The Earth After Rebirth

He hoped they wouldn't run into another guardian monster. He wasn't confident that they would defeat it a second time, especially after fighting one.

Isla came down from the mountain she took refuge in, everybody stopped cowering and relaxed a bit. Hiro looked a bit down.

"That kick was something."

"Wouldn't have done it without you," Kiro said, taking a sitting position.

"I was useless this time. It wasn't like our usual fights at all." Hiro mumbled to himself.

But since they were in a cave, his words echoed and were heard. His eyes popped out in shock at the thought of being heard saying something so pathetic.

"You kept the healer girl safe, that wasn't useless. If it weren't for you my friend, that guardian would've ate her for breakfast and we wouldn't have stood a chance."

"My name is Saanvi by the way." She commented coldly.

"Sure," he said, with a bored and indifferent expression.

Something rubbed him the wrong way about Saanvi, he couldn't really wrap his head around it. The girl irked him. He just didn't buy the 'stupid innocent' act she always put on.

They had to wait for quite some time, Saanvi had to replinish her own mana since she used a lot during the fight. She couldn't rush drinking potions either, Priests ran the risk of mana overload.

Kiro sighed. He knew Hiro liked Saanvi, it was obvious. So he also had to like her, to appease him. He walked over to her.

"Ever tried meditating?" Kiro started the conversation.

"I don't really have the skill."

"We're just waiting here, wouldn't hurt to try, who knows, you may unlock it."

"We can unlock skills?"

"You can't?" He asked confused, and looked at Isla and Hiro, "you can't?"

They both shook their heads.

"I mean for me, the times that happened were my first mission..." Hiro tried thinking of other times it happened, he couldn't.

Kiro was shocked to learn this. "I guess every class is different?"

"Do you have the meditative skill?"

"Uh, no. I'm a sage, has to be inherent, doesn't it?"

Saanvi rolled her eyes at his answer but sat cross legged, imitating Kiro nonetheless. She had just downed a mana potion and she had to wait for her body to take it all in before taking another.

Priests were different like that. It was a way to make sure they didn't become immortals in the game.

They had sat face to face for 30 minutes, and Kiro was in deep, he saw a door sealed shut. Saanvi on the other hand was just, seated. As relaxed as it made her feel, it didn't help her one bit.

It didn't help Kiro recover either, it was his first time, so it felt like walking with 1000kg per limb. But he never stopped, he walked toward the sealed door until he was standing before it, then he came out of the state.

"At least one of us had a great session."

"Hush." He couldn't really retorted, he was mentally exhausted.

He was properly confused, as meditation was supposed to make you feel lighter. His shoulders felt like they were carrying a heavy burden.

They didn't really want to leave without Saanvi at full mana bar, that's why they stayed put. After hours of taking a break. They walked on. There were many rooms in the cave.

With what seemingly looked like ancient tombs. As if this was once a burial palace. They had tried removing the stone coffins, to see what was inside, but it was so heavy even if there were 10 of them, it wouldn't have moved.

They didn't notice when they entered, but there were carvings on the walls. Little drawings that seemed to tell a story of a certain war, against giants and normal sized humans. This war was obviously won by giants, but the humans inflicted irreparable damage.

"This is amazing," Isla muttered.

The war between the two may have looked childish from an outsider perspective. Why on earth would humans fight giants? Well, when you consider the fact that they managed to inflict great damage, proved that even at that size, they were nothing to scoff at.

This story sounded familiar to Kiro. Though he was sure he'd never heard anything about it before.

As luck would have it, there didn't seem to be any traps in the tombs, but Kiro was ready. He didn't trust this game anymore, it could very well be a different game from the one he remembered. Thankfully, his senses were sharp since coming out of the meditative state.

He only hoped the currency exchange worked. That was his priority. Making tons of money, to prevent his entire family from their untimely deaths.

They were all wary. Looking left, right, back and even up. They didn't put it past them that, this could just be another trap, and soon, another ancient guardian would spring up on them. Then they could see light up ahead.

When they walked out, it was yet another forest. They were not impressed, it felt like the devs liked forests, quite a lot. No creativity whatsoever.

"Did we miss something?" Hiro asked.

"I don't think so, this forest isn't the same as the one on the other side. This one looks normal." Kiro answered.

As tired as Kiro was of seeing forests, he admitted to himself that they were always beautiful. Nothing in real life could compare.

'Except maybe my mum and sister.'

Just at a distance, there was an arch, beyond it, a podium was erected. They walked slowly and cautiously towards it, they crossed the arch and stood by the podium. There were parchments.

Tons and tons of them, looked like someone was writing a letter but they kept getting it wrong so they scratched, crumpled and took out a new spreadsheet, dabbing ink and scribble once more.

By the way the papers were, it was apparent that this process was repeated about a hundred times.

They looked through the parchments, looking for one that was actually finished and coherent.

Buried deep within, was a brown parchment. It was long, it smelled ancient, the paper had turned brown because of age. Old as it seemed, the ink gleamed as if it had just been written.

Sure enough, this was it, this was the ancient manuscript they had to find.

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A/N: Hello everyone, if you've come this far with me and this story I'm trying to tell, thank you very much. Your support has paid off, and I've finally gotten contracted today.

That means this novel will be eligible for golden tickets&gifts and of course, receiving these things will be a great motivator for me to even release bonus chapters.

I'm also eligible to go premium, so, when do you guys want me to lock chapters, 40, 50, 60?