Luck finally smiled upon him as he quickly found an 8-headed diamond hydra guarding eggs. The beast was monstrously powerful, but also predictable in its sleep routine.
One moment of carelessness was all he needed to steal one.
Or so he thought but one head saw him…
The escape had been frantic. He had to hide in countless crevices and abandoned tunnels. He spent almost all his high-level potions just staying alive while ascending.
And in the end…
He had to return the egg.
When he finally escaped and was returning to the surface defeated, having endured insane temperatures that only thanks to his gold beast he could withstand and that could be called torture, his body still ached with the memory of that heat.
Having suffered the constant stalking of powerful beasts…
Luck finally smiled upon him. This time for real.
He found that small vein at 350 meters, perfect for his purposes.
He couldn’t believe it, below he had found three others, as they were more common the further down, but all were guarded by beasts leagues above their real depth rank, impossible for him to defeat; he was sure not even the ridiculous Platinum King of Yano could defeat them.
Small mana vein outlets were extremely rare at that height, but there it was.
So… he returned to the depth of 1000 meters for 2 silver rank hydras, difficult to find without golden rank company.
But much easier to find and defeat than stealing the egg… If he had known there would be a vein, he would have done this from the beginning.
He eliminated the first to obtain its core and weakened the second.
Worthy opponents even one rank below him, but manageable thanks to him being a double tamer.
It was easy to drag the weakened one with his griffon to feed from the vein, and to keep it guarding and molding the core until it became an egg while he obtained more scorpion cores.
Everything had been meticulously calculated.
The core would need weeks to recover enough energy to become an egg next to the hydra. The hydra would guard until he returned with the rest of the cores.
Taking it would be easy when it had low energy, even if it had reached gold rank.
But now…
The next stretch of tunnel showed signs of recent activity. Fused worms and Living Tunnels had been excavating new routes, expanding territory.
But something wasn’t right.
The excavation patterns were erratic, as if the beasts had been fleeing. Claw marks and pulverized rock told a story of panic and hasty escape.
His steps accelerated.
‘No,’ he thought while running. ‘It’s too soon.’
His calculations had been precise. The silver hydra should barely have reached gold. The egg should have barely formed, it couldn’t have hatched.
Worry grew when he found the first signs of massive destruction. Demolished walls, collapsed tunnels, traces of energy discharged against rock.
Beast bodies lay scattered, some partially consumed. The hydra had been hunting, spending energy it shouldn’t have.
Someone had interfered.
Someone had provoked the hydra to spend energy it shouldn’t have in a chase toward the surface.
After observing them for so long, attempting the same thing, he knew there could only be one reason…
Someone had stolen the egg.
When he reached the geyser chamber, he stopped dead.
Empty.
The massive crystal was still there, pulsing with pure mana. But there was no sign of the hydra or the egg. He hated being right this time.
‘Impossible,’ the hippogriff’s wings manifested, reflecting their tamer’s fury while examining the empty chamber. So much effort, so many resources spent, so many risks taken…
All ruined because some idiot had stumbled upon his experiment before time.
Who would have thought the mana vein would be so close to an exterior entrance…
But there was no point in being angry.
Fury was replaced by cold determination. He would find the responsible party.
And when he did…
The scorpion manifested its plates while he began the ascent. The work his King in Yino had given him was too important to allow interference. His princess would obtain that hydra, and the cores must reach their destination.
Yano must not suspect anything until it was too late.
But at least he could go out for a while to take in the sunlight and recover his egg… Stealthy.
♢♢♢♢
The girl in the tree decided to investigate.
The entrance guard didn’t even notice her pass. Shadows were her natural allies, though not in the way many would assume.
As always, her beast could transport her to any point in her line of sight, a gift far more versatile than most beasts, though she wasn’t the only one who could do it.
Her two cousins in class could too, how funny it had been that it ended up like this for all three…
‘So much effort to keep ourselves hidden,’ she thought while descending through the first levels. Her group had carefully dispersed throughout the classroom, mixing with normal students, subtly exchanging handmaidens when forming teams.
And yet…
A sigh escaped her lips. All that precaution had been useless when the enemy kingdom’s eyes had so easily identified 4 of their 6 main targets in 1 classroom.
Though without doubt Klein’s group were idiots bad at hiding it…
The last 2 of them would probably be discovered soon too, at this rate.
The mines’ upper level was practically deserted. Students had exhausted the accessible veins.
The few students who usually dug weren’t here this early. The mushroom boy had caused quite a stir, but she wouldn’t hear gossip because there was almost no one, unfortunately…
At one hundred meters, nothing changed. The mana wasn’t bothering her yet either.
Her beast, though technically iron rank, was an exceptional specimen. The type that only the most privileged families could afford.
At 150 meters, she found the first signs of something extraordinary.
The descent tunnel had been blocked but the barrier showed signs of a devastating impact, rock melted and crystallized. A beam attack, it seemed from a high-rank beast.
A guard hidden behind the rocks, quite frightened.
The slope was frozen, she had to look through the gap and appear far away so he wouldn’t see her, though he really wasn’t paying much attention, the guard was more occupied trembling and hugging his beast with unintelligible murmurs.
Had Ren really gone down so far?
‘How could someone with a spore survive that?’ she wondered while silently advancing.
She thought it would just be another case of juvenile stupidity but maybe this hadn’t had anything to do with him.