CHAPTER 236: INVESTIGATIVE-TYPE

Adyr approached the man, whose entire body was covered in dirt, especially his hands. A closer look revealed that his fingers were cracked, his nails broken and caked with a mixture of blood and soil. It was clear he had been digging with nothing but his bare hands.

"Thank you for your effort," Adyr said seriously, offering the man a rare note of sincere appreciation. After encouraging him with his words, he turned to examine the hole the man had dug.

The excavated area wasn’t large, but at the bottom, there was a narrow opening leading into a deeper pit—soil had spilled into it, suggesting a natural downward slope or collapsed tunnel.

"Can you widen the gap?" His voice carried clearly to the nearby villagers who had gathered around. Then he stepped back and watched them resume digging.

Before long, a wide cavity took shape, revealing the mouth of a long, dark corridor. It looked like a burrow—something like a mole tunnel—yet for any creature to have dug such a passage, it would’ve needed to be at least 3 meters in size.

"Lord Adyr, should we head in and investigate?" Asked the village chief, clearly stirred by what they had uncovered. The villagers had suspected a Spark presence for some time, and now, it seemed they had finally found the source—the reason their crops had begun to evolve and twist into unnatural forms.

"No need. I’ll handle the rest. Your help was sufficient." With a slight nod, Adyr turned away from the group and retrieved a compact flashlight from his belt. He switched it on, casting a focused beam into the tunnel ahead, then stepped into the narrow corridor without another word.

"As expected from a respected practitioner," someone murmured behind him.

Several others echoed the sentiment, voices low with admiration. Most of them had never seen a modern torch before—only open flame. To their eyes, such a focused, steady light seemed nothing short of sorcery.

Adyr paid them no attention. Though his vision had adjusted well to the dark, his eyes were still limited by human biology. The flashlight offered the precision he needed. With one hand on the hilt of his blade, he advanced, silent and measured, his senses tuned to the faintest disruption.

A subtle shift in the tunnel’s atmosphere caught his attention—a slight distortion, almost imperceptible. The texture of the ground had changed.

And then he saw them.

"Let’s hope you’re not Rank 1s," his gaze narrowed.

The passage widened into a cavern infested with clusters of unnatural creatures. Dozens of them clung to the ground like warped roots—twisted, sinewy things barely half a meter tall, their forms tangled like dried tendrils. In the darkness, they might’ve passed for dead flora. But the soft, collective shudder that ran through them gave the truth away.

The missing roots of the crop were no longer a mystery.

As the light swept across their bodies, they reacted. Heads—or what passed for them—lifted with eerie synchronicity, and a crawling wave of motion began.

They surged toward him.

But they didn’t get far.

A single arc of black smoke burst forward, cutting through the cavern like a blade through silk. Black steel flashed, then vanished. A heartbeat later, dozens of bodies collapsed in twitching silence, split open before they even knew they’d been struck.

He resheathed the blade without looking down. The last traces of Malice lingered on the edge—black smoke curling softly from the steel, then fading into nothing.

With a single arc of his blade, he had cleaved through at least 30 Root Beasts—split clean in half, erased without resistance.

"This kind of power growth... even surprises me," he muttered with a quiet chuckle, crouching beside one of the bisected monsters. Drawing a knife from his belt, he began digging through its flesh in search of the crystal.

"It’s my lucky day." He held up a gleaming, marble-sized energy crystal. Just one glance told him—it was a Level 2.

At first, their instant deaths had made him suspicious. Especially when he recalled the mutants he’d fought back on Earth. But with the power he now wielded, this was only natural. Unless a Rank 2 Spark had some truly exotic power up their sleeve, they wouldn’t pose much trouble anymore.

He didn’t spend much time locating the crystal in the first body. Once he found it, he quickly extracted the crystals from the other corpses—33 in total—without wasting unnecessary movements, then sent them to his Twilight Land before continuing on.

The tunnel seemed to stretch on endlessly, and he still hadn’t found the Spark. This meant there could be more of these Root Beasts ahead—and indeed, there were.

After just a few more minutes of walking, he encountered another group—exactly 28 of them. He repeated the same process, harvested their crystals and moved forward again. Soon after, he came across a group of 41 creatures and gathered their crystals as well.

On average, a Rank 2 Spark’s influence yielded crystals with a combined energy value of around 100 to 150. Adyr had collected 104 so far. It wasn’t exceptional, but considering he had spent less than 20 minutes, excluding the digging, it was an efficient haul.

As he advanced down the corridor, no more Root Beasts appeared. He had reached the end of the passage where the Spark was presumably hiding.

Ahead, a massive creature—about 3 to 4 meters in size—lay waiting. Covered entirely in dark fur, it resembled a giant rat with closed eyes. Its whiskers trembled as it emitted a warning hiss.

A system message appeared in front of him.

[Name] Nightmaw

[Path] Astra

[Rank] 2

[Ability] Burrowsense / Mirebloom

Description: Nightmaws dwell beneath fertile fields, burrowing through the nutrient-rich soil from which they feed. They instinctively seek out thriving farmlands, drawn to the richness of cultivated earth. Elusive by nature, they prefer to remain unseen and undisturbed, showing little aggression unless provoked. However, they are fiercely territorial and will defend their subterranean domain with primal resolve.

Ability—Burrowsense / Mirebloom Due to their subterranean lifestyle, these Sparks possess underdeveloped eyesight. They compensate for this with an innate skill known as Burrowsense, which allows them to detect minute shifts in vibration, scent, and air pressure. This grants them exceptional spatial awareness and navigation abilities underground.

When tunneling through the earth, they secrete a mucus that mixes with the soil—Mirebloom—enriching it with potent nutrients and transforming it into a concentrated food source. However, exposure to Mirebloom soil has an unintended side effect: plants that feed on it may undergo uncontrolled growth, often mutating into aggressive and sentient plant-creatures.

"An investigative-type skill?" Adyr’s interest was mildly piqued.

This was precisely the kind of skill currently lacking in his skillset—and Burrowsense bore a close resemblance to Evangeline’s vibration-detection skill. The only difference was its added ability to pick up on scents and subtle changes in the air, making it seem even more versatile.

"But it won’t be of much use to me."

The Spark’s nearly 4-meter-long body wasn’t ideal for Twilight Land. If he tried to subdue and raise it, he’d likely have to dedicate the entire underground of one of his islands solely to this one Spark, which didn’t seem like a reasonable trade at the moment.