Ren feigned surprise at seeing his pursuers running toward him.
“Don’t let him escape!” Jin ran at the front. His beast’s manifestation glowed brighter in the dense mana, betraying his excitement at cornering his prey.
‘Just a little more…’
The ground beneath their feet gave way with an ominous crack.
For a moment, time seemed to freeze, Jin’s confident grin transformed into wide-eyed realization, his followers’ faces reflecting dawning horror as the floor crumbled beneath them.
“AHHH!” Panicked screams echoed through the tunnels as the group plummeted into the hidden cavity.
The cacophony of falling rocks and bodies hitting packed earth created a symphony of chaos that would surely draw attention.
“Help!” Jin’s voice had lost all trace of its former arrogance, replaced by raw fear. “Someone!”
The panic-stricken cries quickly attracted the guard.
Ren had already melted into the shadows of a small side tunnel, his movements silent and precise.
“What’s happening over there?” The guard’s voice approached rapidly, boots crunching on loose stone. “Keep calm!”
‘Perfect,’ Ren thought, moving silently toward the adjacent wall near the entrance to the depths, a passage he’d been preparing for days.
The crack, disguised as a simple extraction tunnel, was actually his escape route, carefully weakened over multiple visits.
“We’re trapped!” Kai shouted, his voice cracking with genuine fear. “The floor collapsed!”
“Stay calm!” The guard was already assessing the situation. “Don’t move, I’ll get you out of there.”
Ren pressed against the weakened section of the wall.
The abandoned lesser worm tunnel needed just one more push. With a crackle barely audible under the bullies’ shouts, the rock gave way.
‘Just enough,’ he observed while sliding through the narrow passage. His thin body barely fit through the opening, a benefit of still being a relatively slim child.
“Watch the edge!” The guard’s voice faded as Ren descended on the other side. “I’m throwing down a rope!”
The shouts and chaos continued above, providing perfect cover. Ren moved quickly but precisely along the now clear path.
‘Now I’ll have a few hours of peace to search for what I need below.’
The mushrooms in his hair pulsed more slowly with each meter he descended, the dense mana making their work more difficult.
‘Time is running,’ he reminded himself as he ventured deeper.
“My ankle!” Jin’s distant voice resonated with feigned pain. “I think it’s broken!”
“Calm down, boy!” The guard’s voice grew more distant. “These upper tunnels were abandoned, they all once belonged to displaced hungry beasts that have already died, so don’t panic… Take the rope!”
Ren smiled as he descended. Jin would probably stretch the drama as long as possible, which gave him more time. The real race against the clock was with mana poisoning.
Bronze crystal veins gleamed temptingly in the walls, but it was better to start from the deepest ones, he could already sense the rich deposits of crystals and deep earth waiting.
Four hours before the poisoning became dangerous.
It was time to make every minute count.
♢♢♢♢
The mushrooms in Ren’s hair pulsed as he studied the patterns on the tunnel walls. The marks left by lesser worms formed an intricate map for those who knew how to read it.
‘This isn’t normal,’ he thought as his fingers traced the lines of mana residue that glowed faintly. ‘Too many recent marks, too many overlapping patterns.’
The abandoned tunnels intersected more frequently than his knowledge told him was normal.
Where he would typically find two or three intersections, now he saw five or six. The lesser worms were expanding their territory, digging new routes with unusual frequency.
‘Why are they so active?’ Ren stopped to examine a particularly fresh mark. The mushrooms in his hair revealed the still-vibrant mana trail. ‘This is less than a day old.’
Knowledge flowed through his mind as he analyzed the patterns. Lesser worms only proliferated like this when significant changes occurred in mana currents.
Something was altering the natural flows below.
A side tunnel caught his attention.
It was narrow, barely wide enough for a small person to pass through crouched, and the darkness seemed denser there. The mushrooms in his hair pulsed stronger, detecting something.
‘Perfect,’ he smiled upon examining the wall.
A bronze crystal vein, richer than normal, intertwined with veins of uncontaminated dark earth. It was an oddly convenient combination, almost unnatural.
Ren extracted his tools with extreme care. Each strike would need to be precise, controlled. The slightest echo could attract unwanted attention.
The mushrooms pulsed in warning, a lesser worm had passed through a nearby tunnel recently. Its senses would still be alert to any vibration.
‘Patience,’ he reminded himself while positioning his pick. ‘One strong blow in the wrong place and I’ll have company very soon.’
The first impact was barely louder than a whisper against the rock. Ren worked methodically, each movement calculated to minimize noise.
The vein was surprisingly generous, bronze crystals practically jumping into his hands once he found the correct pressure points.
Two hours of methodical work had filled Ren’s bag with a satisfactory amount of crystals and deep earth.
‘If Taro knew I was using worm excrement to seal his crystals…’ An amused smile crossed his face as he stored another portion of the dark substance.
‘Better he keeps thinking we only use moonlight and not “special earth from the depths”.’
The mushrooms pulsed more slowly, the dense mana making it increasingly difficult to process the environment. But knowledge kept flowing, showing him exactly where to strike, what angles to use, how to extract and store the dark earth without contaminating it.
‘It’s almost too perfect,’ he thought while storing another crystal.
The richness of the deposit, the presence of pure dark earth, the unusual proliferation of tunnels… Everything suggested something had changed in the depths.
A distant sound made him pause. A worm’s dragging? Or just the natural echo of the caves?
Another echo, closer this time.
The sound of something dragging made his hands stop. The mushrooms in his hair pulsed more slowly, adapting to better detect nearby movements.
‘This vein is too rich to be so untouched,’ he reflected while remaining motionless. Knowledge flowed, showing him clues others would overlook.
‘The marks on the walls, the crystallized mana patterns… This was not a lesser worm’s but a common worm’s last gift when they expelled it from its territory.’
The dragging drew closer.
Ren held his breath, his body completely still.
A lesser worm emerged from a side tunnel, its pale body glowing faintly with absorbed mana.