Moderation in Exercise

'If we keep going like this, it won't be long before we're exercising upside down.'

After taking care of Hopp for a while, Karl could clearly feel that the little awkwardness remaining between them had quietly vanished.

If Hopp had been grateful to Karl before because he saved her, then now she was slowly starting to treat Karl as her true "companion."

At the very least, in the past, Hopp would not have initiated such close physical contact with Karl.

In their mechanical movements, slippery sweat streamed down both their bodies.

The fabric, soaked with sweat, clung tightly to their skin.

During the intense exercise, Karl gritted his teeth, not letting the breath in his chest escape.

Once that breath was released, he was sure he would collapse onto the floor.

Time ticked by, and before they knew it, the two had completed more than half of their workout.

Finally, as they began their last set, both of them mustered their remaining strength and launched into a final sprint.

"97, pant, 98, gasp, 99, grunt, 100! Done! Ten sets completed, we can rest a bit."

As soon as Hopp finished speaking, Karl flopped onto the floor.

Hopp also rolled off his back, and the two lay side by side, greedily inhaling the "sweet" air after their workout.

Sweat soaked the floor, and the only sounds in the room were their heavy breaths.

"I didn't expect you to last this long. I thought you'd give up halfway through."

"Ha! If you were just standing there supervising me, I probably would have given up halfway through."

His chest heaving like a bellows, Karl blinked, feeling like their conversation just now was somehow off.

Hopp didn't quite understand what Karl meant, but she knew men often had strange competitive urges, so she just assumed Karl was trying to outdo something.

"Strange competitive urges."

Sighing to herself, Hopp lay flat, closed her eyes, and regulated her breathing.

'Hmph! If we switched places, I could keep going until your muscles pulled!'

Thinking this defiantly to himself, Karl tried to move his body, but his arms felt like noodles, utterly useless.

'Uh oh, overdid it.'

Glancing at Hopp, who had her eyes closed, Karl gritted his teeth and remained silent.

He felt like if he asked Hopp for help to roll over now, he would have lost.

Wriggling forward, Karl used his head to push off the floor, using the momentum of his body twisting to finally go from a prone to a supine position.

A while later, Hopp began doing weight squats with Karl.

Outside, the howling wind and rain created a monotonous melody.

Inside, the young man and woman shed their sweat.

In the goblin tribe near the fluorescent mushroom forest, the ordinary goblins, generally only about 1.4 meters tall, were huddled in their tribal tents, ignoring everything outside.

These guys, often bullied by Dire Goblins and Hobgoblins, always found opportunities to slack off, and the current weather gave them all the more reason to goof off.

No goblin noticed that while they were slacking off, a strange, rust-red insect had quietly slipped into their tribe's armory and was happily licking a rusty longsword.

Rust Monster, a type of subterranean insect that fed mainly on ferrous metal oxides.

The Adventurer's Guild rated their combat power as a Grade 1/2, meaning they were barely manageable by ordinary people.

This peculiar creature could rapidly corrode non-magical metals and was the underground creature that dwarven miners least wanted to encounter.

As the Rust Monster continued to lick the longsword, dark red rust quickly spread across the blade.

Soon, a decently crafted longsword was gone.

But after finishing this, the Rust Monster was still not satisfied.

It began searching for something "more exciting" in the armory.

Following the metallic "scent" in the air, the Rust Monster crawled deeper into the warehouse.

In the increasingly dim cellar, a small mountain of various metal parts appeared before the Rust Monster.

These parts looked well-made, but as the Rust Monster crawled among them, a faint rust began to spread across them.

The Rust Monster naturally wouldn't miss such a feast, so it perched on the gradually rusting parts and began to gorge itself.

As the parts were gradually consumed, a metal door panel, previously hidden beneath the parts, gradually became visible.

This door panel was etched with magic runes, and the magical protection kept the metal from being easily affected by the Rust Monster's abilities.

But the Rust Monster was not a mindless beast; it slightly lifted its forelimbs and actually pried open the trapdoor.

"Buzz—"

A peculiar magical energy rippled outwards as it opened the trapdoor, yet neither the goblins nor the Rust Monster itself noticed anything.

Pushing the trapdoor aside, the Rust Monster crawled down the tunnel beneath it, deeper into the cellar.

In the tunnel, strange crystals emitting deep blue or deep purple light were embedded in the walls, their surfaces flickering with peculiar patterns, giving off an eerie sensation as if they could suck one's soul in at any moment.

These were Khyber Dragonshards, the crystallization of the River Dragon's power.

Unlike the highly versatile Eberron Dragonshards, Khyber Dragonshards possessed the ability to bind magic.

Eberron's current airships and lightning trains were powered by elemental binders made using them to store elemental creatures.

In addition, they were often used as raw materials for Lich Phylacteries.

The sheer number of Khyber Dragonshards in this passage made it a veritable rich vein.

Crawling through this tunnel, the Rust Monster continuously sniffed the metallic scent in the air, moving forward.

Soon, it reached the end of the passage.

Here was a place resembling a Ritual Site, but it was much cruder than the Mind Flayer's Ritual Site.

Long-rotted corpses clad in armor were arranged radially around a greatsword plunged into the rock.

The blade of the greatsword resembled some kind of black rock, but it emanated an evil energy.

What attracted the Rust Monster here were the armors on those corpses.

These well-made pieces of equipment had long since had their etched Magic Runes destroyed, losing their ability to withstand the passage of time.

But they were the best food for the Rust Monster.

Happily scurrying to a corpse, the Rust Monster swayed the insectile tentacles on its head, about to begin feeding.

However, an energy, black with a hint of red, shot out from the Blackstone Greatsword in the center of the Ritual Site, piercing the Rust Monster's body.

A phantom figure floated out of the Rust Monster's body and slowly flew into the Blackstone Greatsword.

Magic Runes flickered briefly on the sword's blade, but quickly dimmed again.