Chapter 248: Stomach Problems Anya eyed the small bird with visible jealousy. A dark element spirit beast! It might as well be called a priceless treasure! She was a druid and even she didn't have a powerful spirit beast like it. So she couldn't help but feel envious. Madan happily basked in the spotlight and rubbed the little bird again. "Show them what you can do tweety." After hearing his command, the little bird nodded her head and then flew into the tunnel as fast as a dart, chirping happily. The four of them could not see her after that as she became one with the darkness in the tunnel. However, Madan could still feel her presence and he could also track her status. "See. See only has a 5% stats debuff. Her health is also not dropping." He proudly displayed the results for everyone to see. Now even Anya was visibly impressed and the four of them nodded in agreement. "This definitely looks like the best option right now," Kouske said. "I think so too." Barret also added. The group attempted to explore the tunnel again and this time only Kouske and the five undead bears trailing behind him jumped into the tunnel. In front of him, Tweety flapped her wings, hiding in the darkness. "Ok, let's start." Kouske looked around. He took out a flare stick from his inventory and lit it up for visibility. He then moved ahead slowly taking in everything and observing the surroundings carefully. Not long after, he came across the skeletons chained to the wall and he also saw the clear footprint on the ground. A strange look appeared on Kouske's face. This place was suffocatingly filled up to the brim with nether and there was a high chance that someone had found this place and entered the tunnel before him. Could it be that person? He pondered over it amidst the pin-drop silence and darkness that surrounded him. He then again started walking heading deeper into the tunnel, with the spirit beast bird scouting the spot ahead of him. Meanwhile… Completely unaware of what was happening above him… The other person in the tunnel was also going in deeper and deeper. Liam frowned looking at the sight in front of him. At this depth, the walls of the tunnel were suddenly covered with some sort of grass or dense moss. That too gave off a strange intoxicating smell but it didn't affect Liam in a good way. His hands and legs were now terribly itching and he was pretty sure that these plants were responsible for it. "Are they some sort of precious herbs?" Liam wondered. "Anyways, I will come back and take a look at it." There was plenty of moss covering the whole place and he did not want to waste time scraping them off, at least until he managed to get his hands on the inheritance. Letting out a long sigh, Liam tried not to be bothered by the itching and continued moving forward. Since he was conserving mana, his pace was rather slow. But he didn't mind it. Since he did not know anything about this place and did not have a quest, he needed to pay close attention to every single detail. Liam silently walked and a few minutes later, he finally arrived at what seemed to be the next checkpoint. In front of him, the tunnel slightly widened and before he could take another step forward, a gust of wind blew on his face and body, blowing out the flames engulfing his hand. It was dense white mist and it prevented him from seeing his surroundings clearly. Everything happened too fast and too suddenly. Before he could react, damage numbers started appearing and his health started dropping. Liam instinctively raised his sword up and sent out several slashes in the space next to him even if he couldn't see anything. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺 However, this time even his sword couldn't help him. He was simply swinging it around and it met nothing. He might as well be simply slashing the air. His attacks were not working and his health was still dropping! "If my sword doesn't work, then…" Liam did not hesitate and used the mana that he had preserved so far. He materialized a huge ball of fire again and sent it out around him as compressed bullets. And this time, he finally saw the effect! Because of his fire bullet attack, the thickness of the white mist weakened and he was able to somewhat see. Surrounding him on all sides and slowly corroding his physical body were a bunch of specters. "So this is why…" It looked like the person to whom this tunnel belonged, purposefully made several arrangements. First, they managed to thin out the mana in the air, and then they set traps that required mana usage. Did they not know about mana potions? Liam sneered and did not hold back as he sent out fireballs left and right without even bothering to aim. He was fully surrounded so what was the point. And that too, these specters seemed to be of a different type. They were dense and spread out without any specific features. So he simply attacked in a random fashion and every time a streak of fire passed through the space, the white mist in the region cleared, transiently leaving behind the clean earthy air. However, this new cleaned spot was quickly covered by other specters. It seemed as if there was an endless supply of these specters coming in and taking the spot of the old ones that were damaged or destroyed. Very clearly, the aim here was to tire out the intruder but Liam dunked in one of his several mana potions and leisurely cleared the sea of specters. But there was one thing that was weird and out of place. Every time he drank a mana potion, he felt the itching sensation worsen. He was also feeling nauseous as if he was drinking something stale or ruined. Did mana potions have expiry dates?