The beam stopped behind Kyle for a while, and his instincts were screaming at him to run away.
But Kyle suppressed them.
Theodor knew what he was doing.
Kyle felt like he was about to die.
Several seconds passed.
And then, the beam vanished.
His instincts stopped screaming at him, and he released a sigh of relief.
That was when he lost focus, and he started to fall.
Kyle gritted his teeth and used his Soul to regain his footing.
His fall stopped, but a couple of stones broke off the wall.
Bang.
Kyle heard something heavy hit the bottom of the crevice.
Luckily, the beam didn’t return.
“That was close,” Kyle whispered.
“Was it?” Theodor asked with annoyance.
“It felt close,” Kyle said.
“Why don’t you look down and see for yourself?” Theodor asked.
Kyle looked down at the bottom of the crevice.
“Yeah, the eye is closed again,” Kyle said.
Then, he noticed something familiar on the ground.
’That looks like my hammer,’ Kyle thought.
He reached for his hammer but couldn’t find it.
Kyle desperately searched for his hammer, but he couldn’t find it anywhere.
“You want to know why the beam stopped moving?” Theodor asked with annoyance. “That’s because it saw something heavy falling into the crevice, and it was trying to see if it was food or just a big stone.”
“When the beam almost reached you, you lost your focus and dropped your mining weapon. The eye closed because it didn’t want to be hit by it.”
Kyle looked at his hammer, which lay on one of the eyelids.
“So, what now?” Theodor asked. “Are you going to retrieve it?”
Kyle gulped. “I’m not sure. What should I do?”
“You made the mistake,” Theodor said. “You decide what to do.”
Kyle’s nervousness reached new heights.
“But you know more than me,” Kyle said. “You know better what I should do in this scenario.”
“I do,” Theodor answered, “but you made the mistake. You deal with it. I’m not going to help you.”
Kyle gritted his teeth in frustration.
’Fuck, I know that you’re right, but come on! Don’t leave me hanging!’ he thought while hanging from the wall.
His breathing quickened as he looked down.
’What should I do?!’
’Going down there might kill me!’
’But without a weapon, how am I supposed to survive the long journey to the south? I kinda need to defend myself, you know?!’
Several minutes passed as Kyle weighed his options.
Eventually, the sun passed over the crevice, covering the bottom of it with darkness.
’It reacts to shadows. If I want to retrieve my hammer, I have to be careful not to cast a big shadow.’
Kyle gulped.
’I can’t lose my hammer like this. I need it!’
“I’m going to retrieve my hammer,” Kyle said.
“Do what you think is right,” Theodor commented with annoyance.
Kyle took a deep breath and started to move towards the bottom.
Instead of walking, he climbed down with the help of his Soul.
The closer he got to the bottom, the more his instincts screamed at him.
But he kept going.
He reached a distance of 20 meters from the eye after a couple of minutes.
His instincts were telling him that this was a horrible decision.
However, there was something that kept Kyle going.
Ironically, it was trust.
He trusted Theodor.
He didn’t trust Theodor to care for him.
No, he trusted Theodor to care for his own interests.
If there were no chance of retrieving the hammer, Theodor would stop him.
After all, Theodor wanted to fulfill his dying wish.
If Kyle died here, he would never get his last wish.
Kyle slowed down and reached a distance of ten meters.
His entire body was shaking in terror, but he continued.
The climb felt like forever.
When he was just three meters away from the bottom, he stopped.
He couldn’t continue.
His instincts overrode his mind.
His body refused to listen to him.
“Now what?” Theodor asked.
Kyle almost lost his focus when he heard Theodor’s voice.
Kyle just kept looking at his hammer.
“You can talk,” Theodor said. “It doesn’t have ears. It can’t hear you.”
Kyle took a nervous breath.
“I can’t go further,” he said.
“Why not?” Theodor asked.
“I…” Kyle hesitated.
“I will die if I do.”
“That’s not inaccurate,” Theodor answered evenly. “One more meter and you might wake it.”
Kyle took a deep breath.
This confirmed it.
He couldn’t get his hammer.
“You can get your mining weapon,” Theodor said.
“How?” Kyle asked. “I can’t get closer.”
“Use your brain for once,” Theodor answered with annoyance.
Kyle just looked at his hammer.
The eye was around three meters away from him, but his hammer was not touching the wall, which meant it was around four meters away from him.
He looked around, searching for a solution.
That was when he noticed something.
’Ore?’ he thought.
Sure enough, there was quite a bit of ore growing near the bottom of the crevice.
There was a bunch of Spirit Spring Ore, Powder Stone, and just regular iron ore.
All the information Kyle knew about the Abyss Eye shot through his mind.
Slowly, a plan was forming in his mind.
’This is insanely risky, but it could also work out.’
Kyle slowly approached the Powder Stone.
It was completely black, and Kyle knew that he couldn’t mess this up.
He put his hand on the Powder Stone and closed his eyes.
His ore sense activated.
Over the weeks of mining, Kyle’s ore sense had advanced a lot.
He could feel that there was quite a lot of Powder Stone in this vein.
’That should be enough.’
Next, Kyle approached the iron ore vein and used his ore sense.
’That’s a lot of iron ore!’ he thought in surprise.
Finally, Kyle approached the Spirit Spring Ore, which was on the other side of the crevice.
Luckily, it was on the other side. Spirit Spring Ore tended to absorb the Ether of other ore.
If it were on this side, the Powder Stone wouldn’t be here as well.
The next moment, Kyle used his Metal Affinity to refine the Spirit Spring Ore.
After he refined a bunch of it, he jumped back to the other side.
’This will need a lot of Ether,’ Kyle thought.
’Luckily, I have the Spirit Spring Ore to keep me topped up.’
Then, Kyle started refining the other ore.