This was also the reason why he managed to get incredible angles in his video feeds which helped increase his followers.
As he disguised himself as Ilad. He had Laernea and Gandiva stand beside Igniz. The two Lioumereans were ordered to shoot their fire arrows and poison arrows at himself.
This gave the impression that Smoke was training Ilad as he fired the arrows at the Swordsman. The maximum number of arrows that Laernea and Gandiva could manage were only four at a time.
Which was half of what Smoke could usually do, but this was acceptable since this was a training session and not a real fight.
He kept on recording himself training as Ilad from a Swordsman up to when he received the Gora Knight Armor set.
When he disguised himself as a Flame Knight. He had Igniz hover in one spot, as he practiced using his Rzeka glaive.
Nash double checked the videos and was convinced that it looked like Smoke was watching Ilad in training.
He was about to release his edited video when Sagen released his own video feed of the time when Sherry attacked him during the Mounted Race, near Selatan village.
Nash never thought that it would be Sagen who would help him promote his video. Nash barely made it in time for the video feed's deadline. As soon as he published his video of 'Smoke training Ilad', the number of views rose dramatically.
At the rate of the number of views, he thought that this was the month when he could finally deposit the needed funds for Donny and Seth's college fund.
Aside from check for his video feed, Nash also earned $3,000 from the items that he sold at auction. $2,000 came from the well timed selling of his mantis blades, and the remaining $1,000 came from various rare item drops from the monsters that he has killed.
Yet, with Donny's recent win at the state level of AUTOMATA (Amateur Unarmed Tournament Open Martial Art Techniques Association), earned him the right to compete for the championship at the national level.
Grandmaster Cacoy, told him that it will probably cost $1,500 for the whole trip. The tournament was held at the west coast. The complete opposite of where they lived.
Their grandmother, Daphne, insisted on going with Donny. Nash also thought that it would be unfair if he didn't send Seth with them.
Nash thought that the reason why he started working hard was in order for his family to have a better life. He could use $3,000 from the Zectas' auctions, but that wouldn't be enough for all of them to go on the trip to the west coast.
He thought that if his family shared a hotel room together the added cost shouldn't increase as much. He wanted to go with them, but he realized that if he joined them he would only be an added expense.
Besides, he also needed to play Zectas, and if he did join them on the trip it would mean that he would be out of Zectas for more than two days.
Nash could not afford to be gone for that long. As he checked on the number of views again. He felt positive that he could reach the minimum requirement of 200,000,000 views, but there was no guarantee that the rate of viewers would remain the same.
Filled with conflicted thoughts, Nash went down to prepare breakfast for his family. He still had no idea whether to send all of them or only Donny to the AUTOMATA championships.
Nash called all of three of them to come down after he made coffee and cooked bacon with eggs. Donny was sleepy as always, while Seth held their grandmother's hand, and assisted her down the stairs.
They were gathered at the table and began to eat quietly. Nash noticed that Seth was quieter than usual and asked him what was wrong.
"Is something wrong? Do you have a problem at school? You don't seem like your usual self today."
Seth merely shrugged and remained reticent.
"You better spit it out. You know I don't like it when you're this silent."
"Well, it's just that you cooked bacon and eggs."
Nash raised his eyebrow.
"But you like bacon and eggs? Isn't this one of your favorite food?"
"Yes it is, but you only cook bacon and eggs whenever you have bad news. Like when you said that I couldn't go to summer camp. Or when you said that mima Daphne got sick. So, I'm guessing that these bacon and eggs mean that only Donny is gonna go to the AUTOMATA championships."
Their mima Daphne and Donny ate on silently. The two of them tried their best to stay out of Nash and Seth's discussion.
"But, I haven't even told you that I..."
Nash stopped himself mid sentence. He hadn't informed his brothers that he hadn't paid their college fund in a few months.
Nevertheless, he wasn't able to stand the sadness in Seth's eyes as the two of them spoke.
"What I mean to say is that you and mima are going to join Donny on the AUTOMATA trip, but I was planning it as a surprise and you completely ruined it."
Seth's smile widened from ear to ear.
"Are you serious? Are you really letting all of us of go with Donny?"
"Of course I am..."
Their mima Daphne gently touched Nash's hand and asked him.
"Are you sure about this? I was going to ask Donny to skip out on the tournament altogether. What with all the expenses that we have. Are you sure you can spare the money?"
Nash plastered a confident smile.
"I got this grandma. Don't worry about it. What's the use of money if my family can't enjoy it?"
Nash decided to use the $3,000 from the auctioned items and $1,500 from his emergency funds. He secretly prayed that his video feed could reach the needed amount.
* * * * * *
Smoke opened his eyes, and saw Espion playing around with Igniz. As soon as Espion noticed the DarkElf, he stopped on his tracks, and pretended to be looking at the two jigsaw puzzles on the wall.
"Oh, you're back. I didn't see you there."
"So, what have the two of you been up to?"
"Well, Igniz here showed me a couple of his abilities before, but currently I'm busy solving these two jigsaw puzzles. How was your trip back to your world?"
"Let's not talk about that different world. Let's focus our attention here in Zectas."
Smoke looked at the two puzzles and the wall.
"Still no progress, huh?"
"You think this is easy? Why don't you solve it then?"
The DarkElf scratched his head. He tried switching out the places of the two jigsaw puzzles, and nothing happened.
"I told you, I already tried that one."
Next he placed them upside down, but still nothing changed. Smoke tried other variations with the two jigsaw puzzles, but it was useless.
After an hour of various experiments on the jigsaw puzzle, Smoke gave in and left the two puzzles alone.
"How about we proceed to the room at the center of the labyrinth?"
“Are you sure? This labyrinth is really big. I think it will take us more than a day but less than two days to get to the that room.”
“Well, we don't have anything left to do here, and I'd like to investigate those rooms personally.”
Espion hesitated. He thought that Smoke's plan would be futile, but the DarkElf's actions made him think a fresh pair of eyes could help.
"Alright, let's go then."
Smoke, Espion, and Igniz left the room with the two jigsaw puzzles and headed for the room at the center of the labyrinth.
The three of them pushed on. Smoke thought that as they traveled, he could ask some of his questions about the labyrinth, and all of them could be answered by Espion.
Owed to the fact that the young Spy had been there for a few months, Smoke thought that Espion had some information about the underground maze.
The first question that came to mind was 'where are the maneators?'.
"I've been here for almost two days now, and I still haven't encountered a single maneator. Do you know where they are? Have you met one of them?"
Espion looked back as he kept on running in front of Smoke.
"From the time that I've been here, I haven't met a single maneator as well."
"Do you think they're in a different level?"
"I thought about that as well, but I remembered something I overheard from Duke Burmistrz when I was spying on him. Have you heard of the Tenebris?"
"Yeah, they're the group of dark magicians who supposedly created this labyrinth right?"
"Yes, that's right. Apparently, the Tenebris had been having problems with the maneators ever since their king escaped."
Suddenly, Smoke got a bad premonition on what Espion would say next.
"I heard them tell the Duke that they terminated all of the maneators and replaced them with the krampus. They said that they've modified these beasts to be mindless monsters, and since its still in the testing phase they only have a few of them inside the labyrinth. These monsters were said to be only filled with the urge to kill anything that isn't a member of the Tenebris or a fellow krampus."
Smoke stopped running. Espion stopped as well and wondered if the DarkElf sensed any monsters nearby.
"Did you sense something? I didn't hear anything."
"No, no, there aren't any monsters nearby. It's just that aside from rescuing you. I was also here to rescue the remaining maneators. I wonder what Konig Mitleid will have to say about this?"
Espion was dumbfounded when he heard Smoke say the name of the maneator's king.
"You know Konig Mitleid? How? That monster's been gone for a long time."
"I met him somewhere south of here. He's given me a quest to liberate the maneators. I guess he didn't know that the Tenebris terminated all of them. I guess this also means he's the last maneator. He already felt guilty about leaving his brothers, and accidentally killing some of them. Looks like he won't have a chance to redeem himself."
"From what you're saying it sounds like, Konig Mitleid is a decent monster. I always thought that he would be scarier than the krampus beasts that I've seen."
"I used to think that as well. Maybe I misjudged him. He was bred to be a torturer. It wasn't his choice to be one. A person should be given a chance to change himself if he wants to."
Espion believed that Smoke was genuinely concerned about the king of the maneators. Originally, the young Spy thought that Smoke was only worried about failing the maneator's quest, but it appeared that he was mistaken.
"Well, sorry to have brought the bad news to you, Smoke. But, we have to go. I don't like staying too long in one of these tunnels. It feels like a krampus could come out of nowhere and grab you."
"Of course, of course, please lead on."
Smoke empathized with Konig Mitleid, but what really saddened him was the idea that he had lost a great potential ally.
He was secretly hoping that the maneators would join his private army as soon as he liberated them. He consoled himself with thoughts of the loot inside the labyrinth's treasure room.
It was said that the locked vault contained a compendium of the Tenebris most prized possessions. He briefly took out the labyrinth key given to him by Konig Mitleid, and stowed it back into his backpack window.
Smoke had other inquiries for Espion, but the only thing that was in the DarkElf's mind was the loss of the maneators. He could not think of anything else.
It had been almost two days. Smoke and Espion met several monsters along the way to the secret chamber at the center of the labyrinth. As a result, Espion gained one level before they reached their destination.
The DarkElf was somewhat disappointed with Caid's son. Inspite of that, he did show great potential and promise.
It was revealed that Espion's level was still at 82. The young Spy also distributed all of his stats on Agility. This explained why Espion's lifebar was very low at 40,000 HP.
Espion's dedication to one stat gave him a total of 668 Agility. While Smoke at level 92, only relied on his passive ability 'Agility of the Horned Rabbit' which gave him a total Agility of 452.
Smoke was envious of Espion's dodge rate and attack speed, but he was also satisfied with the stat which he chose to raise.
His hidden basic stat, Wisdom, was now at 50. Even with such a low Wisdom stat, it had already reduced the needed acquisition time for gaining knowledge from books.
Espion called out Smoke's name, and brought him back from his musings about stats and levels.
"Smoke, we're here. Would you like to solve this riddle or should I?"
The wall in front of Smoke had a gate like carving. There were two doors on the gate. It was clearly larger than the previous secret room which Espion showed him.
