Chapter 13: Determination (end of the prologue)

Never in my life have I expected that throwing pieces of building away could be so hard. When hearing about the disastrous news of earthquakes all over the world, I always found it hard to imagine why people buried under the ruble didn't attempt to escape with their own power. It just seemed impossible for me to be unable to open some holes and squeeze through them.

And yet, even with my current position of being at the top of the ruins instead of being trapped beneath them, I had to admit that this task didn't belong to the rank of simple ones. Even with my body reinforced with the low level of my cultivation and all the bonuses I got from the system, just to push one of the big pieces that blocked my way away, I spent nearly half a minute!

Half a minute that my mother was awaiting my return on the verge of death.

After finally throwing the piece of concrete away, I finally managed to reach the area with smaller pieces. Throwing them behind me, I continued to dig in a single spot all the way to the point when I finally reached a small hole. Even though its bottom part was still blocked by some more ruined pieces of what used to be my home, just the knowledge that I was nearing my target was enough to add some life to the spark of hope burning in my soul.

Bit by bit, I continued to dig my way through the stairs, finally clearing the way after at least two more minutes. In a normal situation, this would be an achievement worthy of praise, but for me, it was the race with the death itself.

Finally passing by the doors to the insides of my basement, I slammed them back while still running inside, only to turn around on my heel and scream.

"Open the world!"

Not even sure if that would work, I could only hope. Throwing myself at the doors, I pushed them open with just the sheer weight of my body…

Only to fall on a soft patch of fresh grass.

I never attempted having two worlds open at the same time. I didn't even know if using this kind of order would result with what I wanted.

[Name of the world: ARC4D14]

[Level of the world: medium]

[Mission: Obtain "Dragon's seed"]

[Time freeze: three weeks, four days, two hours and fifty-nine minutes.]

Thankfully, I wasn't thrown back to the apocalypse. Not only I didn't dare to waste the time freeze remaining for that world, but most importantly - all the tools that I could find there clearly used some kind of energy to operate. Given how my mother was unable to absorb even its tiniest bit, I honestly doubted that those otherwise great tools could be of any real use.

The one last bet was to move in to another world, and either obtain an item capable of saving my mother as a local reward, or at least hope for the system to do a good job with its own reward. After all, even if I were to fail to obtain the necessary items in one world, I could jump to another one right after!

But the most important thing about my current situation was that I couldn't back down at all. Even if I were to fail any of the worlds, I would still have to take a few seconds on earth in order to jump back into yet another world. The same case applied to a situation where I would run out of the time freeze. After all, each second that moved on the earth, meant one second less that my mother would have left to live.

"Okay then."

Fueled by my relentless desire, I moved back to my feet. Raising up, all I could see was an endless ocean of the green. While the first two worlds that I visited were filled with the insane natural beauty of the world, this was something that simply didn't exist on that scale in any of the words that I have visited so far.

For a slightest of the moments, the whistling of the wind alone managed to calm me down and tune my thoughts off. Only for all my feelings to return in the very next second.

"I will save her…"

Tightening down my knuckles, I moved forward. Step by step, I continued to traverse the vast expanse of the grass, with seemingly nothing else available in any other direction. Even the sun, as if some kind of fake, didn't seem to move at all in the skies, always shining directly from above my head.

With no shadows to direct my steps or at least ensure that I was moving in a single direction, I could feel that the road before me could turn to be far more annoying than any of the problems I have faced so far in all the worlds I visited.

But as long as I could obtain a method to save my mother, I would not give up!