79 Egypt

In barely a minute, particles of light started appearing around each team member.

Each of them felt as if they were weightless and the now-familiar bright flash blinding their eyes appeared again.

They opened their eyes to discover that they were still seated in the chairs like before. Only, they had been teleported along with the chairs into a tent.

The air was dry with swirls of sand visible in the air. Although the ground below rhem was also covered by the fabric of the tent, after setting their feet down they could tell that they were in the desert.

"Not the desert!", shrieked Yu Yan and Yu Ying together.

Entsy was calm as always, observing the surroundings and opting not to say anything.

Darius on the other hand stood up and zipped open the tent zip. A wall of sand fell on him from the outside, making him sputter and cough, trying to get the sand out of his face.

The team couldn't help but burst out laughing seeing Darius's silly appearance. The twins especially held their stomachs.

"Ya ya, laugh all you want. I wanted to shower you girls in the sand and ended up taking a shower myself. Where are we anyway?"

It was a light moment of humor which did wonders in calming their nerves. since hearing that real death was possible, they had all become a bit tightly wound from the pressure. Of course, the pressure of qualifying for the EIC was also a large factor.

"Close the zip, Darius. Lets understand the present situation before proceeding."

"Sure. Watch this."

With a confident look on his face, Darius clapped his hands. Sand automatically flew off of his face and body, flying in all directions.

The sad thing was that he had forgotten or wasn't able to aim the sand outside. The whole tent and its inhabitants were bombarded with a hail of sand particles.

Now, they were all coughing and closing their eyes.

Darius, who had closed his eyes to give a thrilling performance, opened them hearing the sounds of coughing.

Seeing his teammates all in a much worse condition than him, he panicked a bit before pointing both his arms at each of them.

As he did so, sand fell off of each team member allowing them to take a fresh breath. Earlier, the sand particles had even gone into their nostrils and mouths making it difficult to breathe.

"Sorry. My old man taught me earth manipulation right before coming here. I'm still learning it though. For now, I can only control sand and clay because they were the easiest to learn. It seems I will be able to control all minerals if I want to, but I would have to learn how to control each. Still, I thought it was pretty cool and wanted to show off....."

Feeling the increasing glares at him, Darius shut up and closed the tent. He sat back down in his seat awkwardly.

The twins were especially scathing in their cases. They even took their chairs and sat near Lance and Entsy creating some distance from Darius.

Coughing, Lance chose to break the silence.

"Anyway, lets check out the mission. Seems we have standard equipment again.", he said, feeling another pouch at his waist just like the first mission.

Entsy walked to a table beside them and handed the dossier lying on it to Lance.

As soon as he touched the dossier though, a holographic display sprung to life in the middle of the tent and a voice started speaking. After the logo was shown, the image morphed into a map.

"Welcome to your second mission.

Your current location is around 200 km south from the pyramid of Giza. 30 km to your east lies the city of Cairo, Egypt. Your mission is to reach the pyramid of Giza and extract certain components from it. The file obtained in the first mission is in the dossier. In it, the components and the method to extract them is detailed. It is suggested that the team first focuses on reaching the pyramid as soon as possible as your opponents have already started on the way. Components need to be extracted and deposited at a location 2 km from the pyramid marked in the map. Use of deadly force is allowed. Items provided are:

2xBarrier. This will protect you from gunshots when worn. Roughly 100 bullets from assault rifles can be blocked by the barrier before it loses effect.

1xExit Key. Crushing this talisman will result in immediate teleportation out of the mission location. You will still pass if the components are deposited at the location.

2xEnergy Recovery Stones. These can be used when meditating to recharge energy constructs faster.

1xWater Stone. This stone can be sucked on to obtain water. 1 cup of water is generated every one hour.

The mission has begun. Please proceed with caution"

Unlike the previous mission, there was no planning time.

The mission had already begun.