After winding their way around, it was noon of the new day when Ivan and his party finally reached their destination—the Spiral Valley.
Considered the ‘pit within a pit’ of the Nine-Color Pit, the entire terrain was like a massive meteorite that had struck the ground, creating the Mysterious Valley.
The Mysterious Valley was extensive, surrounded by rings of spiral channels that interconnected, all eventually leading to the valley floor.
Of course, this was only the Spiral Valley as depicted on the fish-skin scroll map.
In reality, all they saw was an area engulfed in a haze of grey dust that touched the sky, forming a giant vortex that constantly swirled around and around.
“Thud!”
Following the path indicated on the map, Ivan lead several people to jump down from a steep cliff on the side, and they were immediately pulled by an overbearing force in midair, accelerating downward until they landed heavily on the ground.
“What kind of force is this?”
“Gravity, similar to a Domain Aura.”
With full caution, they arrived on a spacious road that appeared to be paved with ‘black gemstones,’ all smoothly integrated with each other.
Actually, these so-called ‘black gemstones’ were just boulders that had been smelted and melted by a great fire, still scorching hot and filled with abundant Fire-type energy.
“Don’t let your guard down.”
Ivan reminded the two chattering doppelgängers ahead of him.
He scrutinized the surroundings carefully. On one side of the road was the mountain wall covered with black gemstones; on the other side was a dust storm whirling around, clearly revolving along with the Mysterious Valley.
Surprisingly, the entire dust storm seemed frozen, its speed greatly reduced.
As Jenny had said, the culprit that caused the dust storm to rotate at a ‘snail’s pace’ was a kind of gravity field.
Under the influence of this mysterious gravity field, most of the dust gathered in the middle of the Mysterious Valley. On the road where they were, there was only a thin layer, which did not affect their vision at all.
“Look, there are quite a few upper-class elemental crystals in the sandstorm, Earth-type ones of various sizes,” Locke said in surprise, pointing to the middle of the Mysterious Valley.
The sandstorm was rich with Earth-type energy, forming crystals through collision, with many large clumps being fairly common and undoubtedly valuable.
“Unless thrown out by the sandstorm, don’t even think about using methods to collect them. Once you act recklessly, you could be pulled into the sandstorm, facing a dilemma between life and death,” Ivan warned in a stern voice.
“Boss, rest assured, I am not someone who acts rashly,” Locke quickly promised.
For them, the center of the Mysterious Valley was a special area and strictly forbidden to touch.
Another forbidden area existed on the mountain wall, with slanted deep caves that also seemed to be smashed open by something.
Ivan had not traveled far along the road beneath his feet before encountering one such deep cave.
The entrance was over three meters wide, equivalent to about six or seven sevenths of the road. Inside was lush greenery, filled with grass, vines, and bushes, starkly different from the barren mountain walls and the road.
At first glance, it appeared peaceful.
However, the map clearly marked it as a special area with an extremely high danger level.
He understood that it was the combination of all these strange things that created an area that encompassed the Earth, Wood, and Fire elements.
“Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh.”
They had only glanced at the cave entrance when suddenly there was a flurry of movement inside, as if a thousand arrows were launched at once.
What were thought to be grass, leaves, and vines, turned out mostly to be small creatures and insects of strange shapes and exceptional speed, surging toward them.
“Retreat!”
As Ivan backed away, he used one hand to control the Ant King Sky Shield, and with the other hand, he produced the Black Magic Hand and smacked down.
With the help of the others, they managed to quell this sudden intense attack in one round, leaving nothing but carcasses of the creatures behind.
“These guys are too good at camouflage; I didn’t manage to spot anything amiss,” Locke remarked, still shaken.
“Don’t use common sense to judge the creatures here,” Ivan casually said, with his attention more on sensing power. These creatures all had control over gravity, capable of using gravity to accelerate.
It was certain that they were imbued with both Earth-type and Wood-type elemental powers.
Before they could catch their breath, there was a rustling sound of something breaking through the air from the cave, indicating the disturbance was far from over. It was as if they had poked into some Hidden Beast Cave.
“Retreat again.”
The cave entrance was two meters above the road, and under Ivan’s command, everyone simply moved back a distance.
As expected, the first to fly out from the cave mouth was a group of green-haired bats, followed by dark green feathered snakes, and plant life made of vines, among others.
Most of these creatures were of Level 2.
After a short while, the group had slaughtered all the frenzied creatures to extinction.
After the second wave of attacks, the lush deep cave finally regained its previous tranquility.
Ivan collected some of the carcasses for research and silently motioned for others to continue along the spiral passage.
Subsequently, they frequently encountered more deep caves, some overgrown with lush greenery, others filled with flames, and still others filled with intermittent, disordered gravitational and repulsive forces.
It turned out that, without exception, whether it was the Wood Cave, Fire Cave, or Earth Cave, all were Hidden Beast Caves.
The creatures therein were bizarre in appearance, as if they were the products of experiments, yet the elemental powers within them were highly harmonious. Moreover, the further down the spiral passage they went, the stronger the beasts in the deep caves became.
Ivan confirmed one thing: the creature he was searching for was hidden in one of these deep caves.
The biggest problem now was how to accurately locate it amongst the numerous beasts; going through each deep cave multiple times was clearly untenable, as excessive slaughter could attract things better left unprovoked.
“Boss, don’t you have any secret methods for exploration?” Locke asked in surprise.
“Yes, when it comes in front of me, as soon as I see it with my own eyes, I’ll be able to sense whether it’s a match.” Ivan of course deduced complementary methods of perception but they were not particularly clever, certainly not compared to those of the Belizi family.
“Uh—then we can only search slowly,” Locke said after a pause, seemingly unconcerned.
“That would be unwise; this place is not safe to linger in,” Ivan disagreed, shaking his head.
He actually harbored some doubts, suspecting that the sandstorm frozen in the middle of the Mysterious Valley could suddenly accelerate at certain moments, sweeping clean the entire Spiral Valley.
Otherwise, why would these creatures all huddle in the deep caves, only to kill their way out at the slightest disturbance?
This detail, however, was not recorded on the map made of fish skin.
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“Should I go down and have a look?” Jannie volunteered.
“Don’t even think about it.” Ivan looked at her with a dark expression. In such a place, once someone ventured down, no one knew what might happen; it was highly likely that they would never return.
The Secret Method Body Double was not easily obtained and could not be squandered in such a manner.
Considering the current situation, he pondered for a while and decided to use a crude method: still, use bait.
Of course, it wouldn’t be the Earth-type tricolor bead, as there was only one of those, and he certainly wouldn’t use it until the target creature was confirmed. Instead, he decided to craft new bait on the spot, based on the elemental composition he needed.
“Come on, everybody help. Jannie, swamp ant, provide Earth-type power; Silkworm Queen, Scented Butterfly, provide Wood-type power; I’ll handle the Fire-type myself, make it quick,” Ivan instructed after making his decision.
“What about me?” Locke didn’t hear his own name.
“You’re on guard, stay alert to our surroundings,” Ivan instructed.
“Alright then.” Locke glanced at the empty obsidian path and listlessly agreed.
Under Ivan’s demanding craftsmanship, it wasn’t long before several roughly-made power crystals were completed. Since all providers of power did their utmost, the quality of the bait was actually not bad.
They then began their ‘fishing’ attempts.
The first choice was the ‘Earth Cave’, where Ivan personally threw a power crystal into the center of the path and drew rune lines around it, stretching from the path to the cave’s mouth.
After activating the rune lines, he stepped back to watch as a trace of faint power was drawn into the deep cave.
A moment later, a flurry of motion came from the deep cave.
“Retreat.”
Ivan understood: this attempt had lured out all the beasts from the deep cave, proving the bait setup a failure.
He didn’t get discouraged; he knew it was all about constant testing and adjustment.
The second attempt was still in the ‘Earth Cave’, where he adjusted the degree of the power’s pull, dialing it down a notch to increase its stealth. Yet, it still lured out quite a few creatures.
The third attempt, Earth Cave again, one notch lower, fishing attempt failed.
——
The eighth time, Fire Cave, refined the bait, further purified the crystal power, fishing attempt failed.
——
The fourteenth time, Wood Cave, refined the bait, altered the characteristics of the Wood-type energy, fishing attempt failed.
——
The thirty-ninth time, Earth Cave, refined the bait, combining a strand of power from the Earth-type tricolor bead, intermittently drawing an extremely subtle and obscure weak power into the deep cave. After a long wait, finally, a big fish was caught.
A strange serpent slowly floated out of the mouth of the deep cave.
The serpent’s entire body was composed of dust and soot, its massive head was made of rock, its snake eyes reflected flickering flames, and atop its head grew an odd tuft of green grass, resembling a skyward braid.
Ivan glanced at it and knew immediately, this was the creature he was looking for.