Later that night, when the three fell asleep, Reinhard stayed up for watch.
Today his main task was to make sure Cassie didn't act weird again and get herself hurt.
Now, tired of training essence control for the past few hours, he sat near the edge of the stone platform.
Having created [Far Sight], he let his innate ability adapt to it while he rested.
I have so much to work on.
Reinhard sighed and lay down on his back.
First there was his aspect legacy.
Divergent Precept's first-level mastery gave him a deeper understanding of how other people fought.
With its help, he could even try to copy other people's battle arts.
It didn't work on anything except humans, though.
Maybe the second level would allow that?
But the main reason he wanted to advance it was something else.
The first level of mastery had given him a divine-ranked sword of the seventh tier. What kind of relic would the later levels give him?
Unfortunately, that was for his future self to find out.
[New attribute acquired.]
[Attribute Name: Danger Premonition.]
Danger Premonition was a new attribute he had just discovered.
Its name pretty much summed up its usage.
Now that I think about it, adapting to this is far more useful than adapting to Far Sight.
Reinhard mentally noted to use Danger Premonition before leaving the stone statue later that morning to make sure no real danger waited ahead.
As the thoughts in his head settled down, Reinhard went back to training.
***
When morning came and the dark sea retreated, they prepared to leave the giant statue.
Reinhard was the first one to go down, so after summoning the golden rope and reaching a point twenty or so meters below the others, he found purchase and waited.
While Nephis lowered Cassie down using the rope, Reinhard suddenly had a strange feeling.
Weird. Why do I feel like I am forgetting something?
The thought quickly passed as Cassie reached him. Then they slowly made their way to the bottom of the stone statue.
After getting down, the four entered the labyrinth and moved forward quickly. Reinhard observed the carapace scavengers and centurions around them while Sunless's shadow searched for the best path forward. Despite that, their progress was slow and chaotic.
They constantly had to change direction to avoid groups of scavengers, often ending up in dead ends or moving even farther away from their destination.
Adding to that, much to Reinhard's chagrin, most groups of scavengers today consisted of four or more creatures. And that wasn't a count they could comfortably handle yet.
At some point, however, they inevitably ended up in a situation where fighting three scavengers became unavoidable.
Finally!
Reinhard could notice the stress and panic on Sunless's and Cassie's faces.
"We have to fight; there is no other option."
A moment later, Nephis backed him up.
"If there are only three, we can handle them."
Both of them were ready to fight; only Sunless seemed unsure. But feeling pressure from the other two, he had no choice but to agree.
After finding a good hiding spot for Cassie, they approached the scavengers.
***
The battle soon ended.
Carapace scavengers did not have much intelligence, and they relied mainly on their instincts; their repeated patterns were easy to anticipate, so the battle went quite similarly to the ones they had before.
Reinhard ended up taking down two. Taking his soul fragments count to [45/1000].
But that wasn't the only good thing he gained.
There was also a memory.
A sword, to be exact, called the Azure Blade.
It was the same sword memory Sunless had. But the sword Reinhard already used was [Bright Fury], an awakened memory of the first tier, just like the Azure Blade.
Bright Fury had one enchantment that made it sharper, while Azure Blade's one enchantment made it more durable.
It was easy to choose between the two; Bright Fury was going to stay as his main weapon for the time being.
When Sunless got back with Cassie, they prepared to leave.
But it turned out that Reinhard wasn't the only one who got blessed by the spell today.
Sunless had spaced out for quite a bit, so when he got back to his senses, he looked up.
Reinhard and Nephis were looking at him with silent questions in their eyes.
He grinned.
"I got an Echo."
Nephis's eyes widened slightly.
No way, I only get a memory, and he gets an echo?
That's unfair.
But Reinhard had no right to complain.
Memories were less rare than echoes, but they weren't that easy to obtain either.
The odds of getting another awakened memory just a few days after getting the first one, when he had only killed barely a dozen nightmare creatures, were almost as rare as getting an echo.
Unlike Reinhard, who remained nonchalant, Cassie was far more expressive.
"An Echo? You actually got an Echo?!"
"Yes."
A moment after, Reinhard heard Nephis's comment from his side.
"Good," she said.
"We should use it to carry Cassie. It will make us faster," he suggested.
Sunless turned toward him with unnatural enthusiasm.
"Yes, I was thinking that too."
It wasn't much, but on someone like him, it looked strange.
The blind girl's mouth fell open.
"Carry me? Like… like a mount?"
Sunless chuckled and slapped the scavenger on its carapace.
"This bad boy can fit a petite girl like you with no problem at all. Trust me! I've been clambering on these things a lot for the past few days. It's actually quite spacious on top of them, especially if they're not trying to kill you."
Really? Bad boy?
"Well… okay. If you think it's for the best."
After helping Cassie get on top of the echo, Reinhard used the golden rope to create makeshift reins for her to hold onto.