Time? Time for what?

The only logical answer is that the intelligence attribute is somehow connected to the Eyes of Insight. This made sense. Insight and intelligence, how could he not have thought of that before.

He collected the heavy leather armor and tried to take the great sword too but his hands were already full. He'll just make another trip back.

Aldrich deposited all his spoils in the common room of the base and noticed that the pile had grown very disorderly. He decided to find a place to organize all his spoils.

Aldrich headed to the seal of Tindalor on the wall beside the fireplace. Ever since he first saw it here he had been fearful of approaching it and that fear only grew when he resurrected the first time.

He did consider that his resurrection had nothing to do with it. If this was just a nightmare, a bad dream born of his own imagination then maybe he couldn't die because of that, because it was just a dream to begin with.

But that theory was very faulty. In the nightmare corridor he genuinely felt that if he was killed by the nightmare specter, then he would die in reality. Ultimately, a conjecture is just that a conjecture.

Aldrich traced the sign with his finger and sighed. He sat on the floor with his back resting on the sign. Thinking.

He could leave and relocate his base to any other building he cleared. But the others didn't have the seal of Tindalor. What if he was killed and he resurrected here while this place was infested with monsters?

After all, both times he resurrected was right under the seal of Tindalor. An obvious clue. The second reason is that the old madman was staying here before. The third is intuition.

The old madman was extraordinary, even if he was insane. This became even more certain after Aldrich explored the town more. How powerful would one have to be to move freely here?

When the old man saved him from the skinned dogs something happened. He was being chased by at least five skinned dogs and they were only a few steps behind him.

Yet when the old man opened the door the barking and running noises disappeared collectively at once. Only now after his intelligence increased to three was he able to remember that, after all at the moment he was half conscious.

As for the intuition, Isger always taught him to trust in his instincts. Aldrich believed that this house was the key to finding the divine city and leaving this cursed town.

'Wait there's something here...'

There was another part of the attribute panel that he never payed any attention to. The condition.

Something's not right. How could he not even investigate this? It's like whenever he opened his attributes panel he would always gloss over it for some reason.

Aldrich checked the explanation of the condition: the blood of ######, for the first time since he upgraded intelligence to three.

Condition: the blood of #######: time remaining:???.

'Time? Time for what?'

Aldrich didn't know how to react. The time was question marks, what did that mean? The more he knew the more questions he had.

At least for now, there are two methods to figure it out. First, by upgrading intelligence, he had a hunch that if his intelligence was high enough he will be able to see everything in the explanation.

The second method is upgrading the level of the eyes of insight. He came to the conclusion that he might be able to do that if he had enough essence orbs. Just like his attributes.

But where did this blood come from? How is it inside his body? He didn't remember anything about how that happened. It was just there when he first opened the panel.

'Wai—"

He remembered that the old madman had stabbed him in the heart with a red crystal. And when the madman was talking to himself he implied that he used five crystals on him before he regained consciousness.

It was ludicrous. Crystals were just pretty rocks, they don't even have any blood in them. But... but... what if that was not the case this time.

The old madman gave him the eye of insight saying that he would lose out if he died early. Aldrich swallowed his saliva. He was beginning to understand the situation better.

Aldrich decided to upgrade all his attributes to three for now before focusing on spirit and strength again. Since every attribute was important one way or another.

If all his attributes rose to three he could basically mow down the husks easily. Perhaps including the armored husk himself.

Name: Aldrich

Age: 15.5

Strength: 3

Agility: 1

Endurance: 1

Vitality: 2

Intelligence: 3

Spirit (black): 3

Essence: 3

Abilities: eyes of insight Lv.1

Condition: blood of ######

After some calculations he needed thirty two orbs to upgrade all the three remaining attributes; agility, endurance and vitality.

Aldrich returned back to the house he just cleared and collected the armors and weapons. Then he marched back to the base. He decided to get them now because he knew he would be too lazy the next time he came back.

He will probably need three or four more days to collect that amount of orbs. Aldrich wanted to continue hunting today but he was exhausted. Although the battles often take a short amount of time they leave you exhausted for the next couple hours.

Aldrich rested his back on the Tindalor seal and waited, but even after a good while he still didn't feel the feeling of being pulled back.

Aldrich finally decided to try something. He put his hand on the Tindalor seal and said,

"Return!"

Aldrich looked around on expectantly but nothing happened. He looked left and right and he was glad that he had no company here.

But soon after a memory was triggered in his mind. It was a memory the Aldrich could never forget and couldn't truly recall.

When he first learned of the word, Tindalor. He heard endless ravings and shouts all in his head. And he said : "Tindalor"

But he said it in an unknown tongue, the same unknown tongue he heard that day. The sign shined and flashed in iron red.

This was the first time he was completely aware of him leaving the nightmare realm. He felt something illusory inside move and twist, shift and disappear sometimes before everything went to black.

Aldrich woke up back in the real world. He was in a sleeping bag around the campfire. He marveled at the new experience. Truly extraordinary.

Aldrich opened his attribute panel and saw that of the three orbs he had left over, two had disappeared. He did feel like he lost something went he activated the seal. So it took two essence orbs to come back all on his own.

This was a fair price in his book. Moreover this meant that he got a measure of control in the nightmare realm. At least he wasn't completely clueless anymore. That night Aldrich went to sleep with a smile.

————————————————

Today they actually visited a town, a small but very important town to Aldrich. This town was called Herth and starting from this town the imperial roads stretched out in many directions.

The town itself was orderly and bustling even more so than Ado'merin. Some of the biggest buildings were five stories high and they were painted in orange and brown hues.

"The Ermitsal substance was the source and now many variants of it are used by construction companies to build basically everything. If you have the money, that is."

Ayemon must've seen him staring.

They stopped at an inn called the shy cat. The inn was was not made of Ermitsal but old fashioned bricks. Here, they bathed and changed clothes.

While they were eating a meal of lamb skewers with rice. This was the first time that Aldrich tried rice. Apparently it was very popular closer to the east.

"By the way what was the rectangular building we passed by?"

Aldrich saw some strange rectangular buildings in the town, they looked like they were intended to be towers but they weren't high enough to be. And they were very narrow and had no windows or door whatsoever.