Beneath the bell tower's foundation, the warrior crouched and cleared out the misleading grass.
There was actually a hidden door and the warrior pulled the handle.
He stood up and turned towards Max, saying, "You can jump—"
To his surprise, before he could finish words, Max had already jumped inside.
Once Max landed on the cold floor, he immediately swept his gaze. It was a spacious room, filled with tools for the bell tower.
In fact, there was a spare bell tower inside that almost took up at least a quarter of the room.
There was a piece of paper glued to the bell tower, radiating a rather intense demonic mana that actually tried to instill fear on him.
Thankfully, his intelligence was 40 points, resisting the fear effects.
However, Max wasn't distracted from the fact that the piece of paper seemed to have been inscribed with blood-rune.
Rather, it was the familiar NPC, who seemed to have gone mad while facing an alchemy apparatus.
The demonic mana radiating from him was rather intense.
Max wouldn't be surprised he would be demonized at any moment now.
"T-This can't be… Why do I always keep failing? I-Is this my limit?
NO! I refuse to believe!
T-There might be something…
Something that can help me!
W-What?
Y-You can?"
Max narrowed his eyes and scrutinized him for a while. The same Alchemist NPC was no more, replaced by a disheveled appearance while constantly pulling his hair to keep his sanity.
He seemed to be talking by himself.
Max thought. The demon must already be communicating with him inside his head.
Suddenly, the alchemist abruptly turned his head and growled at Max.
Max saw his hideous face and frowned. The alchemist grabbed a potion and threw it at Max.
However, Max had already logged out. If he was late at any second, the battle mode would be activated and Max wouldn't be logged out even if the gaming pod warned him to do so.
…
Max crawled out of the gaming pod and sat on the cold floor, leaning his back against it.
He suddenly chuckled and smacked his forehead.
How did I forget about the alchemist? Clearly, I haven't finished watching the video.
He was completely taken aback by the sudden appearance of the alchemist. The potion the alchemist threw at him was obviously an explosive.
Once it exploded towards him, even if he successfully evaded it, he would enter battle mode and he wouldn't have a choice but to defeat the alchemist.
However, the alchemist was obviously corrupted by demonic mana. Defeating it was by no means easy.
Max was now relieved that Jaden couldn't complete the mission for the next twelve hours inside the game.
"What are you giggling about?" Enzo's voice echoed.
Max finally realized it was currently 11pm. If he slept for eight hours now, the hours passed in total inside the game would be sixteen hours.
He pinched his chin tightly. Is sixteen hours still not enough?
Max doubted. Sixteen hours was too much.
Hence, he planned to only sleep for 6 hours straight before logging in to the game.
"Now, you become serious. Are you sure playing games is good for your mental health?"
Max rolled his eyes and stood up.
He jumped to the bed, buried his face in his pillow, and replied, "I'll sleep now."
His voice was barely audible, but Enzo understood what he said.
Looking at Max with frivolousness, he sighed, shook his head, and returned his focus to his study.
…
At 5am, Enzo was still sleeping, but he woke up from the alarm ringing from Max's phone.
He opened his eyes and saw Max grabbing his phone to turn the alarm clock off.
He closed his eyes and asked, "Where are you going?"
Max simply replied with a smile, "To gaming."
Enzo frowned.
Max chuckled. "There's something important I must deal with immediately. Don't worry, I feel completely refreshed now.
That's a sign of a healthy body, right?"
"For you, it is. But for me, not. You should have considered lowering the volume of your alarm ring."
Max was taken aback. He chuckled and apologized to Enzo.
Afterwards, he immediately logged in to Apocalypse Online.
…
[Congratulations for completing the third stage: Locate the Hidden Sigil.
You've been rewarded with 1,000 EXP.
You level up five times.
You have gained another five Free Stat Points.]
[The fourth stage—Breaking the Pact—has been triggered automatically.
Furthermore, your mana points have reached 200 points.
Good luck.]
Max smiled. It was good news that his mana points have reached 200 after leveling up to 26.
However, there was also bad news.
As soon as he appeared inside the room beneath the bell tower, Max was welcomed by a party of players.
He frowned.
As expected, Jaden had asked Julian to complete the mission with him after I cleared the third stage. He's really daring to steal it from me.
Jaden, Julian, with three more party members, which were an archer, a swordsman, and a healer, were currently engaged in a fight against an alchemist, who had already gone berserk.
The alchemist was surprisingly strong, swinging a long rod from a swordsman, while throwing an explosive potion from time to time, injuring the backlines.
The swordsman has obviously not gained his class advancement yet, and perhaps aside from Julian and Jaden, only the healer did.
Julian, on the other hand, was firing fire bolts from time to time, but clearly, the amount of firebolt he could cast every five minutes was limited to one.
Max simply grinned at them, watching them at the back.
Finally, the healer noticed his presence and shouted, "He's already here."
Everyone, including the alchemist, had their attention focused on Max.
Max, on the other hand, simply waved at them and greeted them with a sparkling smile.
"Hello! I hope I'm not interrupting everyone's business."
Julian frowned. He knew Max was playing with them.
Perceiving that the alchemist paused and would engage with the swordsman again, he said in a threatening voice, "I hope you really won't interrupt us. Once we are finished here, name what you want, I, Julian Lewis, from the Lewis Family, son of the owner of popular auction firms around the world, will give it to you."
Max chuckled.
"Unfortunately, you can't give me what I want."
Max casted a spell and aimed it at the berserk alchemist.