Chapter 77 Dropped in
[Would you like to enter the Primordial Expanse?]
Alex pulled up the prompt again, taking a deep breath this time as he readied himself.
''Here goes nothing.''
''Yes.''
Immediately, the familiar ck swirling void opened up in front of him. Alex felt an unstoppable force pulling him towards the portal, but he didn''t resist.
He couldn''t resist even if he wanted to.
Right before he entered the portal, he looked back at Mira onest time before speaking.
"See you soon."
He disappeared soon after.
Mira looked at the vacant space where Alex had been, and sighed.
She was once again all alone.
Not wasting a second longer, Mira opened a portal herself and stepped through, entering the Primordial Expanse as well.
Both of them had a difficult task ahead of them.
But there was one important thing they had both forgotten about.
Testing out Mira''s new S rank talent…
***
Alex expected to have been dropped back outside a ruined Valentis city, the same location he had exited the Primordial Expanse from.
Instead, immediately after stepping through the portal, Alex found himself falling from a height.
Thud!
It took a few seconds before he hit the ground. Alex groaned, rubbing his back.
''Well that sucked.''
He was about to stand up and look around at this new location he found himself in, but found that he couldn''t move his legs at all.
More than that, he couldn''t even see his legs!
''Quicksand!''
As he looked down at his lower body, he found himself quickly sinking into a deep pit of quicksand.
"Shit!"
Only a few seconds passed and he was already neck deep in the pit. N?v(el)B\\jnn
The panic settled in as he frantically tried to il around, looking for anything solid to cling onto.
But he found nothing, and was soon fully submerged in the quicksand. He instinctively tried to open his mouth to breathe — a rush of sand and mud entered his mouth instead, making him choke and short of breath.
Even worse was that he couldn''t see anything. The sandpletely blocked the sunlight from reaching his eyes, causing him to panic even more. Usually, dark environments weren''t a problem for Alex as he was used to the darkness of the caves he used to mine in.
But being underground in the mines and submerged deep into quicksand, slowly suffocating to death were twopletely different things.
If it weren''t for the newly gained spatial sense he had acquired alongside his new affinity for space, he wouldn''t even be able to tell how deep he was.
With the range of his sense only being 10 metres or so, he knew he was only a few centimetres below the surface.
''Wait, space!''
A sudden epiphany hit Alex as he thought about his spatial perception.
Maybe his newly acquired talent could help him.
''Teleport!''
Immediately, light returned to his eyes as he found himself floating three metres off the ground.
Alex was finally able to take in a long, deep breath.
''Haha, it worked!''
But he also found himself with 50% less energy.
No time passed and he found himself sumbing to the effects of gravity, once again falling towards the quicksand pit.
''No!''
With hisst remaining energy, he cast his inferior teleportation talent again.
This time, he found himself barely clinging onto a rock three metres away, his entire lower body submerged in the viscous liquid sand below.
''Phew! That was too close.''
***
A few minutester, Alex had regained enough energy to move again, having used it all to teleport his way to safety.
The rock he had climbed onto turned out to be a hugendmass, with the rock being just a small part of some cliffs. As it turned out, the quicksand he had fallen into wasn''t just a small ''pit''.
It was a whole ocean…
The sea of quicksand was endless and stretched far onto the horizon, with nothing else in sight.
''Thank god I fell so close to this piece ofnd, otherwise…''
Alex didn''t even want to think about what would have happened to him if he had not fallen so close tond.
''Where the hell am I?''
Alex turned around and inspected thend, only seeing endless rocky terrain in all directions but the quicksand ocean.
"What kind of shitty ce have I been dropped into this time??" Alex cursed loudly, his cries carried by the wind and echoing through the empty space.
There wasn''t a single living thing here except for him.
''I have to find civilization quickly… I''ll even settle for a tiny vige. Just get me out of this hell!''
Barely 5 minutes had passed before he had entered the Primordial Expanse and he was reminded why he hated the ce.
***
The grey, dull rocks greeted Alex''s eyes just like every other day.
It had been 3 days since Alex had re-entered the Primordial Expanse and the effects of starvation had already started to hit Alex.
Even worse was that the climate of this ce could only be described as bipr.
The sun zed during the day, not a cloud in sight and the temperatures reaching as high as 50 Celsius.
During the night, the sun was reced by the moon, with ominous thunderstorms gathering and pouring hail and heavy rain down on Alex the whole time, non stop. The temperature going as low as 5 C didn''t help this at all, especially with Alex''s thin clothes.
The only constion was that Alex had a source of water to keep him hydrated.
But the biggest problem was theck of any beasts, or even vegetation.
He had been starving the whole time he spent here.
But the biggest problem was theck of any beasts, or even vegetation.
He had been starving the whole time he spent here.
''If only my inventory allowed the storage of food…''
This was the only bone Alex had to pick with his talent.
The fact that he could only store items like space fragments, beast cores and soul orbs in his inventory made it useless in any scenario where they weren''t needed.
''I should invest in a storage item in the future.''
Alex silently added this onto his future shopping list, still needing to buy a new weapon as well.
As the sun started falling over the horizon, Alex''s mood started to drop.
This would mark the fourth night he had spent in this deste wastnd.
But just as all hope seemed lost, he spotted a shimmer in the distance.
''Wait, is that…''