He was almost disappointed that the area wasn’t pitch black. Instead, the light was at its lowest possible—enough to see most details with his superior vision, but some smaller details remained indistinct.

Cal’s eyes flicked to a source of the flashes of light, locking on a crystalline formation that emitted a stable amount of light at most times, with occasional bursts that lit the area near it brightly. There were several scattered around, and they must be what he had seen from the previous level. Curiously, there was another void at the bottom of the level, where he would undoubtedly descend to get to the next level.

He looked back and saw what he expected—a transparent barrier which prevented him from leaving. Exactly like what prevented him from leaving the sinkhole when he entered at the beginning.

Cal narrowed his eyes at the movement he noticed in the distance. Whatever it was, the dim light hid the identity, as excepted since it was one of the smaller details. He descended with more careful steps, the glossy, ink-black ground surprisingly slick to the feel. There were chips in the ground—abundant and varied in size—that glinted in the dim light, and he could attest they were as sharp as a mortal blade’s edge.

Any alchemist walking through here would bleed for it.

He fared better, though his boots would say otherwise. His nonchalance at his lack of reinforced attire had finally come to bite him in the ass.

I should fix that deficiency once I get out of here.

Cal didn’t pause in his descent as he passed several burn marks where the ground was remarkably smooth; the fire had melted it, erasing all imperfections. He knew Tavia had a love for fire, and it was of no surprise that there were plenty of signs that she used it liberally as she passed through the area. It also provided him with a convenient path to track her movements.

He stopped before the strange creature he saw when he entered. It looked like it was the only survivor left after Tavia’s apparent rampage. The strange creature fascinated him. It looked like a crab, but one made from crystal and each leg ending in a sharpened blade.

Cal stared as it skittered back and forth, each step sounding like glass clinking together. He crouched to get a closer look, amused when it turned and jumped several feet in surprise after noticing his presence. With how oblivious the crystal crab was to its immediate surroundings, he was comfortable concluding Tavia breezed through this area. He could imagine her walking up to these poor things before firebombing them to smithereens.

He tapped it with his war hammer, careful not to cause damage. He was curious about what it would do.

A smile threatening to form as the crab furiously stabbed at his ankle. It had no effect on him other than shredding his clothes, but he applauded the effort. The thought of containing the creature and bringing it back to Seris as a gift tempted him. She did like cute things.

I’ll find this creature again when Seris is stronger.

Cal allowed the furious crab to do its thing and stood, looking for anything else interesting. So far, the sinkhole disappointed him. It wasn’t the lack of beasts that annoyed him, but the lack of materials. One of the main reasons he accepted the mission from Elder Corvin was a hope that he would find materials to upgrade his Rare-ranked Rake. The barrenness of the past two areas suggested a likely prior removal of anything valuable.

It could be Tavia, but it’s more likely the alchemists that could leave the sinkhole.

He hoped it was Tavia. At least then, he would have access to the materials if needed.

Cal was ready to descend into the void and enter the next area, but before that, there was one thing he wanted to try. He turned his attention to the closest crystalline formation—a hundred feet to his right—emitting light in random pulses. Perhaps this could be material to be collected.

Finally, I have a reason to use this.

He raised his hand, pointing his palm at the formation and frowned when he felt resistance, and a significant amount at that. [Liquid Core] was trying to pull water vapor from the environment, but there was little to be found. That was fine. He could see an indistinct ball of water forming slowly, and that was all he needed to know there was enough water in the air to make the spell viable. He just had to brute force the spell to make it quicker.

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Cal released the restrictions on his mana reserves.

A dense sphere of water popped into the air before his palm. He reinforced it with mana and snapped his hand forward. The sphere hissed through the dim, struck the formation dead center—

—and detonated. Light raced in fractures across its face. A clear, crystalline ringing swelled and split as the cracks multiplied, branching wildly. The next instant was chaos.

Cal shielded his eyes as the formation blew outward, showering him with luminous shards. The fragments glimmered and died, light spent, as they rattled to the floor. He lowered his hand, surprised despite himself.

“Well, that was dramatic,” he said under his breath. He had an idea something similar might happen—the light within the formations acting like stored energy—and cast [Liquid Core] to keep a distance.

Cal bent down, ignored the crab that was now more interested in the fragments than attacking his ankle, and pulled one of the larger fragments into his storage pouch. He checked his interface to identify it.

1 Rock

“You’ve got to be joking.” For something with such a dramatic end, it ended up only being a common rock. He plucked the shard out of the storage pouch—the one labeled rock—and flicked it away. The clatter drew the crab, which happily munched it.

He watched it munch down the fragment before shaking his head. At least the rock can act like food to the creature.

Cal gave up on the area and descended to the void below. He wasn’t even halfway through when a sudden tremor made him freeze. The ground flexed, snapping back to its regular position, but now had hairline fissures littered everywhere. They widened slightly before he heard a faint scratching sound—familiar, blade-like crab legs climbed from their depths.

He reevaluated his impression of these creatures now that he couldn’t look anywhere without spotting one. Horrifying.

There were too many for them to be looked at as cute. This was what Tavia had left behind so many burn marks to rid the world of the infestation. The only positive was nearly all of them skittering past him to where the formation fragments lay.

Still, that meant there were hundreds that found his presence enough of a distraction to attack. With one crystal crab slicing at him ineffectively, it was amusing. With hundreds climbing on top of each other to heights that exceeded his own, it was unacceptable.

Cal knew he would be unharmed, but those blade-like legs would slice his clothes to nothing. He had no desire to come to Tavia’s ‘rescue’ without a stich of clothing. That was a level of shameless he couldn’t quite manage yet.

The issue with dealing with so many enemies was the lack of options in his arsenal. There was only one meant to inflict mass damage, but it was [Lightning Aura]. The [Trait] only had a single use per day, and he had no intention of doing so against these crabs.

Cal watched the horde of far-too-many-legged creatures skitter closer before deciding to improvise. He swiped his arm up, the ground beneath rumbling before shattering to for a rectangular barrier. It curved over the crystal crabs before collapsing on the unprepared creatures before they even knew their destruction was above.

His robes fluttered from impact before he let the ground reabsorb the barrier he formed. He felt rather proud of the way he repurposed [Earth Barrier], turning something inherently defensive into offense.

Cal was happy to note that the rest of the creatures left him alone and was about to continue on to the void, but once again, something halted his progress. He stared at the destroyed pieces of the crystal crabs. They looked… material-ly—different from the fragments of the crystalline formation he also destroyed.

He pulled a piece into his storage pouch into his storage pouch and checked his interface.

1 Unknown Crystal

“… A creature that’s made of a material,” Cal murmured as he turned to look at the horde fighting over the fragments. He pulled the rest of the destroyed pieces of the crab into the storage pouch.

2 Unknown Crystals

78 Rocks

Now it makes even more sense what Tavia destroyed all of them.

He rid the storage pouch of the rocks and approached the horde with pity. He hadn’t intended to destroy them all, but it was their own fault for being composed of materials.

***

Cal stood in a newly barren area, the crystal crabs all destroyed by the way of being crushed. He had learned that getting two unknown crystals after destroying a few hundred crabs had been abnormally lucky.

Basic Storage Pouch

Inventory: 17/20

1 Unknown Gem (x5)

137 Copper, 7 Silver, 5 Gold, 14 Guildmarks

1 Rake (Rare)

1 Map (Trade Routes of the Celestial Order)

2 Healing Potion (Minor)

2 Mana Restoration Potion (Minor)

2 Calming Potion

2 Rage Potion

4 Daggers (Common)

1 Voidiron Shovel (Advanced)

1 Voidiron Cube (Rare Artifact)

150 Unknown Crystals

83 Unknown Crystals

Two hundred and thirty-three unknown crystals gained after destroying thousands of those crystal spiders, and one inventory spot could hold a hundred and fifty of them. He would deal with the lack of spots in the future if it became a problem.

Cal dismissed the interface and descended, again, to enter the void. This time, there wasn’t another stoppage.