A chuckle escaped Alex’s lips, not because of the notification sound of leveling up, but because a mid-grade magic crystal had dropped from the monster that he had just killed.
Latifa looked at the young man anxiously because he laughed every time he killed a monster inside the Chrono Maze.
Right now, he was holding a wooden sandal in his hand, which he had used to kill a Chrono Beetle with such ease that she had been left in complete shock.
Lastly, Alex would also say things like "I’m going to be rich!" or "Hahaha! Thank you demon worshiper! Thank you for giving me the opportunity to farm here!"
For a brief moment, the young lady wondered if Alex was really part of the righteous faction because he kept on thanking the demon worshiper that had sent Lucius inside the Forbidden Dungeon of Frieden Academy.
Dim Dim was also chuckling on top of Alex’s head, imitating its partner’s evil laugh.
The Chrono Maze was the best place to farm magic crystals, but it had a restriction.
Only those below the age of twenty may gather resources from it. Anyone older would not get any monster drops even if they wiped out all the monsters in the dungeon.
However, Magic Crystals didn’t always drop when you killed a monster.
There was a fifty percent chance that there would be no monster drop after a monster was defeated.
A forty percent chance that it would drop a low-grade magic crystal.
A nine percent chance that it would drop a mid-grade magic crystal.
And, finally, a one percent chance that it would drop a high-grade magic crystal.
The only time the odds of a high-grade magic crystal dropping rose to five percent was when the Mirror Doppleganger was defeated.
The increased odds matched the difficulty of fighting this monster, which could perfectly copy its target’s appearance, stats, and abilities.
So far, after killing nearly twenty monsters including the Gearmaw Pup, Winding Revenant, and Chrono Beetle, Alex had managed to get seven low-grade magic crystals and one mid-grade magic crystal.
The Chrono Maze was the place where players farmed magic crystals in the game. They used it to gain money as well as raise the magic stats of their characters.
Although there was a set amount of magic crystals that one person could absorb per grade, letting your non-magical characters unlock their magic affinities gave them more flexibility in battle.
In truth, Alex had long wanted to enter the Chrono Maze.
However, he had been too afraid to do so because the Headmaster of the Academy was its Guardian.
While he didn’t know if the Headmaster would punish him for entering the dungeon without permission, he at least had an excuse that he could use this time. A Demon Worshiper imprisoning a student inside the Chrono Maze surely counted as an emergency!
Since Alex was a responsible student, and cared about his seniors, he braved all dangers and headed to the forbidden dungeon, even if it was forbidden!
The Headmaster would ask him how he knew the password to enter the dungeon?
What a silly question!
Alex was a Seer! It just so happened that he had gotten a vision at the right moment telling him how to unlock the dungeon!
With all of these explanations already prepared, he no longer feared any punishment!
Besides, it was Latifa who had asked him for help. With an "accomplice" accompanying him, Alex would not have to worry about suffering alone, if he really was going to be punished!
The young man planned to farm as many magic crystals as he could because he didn’t know when he would be able to enter the Chrono Maze again.
Two hours later, the fox lady’s ears perked up as she heard the sound of explosions in the distance.
"Someone’s fighting!" Latifa informed Alex. "Let’s hurry!"
Alex nodded, and sprinted forward until they reached another intersection.
There, they saw a haggard looking young man fighting two Chrono Beetles at the same time.
"Dim Dim, I choose you!" Alex shouted as he threw Dim Dim, who was already armed with the wooden sandal.
"Dim Dim!" Dim Dim smacked the living daylights out of one of the Chrono Beetle with its sandal, sending the critter crashing towards the wall before it turned into particles of light.
"Ei!" Dim Dim then used the impact to bounce off the wall and lunge at the second Chrono Beetle, slapping it like the bug that it was.
Unfortunately, no Magic Crystals dropped this time, but that didn’t matter.
Lucius collapsed on the ground, panting for breath.
His glasses almost slid off his face, but he was too exhausted to rectify that.
The teenage boy was a Light Mage, so although he had offensive magic skills, he specialized more in support.
Fighting against monsters on his own had been very taxing for him even if they were just Rank 2 Monsters.
Also, he had been affected by anxiety and the fear of not being able to leave the Chrono Maze, which had further deteriorated his mental strength and willpower.
The moment he saw someone saving him, all the pressure he felt suddenly vanished, and he collapsed in both relief and exhaustion.
"Thank you for saving me," Lucius said as soon as he regained his composure. "Did the demon worshiper catch the two of you as well?"
He already recognized Alex and Dim Dim because it was impossible for him to not remember the young man.
There were only a handful of students who could face the student council president without feeling intimidated by his authority, and Alex was one of those people.
In fact, everyone in the Student Council was now aware of the young man and the new club he had founded, Endless Horizon.
"No," Alex replied. "This young lady here asked me to help rescue you from this place. By the way, how many days have you been here?"
"Days?" Latifa blinked in confusion. "At most he’s just been here for eight hours."
"That may be true for the outside world," Alex explained, "but inside the Chrono Maze, a day here is equivalent to an hour outside of the dungeon. If he has been here for nearly eight hours, that also means that he has been here for nearly eight days."
The young man looked at the haggard-looking secretary of the student council with pity.
For someone who had been brought to this place by force, Lucius had certainly suffered some mental trauma from the constant whispering of the lost souls trapped in this place.
Perhaps because he was a Light Mage, Lucius had been able to keep himself sane by using purification magic on himself and casting light barriers to ward off the voices of the dungeon.
But, he was now nearing his limit.
’He might have stayed at the entrance for a few days before finally deciding to take a gamble and venture to find the exit,’ Alex thought. ’Unfortunately, he reached many dead ends, so he had to backtrack many times.
’The only reason why we are able to catch up is because the most recent set of footprints glows brighter than the old ones. It saved us a lot of time when we tried to catch up to him.’
The scary part of the Chrono Maze was the countless looping pathways.
You could travel for many days, but you were actually only going around in circles because you kept on choosing the right path, which most people in mazes would do to find the exit.
The Chrono Maze didn’t work that way.
In fact, by choosing to always go right in every choice, you would just loop around in a wide circle, failing helplessly to find the exit.