Alfred produced a map very similar to Alistair’s own Regional Map, though his item stopped working off-world. Alfred’s map only showed the details of places they had already been, the terra incognita displayed as empty space. On the map, glowing red dots pulsed to the north and south of their symbol, a blue star.

“I have audio of them as well,” Alfred said. “The ones to the north are the golems and humans, and the one to the south are the dryads and beekeepers. At least, what’s left of them. They both suffered heavy casualties from the battle.”

“You say they’ve found the treasure?” Alistair asked.

“They’ve found something they at least believe is the treasure a couple of kilometers north of our position. I can hear them digging for it.” Alfred tapped his earpiece. “My signal only stretches five kilometers, so any further and we’ll lose track of them.”

“It’s a no-brainer then. We have to take their treasure. With me and Bartholomew at level 30 now, they don’t stand a chance,” Anthony said.

“Agreed,” Alfred replied.

“What did you even get for reaching level 30?” Alexandra asked.

“You may inspect me,” Bartholomew said.

Alistair obliged, using his [Eyes of Truth] to scan both of the new level 30s.

Name: Bartholomew Wood

Species: Robotic Superhuman I (Partially Evolved)

Level: 30

Class: Supersolider [Primary Attributes: Even Physical Mix]

“You’ve added a new qualifier to your species,” Alistair noted.

Bartholomew nodded. “The tribulation refined our Bloodlines, remolding our bodies to better fit our Class abilities and the Dao. I gained 20 Agility, 20 Strength, 20 Constitution, and 20 Endurance from forming my soulcore, on top of refining my Dao Inspiration even more.”

“I can feel the Mana of the world being drawn to me,” Anthony said, his normal arrogant look replaced with one of wonder. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Besides the strength of their aura, which Alistair had figured out related to the approximate sum of one’s stats and total Mana contained within the body, he felt the change in their Dao, especially Anthony. He was always ahead of the curve in incorporating the Dao into his attacks, demonstrated by his crushing, timeless aura, but now it felt on a whole new level. The way in which he altered the fabric of reality with his time-related Skills felt strangely similar to the way Alistair altered Fate with his Karmic energy. But what he couldn’t figure out was the relationship between the Dao and Karma. In a sense, they felt like competing strains of energy, both capable of altering reality.

“Yes, we’re all very impressed with you and my brother. But we really need to leave,” Alfred said, pointing at the map. “We don’t want to lose them.”

They carefully tracked their targets, who were inching closer to the center of the island, and, if Alfred heard correctly, further underground. Alistair thought it was funny that the treasure was buried underground, like in some pirate movie.

Since they were moving so slowly, Alistair and company could take their time, making sure they weren’t being tracked. Between Evangeline’s [Soul Sight], Anthony’s danger instincts, Alistair’s [Eyes of Truth], Alfred’s technological spyware, and Bartholomew’s super senses, they had to be the most unambushable group of contestants ever assembled. Which made their getting swallowed by a turtle affair all the more confusing. They still weren’t sure how it happened. Alfred and Anthony tried contacting their sponsors, but the island blocked any Soulnet signals. He wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out the producers orchestrated the event and recorded everything.

Unfortunately, the System Store locked purchasers out of everything but Mana and Health pills. His 400k Gold drachma was stuck sitting around doing nothing, after purchasing a couple of tier 2 Health and Mana pills to add to his collection. Any more would do him no good, pushing him into the dangerous cultivation territory.

The other side of the cave led out to a mountainside dotted with alpine trees, a direct contrast to the tropical forest near the beach’s edge. A few kilometers away, a volcano towered over everything, and if Alistair squinted, he thought he could make out dragons circling the peak. Surely they wouldn’t have to fight actual blue whale-sized dragons, Alistair told himself.

“There’s a group up ahead,” Alfred announced after they made it halfway to the golems, who were still slowly drilling for the treasure.

“How do you always know that?” Anthony asked incredulously.

“A two-hundred-meter radius of drones the size of a fruit fly constantly reporting information to me.”

“Point taken,” Anthony said. As he spoke, Alistair felt an immense force gathering in the distance, flying straight for them.

A giant cross of green energy obliterated the tree line, rocketing toward them so fast a shockwave appeared in its wake. Anthony, who stood at the front of the group, refused to back down. He unleashed his refined Dao, stopping the cross at the flat of his palm. The ten-meter-long crucifix vibrated with unfettered energies, desperately trying to free itself from Anthony’s manipulation, but his Skill was resolute. Silver and translucent cracks of energy appeared in the space surrounding the cross, and after another second of struggle, it flew back in the direction from which it came.

Alistair was expecting a green explosion, but nothing came. Instead, a group of six people emerged from the forest. He even recognized one of them.

“Sofia?”

Sofia’s group were all humans, just like theirs, and if he had to guess, they were probably also all from Earth. Their meeting seemed too unlikely to be a coincidence, considering the dramatic value of bringing two groups of people from the same planet together.

Two of Sofia’s team had auras that matched Anthony and Bartholomew. One was a tall, elegant woman in a purple dress that looked impractical with its ornate tresses, while the other was an older gentleman carrying a bolt-action rifle on his back. The others didn’t stand out as much as those two, but still carried auras matching him or Alexandra.

“Carmen, Richard,” Alfred said, bowing to #2 ranked and #4 ranked people, respectively. “A pleasure to see you here.”

“Somehow, I always end up seeing your face,” Carmen said in a Spanish accent. “With your resourcefulness, I wouldn’t be surprised if you already found the treasure.”

“It’s possible.” Oliver surreptitiously touched his earpiece. Alistair heard a voice in his head say, Be prepared for combat.

He unveiled his Terragen Wraps, the black bandages fastening around his hands. Alexandra carefully fingered her dagger, though no one made any overt moves.

“You must be Carmen Romero,” Anthony said, brushing off his pants. “Care to explain why you tried to kill all of us?”

“This is a competition, right? We didn’t know you were fellow Earthlings from afar. But why not let bygones be bygones? I see no reason for us to battle. If we fight to the death here, it accomplishes nothing, considering we’re equally matched.”

“What do you propose, then?” Alistair asked. The number 2 ranked woman looked at him with disdain, as if a mere top 100 like him shouldn’t butt in the conversation.

“We work together to find two separate treasures. With only ten being available, we’ll need all the manpower we can get to fight over them. Combining the second, third, fourth, and sixth-ranked people on Earth would make us nearly unstoppable,” Carmen said.

“What about Wandering Hobo?” asked Alfred.

Carmen grew visibly upset at the mention of Earth’s number one.

“No one knows,” she admitted. “Not a single person in any of the most connected spheres knows his identity.”

“And the first piece of treasure? How will we determine who holds it?”

“That’s easy,” Carmen explained. “It’s not relevant. Maybe we’ll flip a coin. The lion’s chance is that we find another piece of treasure. If we don’t, the situation is obvious. We’ll fight for it. The person initially holding it has an advantage, but the winner of the battle will be the one taking it away, so it doesn’t matter that much. Though the stakes aren’t so high this time since you can just break the token at any time to leave. What do you think of our proposal?”

He looked at Evangeline, who looked at Alfred and his brother, who looked at Anthony. They didn’t really have a hierarchy of roles — Alistair led the charge sometimes, and Alfred’s reconnaissance and knowledge were impressive, though Anthony wasn’t a slacker in terms of information, despite his uneducated demeanor.

“Give us a moment,” Anthony said. Carmen looked at him like he was stupid for trying to be democratic in when he was the strongest in the group, while her silver fox partner was completely expressionless.

They cloaked their conversation with Alfred’s sound jamming devices along with a shield of spiritual energy. Bartholomew spoke first, still whispering despite the protections. “My analysis computes a 51.9% chance of victory, given all publicly known factors about either side,”

“Stellar odds,” Alfred said. “She has a good point. As long as we gather two pieces of treasure, we have no reason to fight. Teaming up seems like a good idea.”

They cloaked their conversation with Alfred’s sound jamming devices along with a shield of spiritual energy. Evangeline furrowed her brow, and Alistair could tell she was deep in thought. “I think it’s imperative we secure the first treasure.”

“Oh? Why’s that?” Alfred asked, who was surprised by the demure woman’s statement.

“In the best scenario, it’s a win-win right? But let’s say we are stuck with one treasure. There’s a huge incentive for the team without it to not fight. The consequences for fighting are going to be death in a lot of circumstances, whereas if we just flee with our tokens.”

“That’s a good point,” Anthony said. “So let’s win the coin flip.”

“I think we can agree to a team up,” Alfred said, dismissing the privacy shields.

“Great,” Carmen said. “Why do I have a feeling you know where some treasure is?”

As they traveled together, Alistair learned more about Carmen’s team. Carmen was from Spain, though she was displaced to America, where she met Richard Atwood. Richard was a man of few words, preferring to speak through his sniper rifle. Of the other members, two were twins from Bulgaria that had no relation to any of the other ten, and the last person was a level 29 woman named Yuna Lee, from Korea. Yuna seemed nice enough, but she was a very touchy and exuberant person. Evangeline and Alfred had difficulty repelling her bubbly personality.

They were a complete menace to the wildlife, as expected. Along the way, they were attacked by a pack of direwolves as tall as a man, but with their combined forces, they decimated the pack of over a hundred to a wolf. He was certain that everyone was purposefully concealing the full extent of their abilities, but at least he saw the basic Skills they possessed. Richard was obvious, and his suspicions that Carmen was a spellcaster were confirmed when she created two medium green crosses and skewered dozens of wolves. Yuna just used her fists like Alistair, so it was hard to tell if she was actually a pugilist like him or just wanted to not give anything away. The Bulgarian twins fired electricity from their hands, which was hard to interpret as telling of a specifically lightning-based casting Class, or just a general Mage-type Class.

“Up ahead, beyond the hill,” Alfred said. “My bug is still on them.”

He pointed at a hill of dirt around forty meters in front of them. The forest had grown sparser, with trees only sprouting up every few meters.

It seemed Carmen was tired of waiting since she congealed her Mana above her head to form a glowing cross even larger than the one Anthony reversed. The dark viridian skeleton grew first, followed by the emerald spectral exterior. In less than a second, she held a fully formed fifteen-meter cross in her palm and fired it into the hill. Even from his distance, he could feel the shockwave it produced from decimating the hill and everything along its path.

That was Alistair’s cue to take action. He was proud that he was the fastest out of the melee fighters who charged the golems. With a [Dash], he burst over the hills in under a second, a [Mana Strike] ready. Carmen’s giant cross was so powerful, that most of the steel golems had already been destroyed. The ones that were left were cracked and barely able to move, and Alistair… did nothing. He barely ducked a steel sword, jumping back out of harm’s way. He realized it was the first time he was the aggressor. In every other case up to this point, Alistair was the one who was being attacked or someone he wanted to protect. Now, he was the one trying to kill someone else to save his own skin.

Bartholomew’s compact rockets arrived as backup, finishing off the golems with two miniature explosions, sending them shattered into the dirt. The fact Carmen managed to nearly take all the golems out in one attack was a testament to just how big the gap was between a Foundation Tier 3 and Foundation Tier 2.

The human allies of the golems were close by, though Alistair doubted they were from planet Earth. There was something about their platinum blonde hair and eerily pale skin that screamed alien. They forced his hand by attacking him, though he felt that didn’t resolve his quandary.

Alistair was at his most comfortable right up and personal, and he used the knowledge of {Assassin Fist} and his [Fighter’s Instinct] to slip past the burning blade of one of his opponents, punching him in the face. A tall, armored man conjured a shield of orange Mana, but he cracked through it with the momentum of his Terragen Wraps and [Mana Strike] with ease, crushing the skull of the first person in his way.

The team finally got their bearings straight after their teammate died, but it was too late. His reinforcements had arrived. Alexandra clashed blades with one of them, red mist escaping from her body as she activated [Barbarian’s Fury]. Sofia sent her invisible sword, cutting off the arm of another before she could react.

If it was a fair fight, they might have stood a better chance, but both lacked someone who could stand up to any of their level 30s, and were outnumbered two-to-one. Alexandra had the last kill, beheading the crawling straggler with her dagger.

“Where’s the treasure?” Carmen asked, floating down from her elevated vantage point. Alistair was hoping for some flying down the line, though it was probably a pipe dream. At least until super high levels, when he imagined they could travel through space without difficulty.

“I found it,” Sofia said, a large golden key flying into her hands out of one of the golem’s corpses.

There was a tense moment between all the people present as they stared at the key in Sofia’s hands. No one moved a muscle until the dragon struck.

Alistair had seen the dragons flying around the top of the volcano at the center of the island, but they were so far away, that he barely paid attention to them. Perhaps he should have, considering the name of the island.

The beam of dragonfire rained down faster than Alistair could react, even with his Agility and instincts. It was more like a tactical missile than a flame, breaking the sound barrier as it flew from kilometers away. He was certain they all would have died on the spot if weren’t for Anthony’s automatic defenses.

Right before the fire incinerated them all, it froze in time, trapped outside of causality. In the most powerful expression of the Dao Alistair had ever seen, Anthony forged a hand of transparent and silver energy, an immemorial palm that had existed before the universe and would continue to exist after the universe ended. Billions and trillions of years were meaningless in the face of the almighty palm of Time, and with its help, Anthony sent the beam right back to its maker near the volcano.

Not that their troubles were over. Right after Anthony finished pouring his Dao and Mana into stopping the dragonfire, Carmen was on top of him, creating pillars of green energy that chained him in place. She wasted no time fleeing with her team, now that they possessed the treasure.

Anthony struggled against the chains, trying to set himself free, but after his immense show of power, he was drained. Alistair almost found it amusing that Anthony had once again saved all of their asses, but Carmen escaping with their ticket to the next round was no laughing manner.

Bartholomew flew after them with the rockets built into his lats, rocketing at over forty meters a second. Alistair was even faster with his [Dash]. Carmen was level 30 and far ahead of him in the rankings, but she couldn’t match Sofia or him at raw speed. He used that to his advantage, overtaking Carmen in the blink of an eye. She tried summoning the same pillars she trapped Anthony with, but he was too fast. In a straight-up fight, he didn’t stand much of a chance at his current power level, but he could beat her in a race.

The fact that Sofia could also beat her in a race was something he took advantage of. If Sofia was thinking completely logically, she would have stayed close to the strongest member of her team. Fortunately for him, Sofia was in survival mode after nearly dying of a dragonfire bomb, and she was running as fast as she could.

With Alistair’s new levels, Badge, and upgraded Dao Inspiration, he had fulfilled her fear of being surpassed. All he needed to nab the treasure key was a bit of Karma. After experiencing the loss of 25 Karma in the arena, he knew he could better control his expenditure of Karma. He activated [Hand of Karma], pouring all 10 positive points into his right hand.

Alistair reached for the hand Sofia carried the key in, the lines of Fate wildly flickering around him. He ducked at just the right time, a bullet sailing over his head and destroying a line of trees. An invisible sword zoomed straight for his face, but he knew he was fine. By smacking it with a [Mana Strike] at the proper angle, he sent it flying back at her back, slicing open a large gash. With a final leap, he jumped over Sofia, prying open her hand with his burning [Hand of Karma] as he upkicked her into a pine. Being Karmically blessed had its benefits.

In not-so-good news, he burned all of his Karma in under a second, his hand already back to normal, crimson energy replaced by a dingy golden key.

He looked back, expecting to see his allies in a chaotic melee. However, all he found were the Bulgarian twins and Carmen glaring at him in the distance as they failed to keep up.

“RUN!” a voice commanded with the weight of timeless authority. It was Anthony, but he sounded panicked. “Everyone else’s token got destroyed!”