and watched as Hiro frantically cleaned himself up. Drinking potions to get rid of the fatigue, something he was extremely against, because the side effects weren\'t his favourite.

This particular brew was different from stamina potions in that, it recovered everything. From physical to mental, so it took only a few seconds before the Hiro they knew was standing right in front of them, ready to leave.

"You should take as many of your tamed beasts as possible. This mission is something we absolutely cannot fail." He suggested, in a rather commanding tone.

Kiro was quite proud of how far his friend had come. When he met him he was just a kid from the slums, much like himself, who doubted everything about themselves. But now he could give out orders, in a stern voice.

Though as much as he admired his newfound confidence, he wasn\'t going to bring a single beast. He\'d worked hard to level them up, he didn\'t want them returning to their low level selves.

\'Dammi Hubris, you\'re the only one!\' He cursed internally, he\'d never found a beast of his level. He wasn\'t sure he wanted one, it felt like some kind of betrayal.

He was sure they could take the mountain, being guardians and everything. He was also certain that his beasts would perish, so instead of bringing dead weight, he chose to leave them behind.

"I\'m not bringing them, we\'re enough." He didn\'t give him a chance to retort, as he blinked out of there and waited for them to catch up by the gate.

"What was the mountain called again?" He mumbled to himself, wrecking his brain, nervous that he may have give Hiro false hope.

He remembered that there were titans, a lot of fire and some illusions to trick whoever dared to challenge it. He couldn\'t for the life of him remember the name.

Ding!

[It seems what you\'re looking for is Mt. Prometheus. It\'s a treacherous mountain even for you guardians, but I suppose it\'ll serve as a great training ground for the lot of you.

Thank you guardian, that\'s quite a splendid idea. And for this idea you\'ve given me, I\'ll reward you. First the location is South of here, secondly you don\'t have to worry about travelling there, I offer my services.]

"Huh? Why?"

[...]

Before long the others joined him, dragging him out the gate, surprised he was just dumbly standing there when he was this excited to leave for the legendary mountain.

"Wait, the system offered us a ride, stop tugging too hard, hey!"

Hiro suddenly had great strength. He was dragging Kiro by his robe from the neck, he however stopped when the word \'ride\' registered in his mind.

"That\'s awfully nice of it, what\'s the catch?" Ishaam asked.

Ding!

[Oh, the player cannot come. The teleportation would shred his normal self into a tiny pieces before he lost all his experience.]

The system could now be heard by all of them. Ishaan\'s face soured, he didn\'t want to miss out on another guardian adventure. He already didn\'t feel like he was really part of the group, he didn\'t need the game isolating him any further.

"No, he has to come. If you can\'t help, then we don\'t need your help. We will just walk there, this is an After Dark convoy." It was Kiro who spoke up.

Ishaan could\'ve wailed right there and then. He felt warmth rising up from within, it was then that he felt truly accepted. Which he quickly reminded himself that he was being ridiculous before, these guys made a training regime just for him.

Of course they didn\'t know that he knew, but he knew. He didn\'t understand his own self sometimes, his emotions went up and down, making him doubt some things in his life. And this only happened when he found out about the sanctum.

Ding!

[You think...I suppose he could use his shield to avoid the damage. I\'ve analysed it, it has a 99% chance of working.]

"What happened to the 1%?" He cried.

[...anyway, let\'s get started. Time\'s of the essence here.]

"Fine then, but I don\'t trust you so we will all be within Ishaan\'s force shield to ensure you transport us all."

Kiro didn\'t put it past the system to leave Ishaan behind on purpose, then claim it was a failure, since there was a 1% that it wouldn\'t work. He didn\'t want to take any chances, this was a perfect time for After Dark to level up after the fiasco that was the guild wars.

[Tch...]

\'So it was thinking to do that, the cheeky system is back then.\' His lips curled into a smirk as he thought he\'d checkmated the system this time.

They all gathered around Ishaan and he wrapped them all within his shield. The dome had a beautiful purplish hue about it now, clearly it ranked up.

\'Ren, you guys stay close to me. Don\'t wander around in there.\' He told his spectres, he thought they could at least help since they were basically ghosts.

They only blinked and the scenery had already changed. They could smell the heat coming from Mt. Prometheus, they couldn\'t see any active volcanoes or fires just unbearably noxious heat.

"Is that Ursa and Isaac?" Hiro was completely devoid of words to describe how this made him feel.

"Isla and Saanvi too." Felix nodded in the opposite direction.

Ding!

[Welcome to your hell training guardians.]

"F*ck!"