Ryan and Femradiel spent the night creating traps and laying them on strategic points to delay the black tortoises. However, even though Ryan rested for quite a while in the last few hours, he started to feel quite tired. At some points, he even fell asleep while standing for a few seconds. Much to his surprise, even his pets fell asleep. Femradiel wasn't an exception.

"Hey, Femradiel…" Ryan shook his head to get rid of his sleepiness. "You only left my body a few hours ago, how come you are so tired?"

"Mmm? I don't know… ah, this is bad…" Femradiel suddenly said, and soon after, Ryan confirmed that something was off.

Congratulations! The skill Sleep Resistance has leveled up.

"Something is trying to make us fall asleep… this body isn't strong enough to withstand the spell," Femradiel said.

Considering that Femradiel didn't warn Ryan of any presence, either she didn't sense any, or the sleep spell was affecting her too much. Ryan decided to call her back, but even inside his body, Femradiel still was sleepy.

"If you move away… from the dungeon… you should be alright… I think…" Femradiel said, and then Ryan didn't hear her voice anymore.

Ryan tried to use Purification, but his sleepiness didn't leave his body. Making Furball and the Steel Eagle fly consumed a lot of his mana, but in the end, Ryan managed to find a good place to hide them.

"So reliable you guys are now…" Ryan forced a weak smile. "I suppose it can't be helped… the next boss really wants to fight me one-on-one."

Ryan wouldn't dare to attack his pets with magic to keep them awake, but he didn't hesitate at firing some Electric Bullets at his hand to make himself get rid of a little bit of his sleepiness. That indeed was a crazy powerful sleep spell since not even Ryan that skipped several nights of sleep in the last six months, could endure it.

"Well, at least this is proof that the black tortoises won't be able to attack me from behind." Ryan shrugged.

Ryan cursed his own carelessness. He should have increased his resistance against negative effects, he found some tomes that could teach him those skills, but since fighting against enemies that could use it rarely happened, he never felt the sense of urgency to do so.

Regardless, it was too late for complaints, and Ryan couldn't back down against a boss of a tier-three dungeon. His pride wouldn't allow it. While heading West, Ryan had to damage himself with electric attacks pretty often to stay awake. He couldn't fall asleep since the boss would use that chance to kill him. Ryan used that eagerness to make Ryan fall asleep to confirm that the boss was another weakling at close combat. Yomotsu Shikome caused him a lot of trouble. Still, ultimately, Ryan never feared a creature that relied on tricks like invisibility, illusion, and necromancy to fight.

After a while, Ryan finally realized what was making him feel sleepy… it was a song. A magic song that grew louder and louder the more he approached the dungeon. Ryan hurried to finish off the beast as fast as possible, but the very moment he touched the entrance of the dungeon, the song grew more powerful, and Ryan fell on the ground. Mustering all his willpower, Ryan took out one of his flame swords and made it burn his leg. That woke him up, but only to the point where his eyes couldn't close. The rest of his body was so heavy that Ryan couldn't move a single inch.

"I think I need lots of caffeine…" Ryan said.

Using Telekinesis, Ryan got up. While the pain was preventing him from falling asleep, that wasn't nearly enough. Fighting in that condition was suicide, so Ryan opened the dungeon shop and tried to look for anything that might help him solve that problem. Unfortunately, Ryan didn't find any obvious solution. Either his mind wasn't working properly, or there wasn't an easy solution to be found in the dungeon shop.

"Come on, Ryan… think… use this poor excuse of a brain that you have," Ryan muttered.

It would be great if Femradiel could wake up for a single moment and make Ryan's Sleep Resistance level up, but he wasn't counting on that. In the end, Ryan had to improvise. That didn't seem like a good idea, but he decided to use Temporary Transformation and turn into a black tortoise. Ryan positioned himself properly, and when he used the skill, the shell on his back completely blocked the dungeon's entrance. Even though Ryan decided to transform into the mob form of the creature, he couldn't move a single inch since he now was ten meters long and weighed over several tons. However, he managed to block the sound coming out of the dungeon.

"Aw… come on… now my back is asleep," Ryan sighed.

Apparently, blocking the song wasn't enough. Ryan wasn't that sleepy anymore, but his body still could absorb the sound and fall asleep. It was just a temporary solution that bought him some seconds to think of something else.

"Song… song of sleep… sleep song… wind?" Ryan frowned.

Even in that form, Ryan still could use his skills, so he used Wind Manipulation and managed to block the sleep song from leaving the dungeon. However, due to the level of the spell, a lot of mana was being used. Ryan needed something more refined and efficient to be able to enter the dungeon and not fall asleep in the middle of the battle.

Wind Armor tome

Effect: Casts an armor made of wind around your whole body to increase your wind attacks' power and decrease the damage of the same attribute from your enemies by one percent per level. When active, the skill increases your speed and dexterity by ten points per level.

Cost: 25 mana per second

Price: 1.000.000 coins.

It was quite a costly solution to that problem, but in the end, Ryan didn't hesitate to use the skill, and when he learned, Ryan already noticed a difference.