It took a couple of hours to get through Levels 6 and 7 before Wayne finally decided to get out of the VR, he needed a moment to rest. He couldn't explain it, but his physical body wasn't tired, but mentally he was drained.
"I don't know what to think with how you got up to Duggar's record?" Rocky said as she greeted Wayne as he got out of the VR.
"I'm sure he can go higher. He's just too busy to mess with this thing," Wayne said as he pointed to the chair he was just sitting.
"Well, it's impressive if you ask me," Rocky said as she put her arm around Wayne's arm, as she continued.
"Let's get some food, I'm starving, and I wasn't even the one in the VR, so I know you must be ravished."
"Yeah, I guess you're right, I can eat," Wayne said as he clutched his stomach.
"Well, that settles it," Rocky said as she grabbed Wayne's arm and proceeded to head outside the building.
"It isn't too far from here, so we should be able to walk."
"What isn't too far from here?"
"The restaurant silly, now come on, they're still running their drink specials," Rocky said as she led the way to the restaurant in a hurry.
After a short distance, they finally reached the restaurant and saw it was packed with people. Wayne didn't mind but figured his food would take forever to come out with this amount of people. Rocky pulled Wayne inside and looked around for a table until she tugged on Wyanes shirt and pointed in a direction.
"Duggar? He doesn't seem himself," Wayne said when he noticed the direction she was pointing.
"Yeah, I think he is just stressed at the moment," Rocky said with a slight frown.
"Well, let's sit by him," Wayne said as he went towards Duggar before Rocky could protest.
As the two approached, Duggar was just sipping on his drink while twiddling with the fries that were on the plate. When the two finally sat down at his table, that's when he broke out of his daze and was surprised to see them there.
"What are you guys doing here? I told you to have the days off, so I have nothing for you guys."
"We know, we just wanted to check on you, see how you're doing, by the looks of it, I would say not the best," Wayne said as he pointed to the plate of cold fries that Duggar had been playing with.
Duggar just sighed and took another sip of his drink.
"I need to be perfect, Wayne, you may not know 'cause you just joined the team, but the member that you replaced died under my watch."
"Hey, mistakes happen, right? I'm sure it wasn't the first and won't be the last," Wayne said, trying to reassure Duggar.
"Yeah, that may be true, but he died because he was following the orders I gave him, similar to what happened with the hatchlings, I made a calculated risk leaving you behind by yourself, if you were to perish, Daylight would probably drop me from his sponsorship. He probably would say something along the lines that I don't have what it takes to lead."
Wayne sat there silent for a moment and tried to understand Duggar's plight. He was sure there was more to it, but he didn't want to push the issue.
"Don't worry about it, now that I'm here, I promise we're going to be one of the top teams," Wayne said as he patted Duggar's shoulder.
"AW! That's so cute!" Rocky said as she noticed Wayne's attempt to cheer up Duggar.
Duggar just chuckled and had a slight smile on his face.
"There we go, that's the Duggar I know of and met! To keep the morale up, I also have some news for you."
"What's that?" Duggar said with a questioning gaze.
"After this, I'm attempting Level 8," Wayne said with a sly smile.
"Level 8!? You've progressed faster than I could imagine. Now I have to get higher levels to not look bad in front of you," Duggar said with a smile on his face.
The waiter then came and asked for their order while all of them talked and laughed. After three hours, they all left the restaurant and returned to the VR room.
"Wow, kid, you really did it," Duggar said as he looked back at the footage from Wayne's battle on each level.
"Thanks, but I'm trying to see what beast the heroes are facing," Wayne said as he eagerly went to the chair and got set up to head back in the VR.
"Alright, if that's what you really want, good luck," Duggar said as Wayne put on his helmet and Rocky confirmed the information he needed.
As the process happened, Wayne ended up in a thick rainforest in the middle of the day, vegetation went up to his shins, and where the trees blocked most of the sun.
Wayne walked around for a minute before hearing some rustling in the grass. He looked for a while but couldn't see anything, especially with how thick the vegetation was.
The next moment a serpent-like creature jumped out of the grass towards Wayne, he barely moved out of the way without the beast scraping his face.
"What the fuck was that?" Wayne wondered inwardly.
It jumped out at him again, and this time he was prepared to dodge it. This went on for three minutes before Wayne got frustrated that he couldn't tell where this thing was coming from. He decided to jump on a tree and used his [Dark Flame] to a minuscule amount so he could burn some of the vegetation away, giving him a better look at what he was facing. After a minute of burning, the grass had lowered to a level that Wayne could see the ground, and when he focused on what was going on, his eyes bulged out of his head.
"What the hell is that?!"
Wayne saw a bunch of serpent-like creatures with tiny holes in the ground that they burrowed into, and from the looks of it, the ground was littered with these holes. Leaving Wayne with a feeling of dread.