"Intruders!" A person in a lab coat noticed us standing in front of the bank vault while suddenly appearing not so far away from us.

"Run!" I yelled as we started to climb up the stairs.

My lungs started to burn as the time on the marble indicated that we have been running up the stairs for about an hour.

"I can't anymore," Sh.e.l.ly wheaved while trying to grasp more air.

Meanwhile, laser beams were suddenly projected to certain places on the stairs to shoot potential intruders to their death.

When one laser beam started to head towards my chest, the beam scratched the edge of Ben's shoulder as I suddenly found myself in Ben's arms. Ben's blood silently dropped onto my arm as he grunted from the pain.

"Thanks," I mumbled to him as I supported him back up.

"Catch them!" I heard a voice not so far below from where we were sitting.

I ripped the bottom of my blue dress and clumsily attempted to stop the blood flowing from his shoulder.

When I ran out of places to rip my dress without exposing too much skin to apply pressure on Ben's shoulder, Sh.e.l.ly ripped some frills on her blouse and a large part of her skirt to bandage his shoulder.

"Let's continue," Ben helplessly said as he struggled to get back up.

The three of us walked carefully as there were laser beams set on every other stair. Even when our legs were on fire from the agonizing exercise from climbing up the stairs without a single break, we didn't even think of stopping as we could soon be caught by the people in the lab coats.

We were forced to stop when Sh.e.l.ly fainted from exhaustion. "Sh.e.l.ly," I whispered to her with worry.

"She'll be fine," Ben answered once he checked her pulse.

Things were looking grim as it looked like there were no end to these stairs even though it's been five hours since we entered the vault.

"Let's use teleportation," I suggested as it was clear that we couldn't continue to climb up the stairs anymore.

Ben didn't answer as he attempted to piggyback Sh.e.l.ly even with his injured shoulder.

'Please place us up high up in these never ending stairs,' I pleaded while pouring a great amount of mana into my wish.

However, instead of finding ourselves on the never ending stairs, we were in the middle of a white lab.

When Ben spotted a person behind the automated door, he quickly dragged me inside one of the big cabinets that were part of the lab bench while carrying Sh.e.l.ly.

"Yea, I'm looking for the intruders that came from the second district." The person talked to the marble.

"Ugh! More overtime again," The person in the lab coat complained.

"Why did this have during my s.h.i.+ft?" The person continued whining.

Instead of searching around the room, the person relaxed on the chair while ordering a cup of coffee from the tablet.

"We should rest here until that person leaves," I whispered to Ben.

Ben agreed as we decided to spend the night here.

* * *

When I woke up, I found myself drooling on Ben's s.h.i.+rt as I noticed Ben was still asleep. Not wanting to wake him up, I tried to open the cabinet as soft as possible to have Ben suddenly stop me.

"We should take turns teleporting instead of climbing up the stairs," Ben quietly whispered.

"I'll help too," Sh.e.l.ly offered while rubbing her eyes.

Sh.e.l.ly instantly teleported us to another room that resembled a storage room with crates and boxes stacked on top of each other filled with mana crystals.

"Can we take some of these with us?" I asked while grabbing some mana crystals from the crates.

Mana crystals were one of the most expensive gems in the first district. As long as a person possessed mana, they could use mana crystals to restore the mana that they used up. Since the natural recovery rate of mana was usually very slow, many people used their mana sparingly. Although my mana recovered fast as I had an unlimited amount of mana, it seemed like the mana of the elites of the first district recovered quickly too due to possessing a large amount of mana (even though it was not comparable to mine).

'If I were to sell even one of these crystals, I could get 100,000 Aris,' I thought.

"Drop them Rika," Ben glared at me.

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'Fine! I have lots of money from what Luke puts into my bank account anyways,' I thought while putting the mana crystals back into the crate.

We then teleported to numerous strange rooms as we took turns teleporting further up while sweating heavily from the strain of using too much mana at once.

"Is this a bedroom?" I asked.

We were on a king-sized this time surrounded by countless pins on the carpet that was embedded into the floor.

"We could rest here a bit," Ben suggested to Sh.e.l.ly as he ignored my question.

Sh.e.l.ly nodded as she looked pale and sick from using too much mana.

However, I soon heard someone about to turn the doork.n.o.b. I instantly tried to teleport Ben, Sh.e.l.ly and I somewhere else in order to not get discovered.

'Who knows what will happen if we get caught,' I imagined the consequences.

"Rika!" Sh.e.l.ly complained when we were on the stairs again.

When I saw the familiar laser beams, I hung my head in despair.

"Look!" Ben pointed out a door at the end of the stairs a few floors away from us.