Is this really a Game?!

Chapter 428 A Building In The Desert

"Nothing here as well." Reign said as Wolf nodded in agreement.

They were currently a couple of kilometers away from their shelter and had arrived at another rock formation in order to check it out.

"It's been four days since the challenge started, there are only 4 groups left, and we still have no idea what the hidden task is," Beast said as he came next to the two.

They had spent four days in the desert already and they used the time to hunt some surrounding monsters for food and to explore anything that seemed interesting. Thanks to Beast, they could simply wait in the shelter before his eagle spotted something, after that, they would go over to the eagle with Beast leading them while another tamed beast would be left back at the shelter in order for Beast to sense him and let them return easily.

The whole process was incredibly easy and it allowed them to go anywhere without ever losing their way. No matter how far away they were, Beast could always sense where his tamed beasts were and find their way back to the, they could, of course, do the same.

For now, it seemed that there was no limit to the distance that could exist between Beast and his tamed beasts in order for him to sense them. Beast could feel that the sensation did become a bit weaker the further away from his beasts he was, but he didn't know what the limit was exactly.

He should be alright as long as the distance was below 100km at least, but he couldn't be certain if he could feel them if they were further away.

"So, are we going back, or did your eagle find something else that we can check out?" Wolf asked Beast as the latter shook his head.

"There's still nothing, even though he had gone 30 km east, only sand is visible, I'm going to let him fly a bit longer before having him return, we can wait a bit more, it's still early to go back."

There would always be 4 people that stayed back in the shelter, partly it was because they didn't want to risk anything happening to Beast's tamed beast, while the other reason was so that they could observe their surroundings and tell them if anything happened while they were gone.

In the three days they had stayed at the rock formation, they had been attacked a couple of times by the sandworms. No matter how many they killed, more just came and it was becoming fairly annoying to them.

Not only did the worms continue attacking them, but there were stronger ones amongst them as well, the strongest that Reign and the others had faced so far was level 77, and judging by the fact that there were more that were close to its level, more powerful ones probably existed.

If there was a Tier II worm that led the others, then they would have to flee the rock formation and find another place to create a shelter, something they had still not been able to find.

Since the worms were quite numerous at the rock formation, nobody wanted to take the risk and stay longer than they needed to. Fighting the worms wasn't particularly hard since Greenie could use his stomp to deal with most of them, but the risk of drawing the attention of more powerful monsters was one they truly didn't want to take.

Their luck was awful, however, as there was nothing in the vicinity of the rock formation. They had explored everything in a 40km radius and found barely anything worthy, only sand and some stones, there was only one oasis as well.

They still had time, however as there were 3 teams that had managed to survive for so long other than them. Before those 3 teams were finished, they were going nowhere.

"Hey, I found something," Beast said as a confused expression was plastered on his face.

"Hmmm, what is it?"

"It's, well, it's honestly better for you to see it, I can't really explain it," Beast said with a weird look on his face.

"Trust me, you'll all want to see this."

Everybody nodded at Beast before following him. His eagle was a bit over 30km away from them and they would take a while to get there. As for the eagle, it was currently flying in the sky, making circles over a fairly large structure in the desert.

After about 4 hours of traveling, they finally arrived at the place where the eagle was. The whole team squinted their eyes as they could see something in the distance, only to slowly have their eyes widen in shock and awe the closer they got to it.

Standing about 600 meters tall, there was a giant building in the middle of the desert. The design of the building was, well, different compared to normal.

There was a pyramid at the bottom of the building and it rose to about 70 meters in height before more was seemingly put on its top. The rest of the building was made entirely on the top of the pyramid and the whole team couldn't believe that it was even standing.

It was as if some child took some plasters and decided to make a building on top of the pyramid, there was no shape to the building, it was wider in some places while in other places it was incredibly thin. By all means, the building shouldn't be able to stand as it defied the laws of physics.

"Well, I guess everything is possible with mana." Reign said as he looked at the building.

"It's getting late, we should go back and rest before coming here tomorrow, I don't know about you, but I have a feeling that this place might be the hidden task of this challenge." Mia suddenly said as Reign nodded in agreement.

"Definitely, for something like this to exist on Earth is simply impossible, Drayce or the system probably made this building and put it here."

"Beast."

Beast nodded at Wolf before summoning a scorpion. With his level being higher than before, he could now have a total of 8 summoned beasts. He previously tamed a scorpion and a fox and had the fox stay in the shelter.

Both of the monsters were normal and were far weaker compared to his own, but they served as markers for the desert, Beast would use one in order to always sense where their shelter was, while another would be used for them to remember where something interesting was located at.

The scorpion quickly started digging and hid in the sand, making it almost impossible for anything to notice it.

If nothing unexpected happened, the scorpion would be here tomorrow and they could come to this place after resting and being at their peak state.

The journey back home took them about 6 hours since the shelter was approximately 70km away. To get back in such a short amount of time was impossible before the game started, even if one ran, it would take 7 hours to travel such distance, and that was on even land, not a desert.

As for Reign and the others, they simply walked most of the way back. Reign's running speed was many times faster compared to an average human as he could even explode with speed equaling Mach 1 if he wished to, at full speed, he was far faster than even that.

They relayed the news to the rest of the group that was left in the shelter before they all went to sleep. There was no need for any of them to stand guard as they were high up and Beast always had at least 1 of his tamed beasts outside in order to keep a lookout.

As morning came, they all got up and got ready for the day. Today was going to be tough, they had no idea what was waiting for them back at the building, but it was certainly not anything good.

A hidden task was always something that would force the challengers to use everything they got in order to finish it and there might even be casualties amongst them today. As Reign got out and looked up to the sky, he could see that one more team had failed the challenge, leaving them and 2 more in the desert.

As for the time that passed outside, Drayce had said that this challenge is different since it would take them much longer compared to those before, hence 1 day in the desert was equal to only 10 minutes outside. For now, they had only been in the desert for 5 days, which meant that less than an hour has passed outside.

They all took their flasks, drank their water and refilled them, killed a monster, and grilled the meat before eating and getting ready to leave.

"Alright, everybody ready?" Everyone nodded at Reign as they slowly made their way to the building, they would only walk as there was no need for them to expend any extra strength before arriving there.