Chapter 128 Exhilarated
Standing at the entrance of the cave, Zick suddenly held his chest with a painful look. His heart throbbed in pain.
With a clenched jaw, Zick thought of the reason.
'Dragon fear....'
After he lost all his potential in the dragon bloodline, it seemed that a limitation had appeared in its usage.
'haa, another limitation....' Zick's mood dampened a little. He stopped using dragon fear which made his pain start lessening.
There was nothing but darkness within the cave. Zick created a fireball of palm size and made it fly a meter in front of him. His face was filled with vigilance, the prior incident made him be on his guard all the time.
'Anything can happen in this place. The abnormal incident can occur any moment so letting down my guard would be just like courting death.'
In total silence, Zick walked deeper into the cave. He could feel the mana around him thicken as he walked further into it.
With his senses, Zick could tell that the cave was very narrow. At most two people could fit in at once.
Walking for a few minutes, Zick narrowed his eyes, seeing a dim light at the end of his vision. With a little deliberate thinking, he started heading towards it.
'A mana crystal!' Zick's eyes shone in glee.
The mana crystal was small the size of an adult palm. It was stuck in the corner of the cave passage, illuminating its surroundings dimly.
'The appearance of this mana crystal shows that I am going in the right path. I should be able to reach the main node of this crystal mine in a while.' Zick was exhilarated by this.
Without wasting a second, Zick grabbed the mana crystal and pulled it out with his raw strength. It came out very easily with a little resistance.
Zick put it within his space ring. Though this mana crystal was almost low to middle quality at most, it could still fetch quite an amount.
Making a profit like this after a long time, he was in a joyous mood. But he controlled his emotions and moved forward vigilantly.
He could celebrate as much as he wanted after getting out of here!
Walking in the passage for thirty minutes, Zick encountered a few mana crystals of the same size as the first one randomly. All of them entered his space ring.
He had started traveling faster seeing the appearance of mana crystal increasing.
"Hmm?" Finding something on the ground, Zick stopped and looked at it with a feeling of oddness.
It was a trail left by unknown monsters.
Seeing how small it was, he predicted it to be a spider-type or mouse-type monster.
'Why are monsters here too? This is not normal...as I thought there is something in here attracting the monsters.' Zick wasn't interested in finding out about it in the least. He wasn't sure if this could benefit him.
He just moved forwards collecting mana crystal.
'I will kill everything that gets in my way!'
Therefore, Zick began moving at a rapid pace. He just wanted to collect the mana crystal and get out of this messed-up place!
SCREECH~
Feeling the presence of the monster in front of him, Zick took out the cursed sword not slowing down at all.
A spider with white skin like snow and multiple red eyes entered his sight.
The spider, which didn't even reach his knee joint level was slashed by Zick, being cut in two without getting a chance to retaliate.
Like this, Zick's crazy spree continued. He picked up all the mana crystals which started appearing every minute and killed the snow spiders which appeared in front of him.
After a while, a big chunk of mana crystal appeared in front of him. It was almost one meter long.
Feeling delighted, Zick directly put it within his space ring. The next moment he took it out again and started kicking off the mud and stone stuck at its root. This waste thing would also eat away at his storage if not removed.
Finishing cleaning the mana crystal, he put it back in his space ring and started walking this time. He decided to let his body rest, there were monsters near him so it would be problematic if something happened.
'That mana crystal is a high rank without a doubt. Its value must be around 500 platinum coins, hehe.'
Feeling delighted, Zick moved forward with energetic steps. His expression was adorned with an actual smile for the first time in a long while.
He could at last feel that he was heading somewhere, the feeling of being stuck in the same place for a long time made him on edge for a while.
Walking at a normal pace, Zick sensed the multiple presences of monsters in front of him.
'A group? Well, it doesn't matter, their strength at most is just at the low-rank level.'
Zick willed and the fireball in front of him shot forward rapidly.
SCREECH!
Without any hesitation, Zick started creating fireballs and shot them in the direction he felt the monster's presence.
The spider monster was mutated having the element of ice so they died easily with Zick's fireball.
The stench of burned meat reached Zick's nose. Feeling that all of them were dead, he continued moving forward. The charred bodies of the snow spider entered his sight, smoke and a putrid smell wafted in the air.
Walking past their body without a change in expression, Zick found something besides their bodies.
A crystal just like the mana crystal but it was different at the same time.
A normal mana crystal was in a glimmering blue color, but this crystal in front of Zick was white just like snow. It even gave out chilling energy.
Zick squinted his eyes and placed his right hand upon it. A cold sensation traveled through his hand.
'What is this? This monster was clearly after that thing so it must be important.'
He picked up the small snow-white crystal and put it within his space ring.
Zick started moving again quickly. He could find out about the snow-white crystal afterward.
Along the way, Zick got another four high-quality mana crystals; there were also many small ones with it. One of his space rings was completely filled with them now. This caused him to ignore the low-quality mana crystals and only pick up the high-quality ones.
The snow spiders which appeared were either burnt or slashed to death by Zick. He found them carrying the same snow-white crystals somewhere.
Right at the moment, Zick stood in front of four different passageways. He waited in the darkness while hiding his presence.
RUSTLE~
After a few minutes, Zick heard the rustling sounds of multiple spiders. There was a stronger presence leading the gang.
'A middle-rank monster...' Zick had already expected this so he wasn't surprised.
There were just too many snow spiders around here so without a doubt there had to be a stronger monster leading them.
'This one doesn't seem to be the leader either, which means there are stronger monsters ahead.' This made Zick heighten his guard again.
He waited for them to choose a path.
The gang of spiders chose the second passage from the right. Seeing this, Zick's eyes shone.
A fireball appeared in his hand and floated near the ceiling, illuminating the passage. The snow spiders were alerted, looking around warily.
The middle-rank snow spider had eight legs and a height reaching to Zick's waist.
Zick could fight solely relying on his senses but it was better to be able to see around. Circulating mana to his body and sword, he leaped forward at a formidable speed.
His figure blurred for a second appearing in front of the snow spiders. His sword was already held above him, he swung it at the strongest spider without lowering his speed.
The snow spider was at his guard but it could do nothing in front of Zick's peak high-rank strength. Its head was split in two and red blood gnashed out of it.
With Swift moves, Zick killed all the spiders who were trying to scatter around the passages.
Then Zick flicked the blood off his sword and put it back into its sheath. He started walking in the passage chosen by snow spiders.
...
Deep within the ground, a serine pond existed.
Above the pond, a spider hung upside down with closed eyes on the ceiling.
With a rustling sound, it moved its leg slightly and opened its eyes. It had deep red eyes flashed with intelligence.
Feeling many of its kin killed at once, it screeched loudly, ordering the spiders under its control to kill the invader immediately.
Immediately the whole cave room started shaking intensely from the movements of the other spiders.
This monster had the same level of intelligence as humans!
It considered itself superior to the monster under it giving birth to pride. It was able to rule this colony for a long time.
A mutated monster with high intelligence was unseen by the whole world. This discovery would cause ripples around the world, attracting many scholars and researchers at once.
Slowly the big spider got down through the thread and let itself submerge into the pond with white liquid.