After a while, Kyle reached another intersection.
‘You really want to push me down the Spirit Spring Ore tunnel, huh?’ he thought as he looked at the tunnel covered with Spirit Spring Ore.
However, he just ignored that tunnel again.
‘Well, guess I’m stuck with the mysterious black ore this time,’ Kyle thought as he looked at the only other available tunnel.
He shrugged and walked down the tunnel with the black ore.
This time, he wasn’t surprised when the wall closed behind him.
Before focusing on the ore, Kyle took a peek around the bend to see what was waiting for him.
When he saw a dead end, he blinked a couple of times in surprise.
‘That’s bad, right?’ he thought.
He walked to the dead end and touched it.
‘Seems to be made of the same kind of stone as the closing walls. Not sure if I can get through that.’
‘Well, I should look at the black ore first.’
Kyle walked back and approached the first crystal of black ore.
‘Let’s see what you do.’
Kyle rammed his hammer into the ore.
BOOOOOM!
And the ore exploded, throwing Kyle against the wall behind him.
His head once again met stone, but Kyle was too disoriented to care about that right now.
His ears were ringing, and he just tried to look around.
The explosion had made quite a sizable hole in the wall, revealing more stone.
Kyle sighed once and stood up. ‘Gotta be more careful.’
Next, Kyle slowly touched the ore and used his Soul to investigate it.
Cold sweat ran down his back when he felt its power.
‘I think my hammer absorbed most of its Ether before it exploded. If that thing explodes right in front of me with its full power, I will probably get severely injured.’
‘Note for the future: investigate new ore before blindly striking it. You have a strong Soul for a reason!’
Kyle carefully inspected the ore, making sure that he didn’t do anything to make it explode.
The more he felt it, the more it felt like a bomb ready to go off.
‘Maybe this is like Basic Mage Stone? Let’s try the diffuser.’
Kyle carefully moved backward and slowly moved his diffuser to the ore.
‘Careful!’ he thought with closed eyes.
BOOOOM!
The ore exploded as soon as the diffuser hit it.
While the hammer hadn’t absorbed any of its Ether this time, Kyle had been almost two meters away from it and had braced for an impact.
He was thrown back by the explosion, but his arms protected his head.
His ears rang again, and it took a while for him to recover.
‘Ouch,’ he thought as he stood up again, his ears still ringing.
‘Maybe I should use the compressor?’ he thought, retrieving another gadget.
BOOOOM!
Once again, it exploded.
‘Okay, you know what? Fuck this ore! This thing is way too aggressive and reminds me of my ex!’
‘Seriously, say one wrong thing and watch her scream at you for hours!’
‘Fuck this ore and fuck my ex! If you want to stick your dick in a meat grinder, you are free to take my words literally!’
But then, Kyle got an idea.
‘That could work!’
He carefully removed several pieces of the black ore and transported them to the dead end.
When he saw the pile of five pieces, he gulped nervously.
He put his hammer near the entrance and grabbed a sixth piece.
‘Well, here goes nothing!’
Kyle pulled the ore over his head and threw it at the distant pile before jumping behind the bend.
BOOOOOOOM!
Kyle ducked for cover but was still thrown around.
After some seconds, he came out of the rubble covering him, grabbed his hammer, and looked at the dead end.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” he shouted as he saw the pristine dead end.
The explosion hadn’t even cracked it.
As Kyle turned around, he stumbled over several pieces of rubble.
‘Wait a second!’ he thought. ‘If the dead end is still in one piece, why is there rubble?’
Kyle looked around and realized that the walls holding the black ore had crumbled.
‘I guess these walls are not as hard as the moving ones,’ he thought.
For the next minutes, Kyle tapped the walls.
‘Oh, I get it! These are the same walls, but the black ore is pulling the Ether out of them! The black ore is like a parasite! It drains all its surroundings of Ether and stores it! That makes the walls weaker!’
Kyle carefully started to dig, making sure to remove the black ore with as much care as possible.
Digging through these walls was relatively tough, but it was bearable.
After around 30 minutes, Kyle saw light coming through a hole, and he knew that he found the other side.
He made the hole wider and stepped through it.
As he looked around, his brows rose.
‘This time, it’s water?’ he thought as he looked at the lake in front of him.
This lake was around 50 meters wide and around ten meters deep.
At the walls and floor of the lake were pieces of shining ore illuminating the lake and the cave.
‘Oh hey, there are even fish!’ he thought as he saw a 30-centimeter-long fish calmly swimming from one spot to another.
Kyle looked at the other side of the lake.
‘Yeah, I don’t know how strong my body is, but I’m certain I can’t cross that with a jump.’
‘So, I’m supposed to swim, I guess?’
Kyle looked at the lake with brows furrowed in suspicion.
‘That’s too easy! It can’t be that easy!’
A moment later, he approached the shore of the lake and carefully held his hammer in the water.
One of the fishes swam over and circled the hammer.
‘Aw, that’s cute.’
Kyle moved his hand carefully to the fish.
The fish looked at Kyle’s hand.
SNAP!
Its mouth extended and clamped down on Kyle’s hand.
“FUCKING!” Kyle shouted, jumping back.
The fish broke skin, and some of Kyle’s blood fell into the river.
In an instant, over 50 fish charged at the spot to frantically drink all of the blood.
‘What are these?! Magic piranhas?!’
Then, he looked at his left arm.
The fish still clung to Kyle’s arm.
While it could break skin, it wasn’t strong enough to tear Kyle’s flesh off.
In annoyance, he grabbed the fish’s head and tore it off before stomping on its head to kill it.
His injuries healed pretty quickly, and Kyle held the squished corpse up.
Then, he threw it into the lake with annoyance.
All the fish ravenously devoured it.
It was gone in literally two seconds.
‘Of course it wouldn’t be this easy.’