Dungeon Raider System-Chapter 545: Can’t stop

Uriel would have loved to continue speaking, but realized that although Nika seemed in good condition and was brimming with flux energy, she was psychologically spent. This somewhat confirmed that she didn't just 'chill' inside the statue the whole time and Uriel decided to let her rest.

Besides, while spending more time with Nika and catching up with her was important, right now night was drawing near and he didn't want to be anywhere near that accursed bottomless pit when it happened.

Sure, the 'father of horrors' didn't harm him in any way and even gave him a precious gift, the fact that it so blatantly disclosed its hatred against humanity didn't reassure him in any way.

However, the fact that he found fresh foot tracks on the mud pointing at the fact that a great number of people recently passed through made Uriel think that perhaps what the cryptid said about his friends passing by was actually the truth.

How did his friends learn of the secret passage or why would the so called Father of horrors let them pass remained a mystery, but it didn't change the fact that he now had trail to pick up.

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"At least the ranger training wasn't useless." Uriel let out in high spirits as he followed the path left by who Uriel guessed where his friends, but his good mood didn't last for long as he soon encountered the first battle traces.

It wasn't unexpected since traveling in groups was bound to draw a lot of cryptids, but Uriel soon figured that the number of foot tracks and the battle traces were too numerous to be just the Dungeon Raiders.

A blood splatter here, some ragged clothes there and the signs of struggle in the mud indicated the the fights were intensifying until he finally saw the first corpse. It was hard to say much about the victim due to the gruesome wounds she sustained, but a female disembodied hand still clenching its fist to a broken chef knife let him now it wasn't one of his closest friends.

"They're in trouble!" Uriel rushed his steps and took a quick second to check the battery left on his smartphone, which he now knew was correlated to his flux energy pool. While he didn't enjoy the low battery warnings, the fact that his smartphone indicated with a precise percentage how much flux energy he had left made it even more useful.

Besides, he also learned that by pressing on the 'power saving mode' he could downgrade to an ascended which not only would allow him to save energy outside combat, but it could also potentially make his use of skills more efficient.

After all, using Dash as a heavenly rank consumed way more energy than back when he was just an ascended. It may not seem like much considering how fast he was able to move without Dash active as a heavenly rank, but during his recent battle against Bella Eurus he realized that thinking faster was way more useful than simply moving fast.

Lost in thought, Uriel paid no mind to the scenery and mindlessly continued his race. The recent developments had shed new light about his trait, like the possibility that his museum was actually a physical place, but also removed the dust on many of his lingering questions about it. For instance, he was certain that there was no 'power saving mode' in the system back when he was an ascended.

He knew it for sure since back then the smartphone was a novelty to him and he spent quite some time fidgeting with it.

Once he became a heavenly rank hunter, though, he had been so busy that he barely paid any mind to the smartphone or the system thinking that it would always remain the same, something that now he knew for a fact wasn't true.

'But what triggered the power saving mode icon to appear? Was it when I was promoted to a heavenly rank hunter or... could it be? Maybe it was when I learned how to conceal my flux energy! If so, it's not that the system allowed me to downgrade to the ascended rank, but the fact that I learned how to do it is the reason why the icon appeared in the first place!' Uriel thought excitedly.

He pondered about what else could have changed in the system and if there was something he could do to unlock new options. If the museum was truly a physical place, it might be a good idea to check it in person. Perhaps he could renovate the place and become more powerful or he might even find the answers to questions he had yet to come up with.

For a brief second, Uriel felt the excitement of the many possibilities lying in front of him and he realized just how little he knew about his own trait. Most traits he knew of were pretty straightforward, like firing projectiles, shapeshifting, summoning weapons or controlling the elements, but there were also some traits that worked in mysterious ways.

There were also some traits that didn't manipulate an element, but an abstract concept like Shaker's ability to cause vibrations or Rusty's ability to oxidize metal.

In spites of his excitement, Uriel was also painfully aware that it wasn't something he could figure out on his own.

He thought on asking Professor Fermi who seemed to know at least how the summoning skills work, Luna who might know a thing or two about shapeshifting traits and even Medusa who after becoming a heavenly rank hunter with a rare trait that could very well fit in the abstract concept category, but was brought to reality once the path he followed started to show more and more corpses to the point where the foot tracks were becoming scarcer and more disperse, making it clear that the huge group was taking heavy losses.

"All that can wait..." Uriel fumbled after realizing that there was no point in concerning himself with all the possibilities of research and growth right now when his friends could possibly be in trouble.

Uriel knew that most of his friends were more than able to defend themselves from most, if not any of the cryptids they could possibly encounter and kept himself from using Dash, though the impatience of being late made him anxious.

Especially since he also knew some of the members from his company didn't possess traits suited for combat or they weren't strong enough to participate on a big scale fight against cryptids.

Studying the trail, Uriel soon encountered something strange, something that defied everything he learned in the ranger course. The clear foot prints left behind by boots and some bare human feet soon gave way to all sort of slither marks, animal tracks and even deep punctures in the ground that seemed to be made by some sort of insectoid cryptid.

The first explanation that came to Uriel's mind was that they were being followed by too many cryptids and that those tracks belonged to them, but one detail made him think otherwise. It was strange, shocking even, but the strangest thing about it was that as soon as the foot prints shifted piles of ragged clothes started appearing on the ground.

He pondered for a few seconds as to what could be the cause, only to stumble upon it right after passing a small hill.