Earth's Alpha Prime

Looking at the surrounding carcasses of the Tier-1 Wolves that were hardly recognisable, it got me thinking about the time flow in the Trial World for the past 18 hours that I spent on Earth.

Since the time ratio was 1:4, 72 hours must have passed in the Trial World while every Alpha Chosen was in their 18 hour rest period.

Then, MJ chirped within my mind, "Master, in Trial World, it takes 96 hours for a single day to complete and Alpha Chosen were only present for the first 24 hours of it."

I was amazed by how long the day was on the Trial World and also understood that the reason why there was Sunlight all day long on Day-1 was that it was just one-fourth portion of the day.

Day-1 was just early morning to mid-noon of the entire day in Trial World to put it clearly.

After that, I intended to head in the south direction in search of monsters but just then, I heard the sound of an explosion.

So, I trailed in the direction of the explosion sound and travelled further north.

Then, I reached Crystal Lake, the same lake that I drank water before I was surrounded by the Dire Wind Wolf and other Tier-1 Wolves.

The Crystal lake was flowing downstream towards my right. On the opposite bank of the 500 meters wide Crystal Lake, a battle was happening between two groups of monsters.

With my enhanced eyesight, I had a better view of the battle. I instantly recognised one of the monster groups as they were the first monsters race that I came across on Day-1, Goblins.

That group of Goblins were fighting against the other monster race that resembled lizards, but they were in humanoid form with light-grey scales as skin and a long tail.

I used <Inspect> on them and found that their race is called the 'Lizardnoid'. Since the <Inspect Skill> could level up using it on new monsters, and I used it on every Lizardnoid in the battle.

Among the 10 Lizardnoids, 8 were Lesser Lizardnoids, and I could see every detail of their Statuses. But for the remaining two Lizardnoids, I could only peek at their Tier and level similar to when I used <Inspect> on the Dire Wind Wolf and Bloodthirsty Earth Bear.

[Lv.23 Fiendish Aquarine Lizardnoid (High-Phase Tier-2)]

[Lv.18 Fiendish Lizardnoid Spearmen (Mid-Phase Tier-2)]

[Lv.8<Inspect> ➝ Lv.10<Inspect>]

As I expected, those two turned out to be Tier-2 monsters, and their appearance was more muscular and taller than the 5 foot tall Lesser Lizardnoids. Their dark-grey scales were even thick enough to act as armour.

Then MJ hinted to me, "Master, <Inspect> reached its maximum level in Common Grade, now use it on the Goblins to improve it to a higher grade."

Without delay, I used Lv.10<Inspect> on every Goblin in the fight. Similar to Lizardnoids, there were Tier-2 beings within the goblins.

Within the 16 Goblins, 13 were Tier-1, and 3 were of Tier-2. They were easy to identify since they stood 2 feet taller than the other 4 foot tall goblins and even their body frame looked stronger than them.

[Lv.24 Hobgoblin Shaman (High-Phase Tier-2)]

[Lv.14 Variant Hobgoblin Archer (Low-Phase Tier-2)]

[Lv.15 Hobgoblin Swordsmen (Low-Phase Tier-2)]

[Lv.10<Inspect> (Common) ➝ Lv.1<Analyse> (Uncommon)]

After using Lv.10<Inspect> on the three Hobgoblins, it improved to Uncommon Grade. Even the name of the Skill changed to 'Analyse'.

Then, I used Lv.1<Analyse> and even though I could not take a look at their Skills or Innate Talents, I was able to look at their Attribute Stats.

Except for the Lv.24 Hobgoblin Shaman and Lv.23 Fiendish Aquarine Lizardnoid, my overall Stats in <STATUS> were higher than all the other monsters since I had extra Stats from Achievements, Spirit Items, Vitality Fruit and Looted Stats.

The High-Phase Tier-2 monsters, Lv.24 Hobgoblin Shaman and Lv.23 Fiendish Aquarine Lizardnoid fought against each other with their elemental abilities.

From the way, the Lv.23 Fiendish Aquarine Lizardnoid manipulated the water element to fight, MJ pointed out that the Tier-2 monster has a Water Innate Talent.

He then explained that elements could not be manipulated at will to such a degree without possessing that respective element Innate Talent.

As for the Lv.24 Hobgoblin Shaman, it manipulated Fire Element to attack in various ways.

Even though the fire attacks were overwhelming, the Tier-2 Lizardnoid defended against them without trouble since the fight was taking place just beside a water source.

While the Lv.24 Hobgoblin Shaman was conjuring fire out of thin air and using it for attacks, the Lv.23 Fiendish Aquarine Lizardnoid just manipulated the water from the lake to defend and attack back.

Since the Lv.23 Fiendish Aquarine Lizardnoid doesn't have to conjure water out of the moisture, it was not at a disadvantage against the overbearing fire element attacks of the Lv.24 Hobgoblin Shaman.

As for other Tier-2 monsters, both the Lv.14 Variant Hobgoblin Archer and Lv.15 Hobgoblin Swordsmen fought against the Lv.18 Fiendish Lizardnoid Spearmen and even then those Hobgoblins weren't able to take down the Lv.18 Fiendish Lizardnoid Spearmen.

The Lv.18 Fiendish Lizardnoid Spearmen also seemed to have water Innate Talent as it manipulated water to defend against the arrows of the Lv.14 Variant Hobgoblin Archer while fighting against the Lv.15 Hobgoblin Swordsmen with a spear in hand.

The Goblins and Lesser Lizardnoids were fighting in a full-frontal clash. With the Goblin race's Innate Skill <Nimble Fingers>, their weapons usage was smooth and dexterous.

However, they couldn't gain the upper hand as the Lesser Lizardnoids used their Water elemental skills that were good at defending.

I could see them using water to form defence walls and often shoot water projectiles from the tridents in their hands.

The intense fight continued between two those two sides and six Tier-1 monsters died. Among those five, four were Goblins, and the other two were Lesser Lizardnoids.

When I tried to use <LOOT> on those dead Tier-1 monsters, I got a notification saying that I should be at least within 100 meters for the <LOOT> to work.

While I was thinking of swimming my way through the lake, MJ advised, "Master, why do you need to swim when you could just run on water? Master could simply use the Uncommon Skill <Agility Boost-1> to increase Agility Attribute Stats temporarily."

Then MJ projected the details of the <Agility Boost-I> in front of me.

_________________________

[Lv.1<Agility Boost-I> (Uncommon)]

Increases Agility Attribute by 20% and the number of minutes it can be activated depends on the Skill Level.

Duration: 1 minute.

Cost: 10 Spirit Energy peruse.

Cooldown: 10 minutes.

_________________________

"Master, once you activate, your sprint speed will reach 30 meters per second, and that was the minimum velocity requirement to run on water."

I activated <Agility Boost-I> and felt my muscles squirm and flexibility increase as my Stats in Agility Attribute increase from 37 to 44.

It seemed that after evolving to Tier-2, my body adapted to adding more Stats at once with less amount of pain. On top of that, the pain I experienced was near negligible with my high pain resistance.

With MJ being so sure about it, I took a leap of faith and started sprinting at my maximum speed without looking downwards.

A few seconds passed, and I was still sprinting without submerging in the lake water. Without me knowing, I had an excited smile etched on my face.

Within 14 seconds, I crossed more than 400 meters, and when I was 150 meters away from the battle, the Tier-2 monsters realised that someone was approaching them.

Both the Lv.24 Hobgoblin Shaman and Lv.23 Fiendish Aquarine Lizardnoid halted the fighting.

Both of them let out strange sounds, and all the goblins race monsters and Lizardnoid race monsters stopped fighting as if they were issued a command.

They didn't fight against each other anymore and faced towards my direction and all of them aimed their attacks at me.

Many elemental projectiles and arrows were shot at me in unison. I was taken aback by such a revelation.

But with the attacks approaching me, I put everything in the back of my mind and used <Hydraulic Leap> at my full capacity, causing a blast on the water surface.

In the next second, I was high in the air as I moved at an angle of 60 degrees and passed over the top of their projectile attacks.

With that, I officially crossed the lake, and the dead monsters were within 100 meters of me.

I used <LOOT> on them while I was falling to the Lake Bank and with the additional 55 Looted Stats from the dead monsters, the <INVERSE> was unlocked.

By the time I landed on the ground, a 3-meter wide crater formed and 10 meters around me was covered in the foams of steam as I entered my <INVERSE> mode.