Because of the trust Michael was given, he made a choice.
He chose to show the Forest Elves the Temple of the Forgotten.
Exposing the Temple of the Forgotten to the Forest Elves could turn into a big blunder and his worst nightmare, but Michael decided to trust them – just like the Elders of the Forest Elves trusted him as well.
Furthermore, Liopham had already seen the outer area of the underground ecosystem when they conquered the lizard cave. The EmeraldLeaf Adventurer team would find out about the Temple of the Forgotten sooner or later, either way.
‘If they’ve learned the old tongues, they might be able to help me decipher the language used by the Temple of the Forgotten!’ Michael hoped.
He was not confident that the Forest Elves knew the languages, but they were more likely to know something than any human.
Thus, Michael led everyone to the lizard cave. Today was the last day of their conquest before Michael’s life in the Saphirelake Military Academy would truly begin.
Simultaneously, the deeper parts of the complex cavern system seemed too eerie and dangerous to enter. Michael considered destroying the tunnels to make sure that the miners could do their job without having to worry about their safety.
The preparations had already been completed, so all it took was a command to destroy the tunnel leading down into the abyss-like darkness of the cavern system.
But before that happened, Michael wanted to take a look at the cave tunnels.
It was easy to travel through the upper area of the cavern system. They had cleared this area by now, providing full access to the workers.
The middle area was a lot more difficult to travel through. Michael and his people encountered several smaller Monster groups and two larger groups of Monsters. Fortunately, it was quite easy to eliminate the threats of the Monster groups. The Forest Elves targeted the strongest Monsters by inflicting severe injuries in the first ten seconds of the battle before they wore down their opponents.
Michael’s army had expanded a lot during the last month. They gained lots of combat experience, equipment of high quality, and created various battle strategies that utilized every unit’s strong points. Their weaknesses were balanced by the strength of their comrades, creating strong synergy and minimizing the rate of casualties.
Furthermore, with people such as Michael and Tiara on the frontlines, their team’s chances of sustaining grievous injuries against Tier-1 Monsters, and smaller groups of TIer-2 Monsters reduced drastically as well. This was especially the case after Liopham’s Rage of the Primal affected the whole Monster group.
The Forest Elves adapted quickly now that they were willing to cooperate, and Michael noticed that their Link of Loyalty had grown even firmer than before.
Seeing that Michael could summon a 2-Star Forest Elf Summon had a strong impact on their minds and Links of Loyalty.
“I think it’s about time that we clear a small spot in the Underground Ecosystem,” Michael announced.
At this announcement, Tiara, Blaire, and most of the other combatants looked at him with slight surprise.
Were they already strong enough to clear the Underground Ecosystem?
Lilica’s lips parted to say something, but before she could utter a single word the cavern tunnel began to tremble violently.
Rocks, loose soil, and Gloa crystals began raining down from the ceiling as the tremors grew in intensity.
‘What is going on?!’ Michael shouted in his mind.
His head flicked left and right, but he couldn’t tell that anything was off.
‘Earthquake?’
Loud explosions reverberated through the entire lizard cave, the loose soil was flung through the air, and it didn’t take long before searing hot gales blasted through the lizard cave.
Michael’s confusion increased exponentially. The searing hot gales were obviously scorching hot, but they didn’t harm anyone. The rocks falling from the ceiling were more dangerous.
30 Minutes.
That was how long the cavern tunnel tremored, and how long the searing hot gales blasted through the cavern system. After that, everything seemed to return to how it had been before and it went deathly still once again.
“What the…” Michael mumbled, still trying to comprehend what happened.
“Looks like the cavern didn’t like that you wanted to conquer the Underground Ecosystem,” Lilica said jokingly, but Michael stared at her with his eyes shot wide open.
The earthquake might not have affected them much – with only a few Warriors sustaining minor injuries, but that didn’t mean they could relax.
On the contrary, the earthquake was terrifying. It caused explosions in the other cavern tunnels, releasing the horrifying power of nature as they were trapped inside with no way out.
Michael didn’t respond to Lilica’s question immediately. Instead, he sent Blaire and the other trackers to find out what happened in the other cavern tunnels, and if the workers were fine.
Meanwhile, Michael and his people slowly traveled closer to the surface of the lizard cave. They walked past the tunnel entrance that led to the Underground Ecosystem, where he stopped.
Michael retrieved a piece of paper and unfolded it. It was the same paper he showed Danny before they separated.
“Is anyone knowledgeable in the old tongues?” He asked while handing over the paper where he had written the letters that the Temple of the Forgotten had used.
Lilica thought that Michael wanted to distract them, but she glanced at the piece of paper nonetheless. A frown appeared on her face, and she looked at the paper more intently.
Following their leader’s action, the other Forest Elves took a look at the piece of paper as well. They began to frown as well and stared quietly at the letters.
“By any chance…” Lilica asked, “Is there an ancient city of a fallen civilization, or some sort of ruin in the Underground Ecosystem, you’ve talked about?”
Michael answered with a faint nod.
“Does that mean you can read the paper?” He asked, a ray of hope surfacing in his heart.
“Yes….Well, actually no,” Lilica revealed honestly, “We can read some of those letters because they’re a combination of the Ancient Elven Tongue, and an even older language, which I’ve never heard before. The Ancient Elven Tongue imbues origin energy in every word, similar to the Dragon Tongue. However, this language is different. I can roughly guess the meaning of some words, but without feeling the intention of the origin energy in the words, I cannot really tell anything.”
Michael was slightly disappointed at first, but his hopes were reinvigorated when he heard the last few parts.
“Does that mean you–…” Michael asked in excitement, just to stop mid-sentence. Lilica shook her head and interjected,
“I won’t be able to read it, forget about teaching you the language. This language is extremely old, rarely used, very hard to learn, and it’s an exotic version of the oldest Origin Tongue I’ve ever seen,” She said.
“Whatever you have hidden in the Underground Ecosystem it is old, very old…and very dangerous!” Lilica said, sounding deadly serious.
She couldn’t smile and her head began to ache.
Under normal circumstances, Lilica would be overjoyed to find an ancient ruin. It meant great danger, but also the possibility of procuring great treasures.
However, it was commonly known amongst older races that the Will of the Origin Expanse used a simple means to indicate the Danger&Opportunity level of an Ancient Ruin; the older and more complicated the language used in the Ancient Ruin, the higher the danger level, and the greater the opportunities.
While that may seem like a great opportunity, Lilica knew that the Forest Elves had never even recorded an Ancient Ruin on the same level as the place Michael had found.
“The Untamed Jungle is truly…wild…”