Chapter 100: Encounter with a Pack of Level Two Earth Lizards 1

“So it really is man-made.”

After hearing Kent’s explanation, Daphne examined the tunnel more carefully.

The passage was clearly ancient, and the marks left behind by whoever had carved it had long since been blurred by time. But once she knew what to look for, the differences became obvious.

Daphne had grown up in the Underdark, so she was naturally familiar with caves and subterranean passages. Under normal circumstances, she could easily tell whether a tunnel had formed naturally or had been excavated by hand.

Even so, if Kent had not pointed it out, she probably would never have noticed.

Part of the reason was the night-vision goggles.

They gave her a much broader field of view and allowed her to see the stonework far more clearly than she normally could in the darkness.

And there was another reason as well.

Most participants became extremely alert the moment they entered the trial grounds. Their attention was fixed on possible ambushes, hidden magical beasts, traps, and other dangers. Hardly anyone would waste time studying the shape of the tunnel itself.

Only someone like Kent, who was entering the Great Trial for the first time, would still have the curiosity to pay attention to such details.

Daphne looked at him with even greater admiration.

Kent, however, was too busy studying the passage to notice.

“We should be more careful from here on,” Kent said. “A tunnel this large couldn’t have been carved without a reason. There may be something dangerous ahead.”

In truth, Kent already had a rough idea of what they might be dealing with.

An ancient ruin.

The Mage Guild had discovered countless ancient ruins on the surface over the years. Many had yielded extraordinary treasures, ancient magic, rare materials, and lost knowledge.

But those rewards had always come with equally extraordinary dangers.

Ancient ruins were notorious for containing strange traps, unknown magical creatures, and mechanisms no modern mage could easily understand.

Kent knew all of that.

Even so, he had no intention of turning back just yet.

The traces of excavation around them were so old that they had almost disappeared entirely.

If this truly was an untouched ancient ruin, then there might still be valuable treasures hidden somewhere within.

And if Kent found even one or two of them...

He might become rich overnight.

Kent’s personality had always been contradictory in that regard.

He wanted to make a fortune.

But he also wanted very much to stay alive.

So even now, he remained torn.

The rational part of him warned that continuing forward might be dangerous.

Yet every time he looked at the nearly vanished traces of ancient craftsmanship around him, he found it difficult to give up such an opportunity.

After all, opportunity and danger had always gone hand in hand.

In the end, Kent could only warn Daphne to remain cautious.

At the same time, he quietly made up his mind.

The moment anything felt truly wrong, they would retreat without hesitation.

And Kent did possess one advantage that gave him more confidence than most.

He could cast both light-element healing magic and Water Healing.

As long as they did not encounter something overwhelmingly powerful, his ability to heal injuries greatly improved their chances of surviving whatever lay ahead.

After realizing that the tunnel was artificial, Kent and Daphne slowed their pace even further.

But the passage soon began to feel stranger and stranger.

Even after walking for so long, they had not encountered a single fork.

The tunnel also remained almost exactly the same size throughout.

More importantly, Kent gradually developed the feeling that they were descending deeper underground.

To confirm his suspicion, he stopped and cast several Water Ball spells in succession.

Several spheres of water appeared in front of him and splashed onto the stone floor.

“Water magic?”

Daphne stared at him in complete disbelief.

Everyone knew Kent was a fire-element mage.

Although Daphne was only a magic archer, even she knew that water-element and fire-element magical power conflicted with one another.

Under ordinary circumstances, it should have been impossible for the same person to possess both.

Yet several balls of water had just appeared in Kent’s hands.

And Daphne had clearly sensed genuine water-element magical fluctuations.

For a moment, her mind simply stopped working.

By the time she recovered enough to ask what was going on, Kent had already crouched down and was carefully examining the floor.

The water from his spells had begun flowing forward.

Kent watched in silence.

He had released enough water to weigh well over ten pounds, and every drop of it was moving in the same direction.

Just as he had suspected.

The tunnel was sloping downward.

Kent slowly stood.

Strangely, the confirmation only made him even less willing to turn back.

He let out a long breath, then looked at Daphne with a serious expression.

“Let’s keep going.”

Daphne had originally intended to ask him about the water magic.

But when she saw the look on Kent’s face, she hesitated.

In the end, she swallowed the question and quietly followed him deeper into the tunnel.

Kent and Daphne moved forward at an extremely cautious pace.

Kent had always placed safety first. Moving slowly might be frustrating, but it was still far better than stumbling headlong into danger.

More than an hour passed.

The tunnel remained exactly the same.

No branches.

No obvious changes.

Nothing at all.

After so long, even Kent was beginning to lose patience.

Just as he was about to quicken their pace, however, he suddenly sensed the faintest fluctuation of magical energy.

“Down!”

Kent lunged toward Daphne, wrapped an arm around her, and threw them both to the side.

It was almost pure instinct.

Back on Earth, he had watched far too many war movies, and that reflex had somehow remained with him.

Yet this time, that instinct saved both their lives.

The instant they rolled away, a stone spike shot through the spot where Kent had been standing only a moment before, slicing through the air with a sharp whistle.

“Earth Lizard!”

Kent finally caught sight of their attacker.

It was a Level Two magical beast—an Earth Lizard.

Earth Lizards were not particularly large, and they possessed only a single offensive spell: Earth Spike.

What made them troublesome was their ability to change the color of their skin like a chameleon, allowing them to blend almost perfectly into their surroundings.

Magical beasts also had another advantage.

Most of them could cast their innate magic almost instantaneously.

Of course, their “instant casting” was still not quite as fast as that of a human mage who had mastered true instantaneous spellcasting. Magical beasts generally needed roughly a second to gather the necessary magical power before releasing an attack.

Had Kent’s magical perception not been unusually sharp, that single second would not have been enough.

He would almost certainly have been injured.

“Whoosh! Whoosh!”

Kent raised his hand and fired two Wind Blades in rapid succession.

In an underground environment like this, the pale-green blades of compressed wind were excellent weapons.

They were difficult to see in the dim surroundings, and they traveled exceptionally fast.

Among the major elemental schools of magic, wind-element spells were generally faster than those of the other elements.

Clang!

The two Wind Blades struck the wall of the tunnel almost simultaneously.

A shower of sparks burst from the point of impact.

But the Earth Lizard was already gone.

Far ahead, its small body could be seen scampering deeper into the passage.

That was typical of Earth Lizards.

If their first attack failed, they immediately retreated to a safer distance rather than remaining to fight.

In fact, most magical beasts behaved in much the same way.

Any creature capable of becoming a true magical beast possessed a considerable degree of intelligence.

That was one of the reasons magical cores remained so expensive.

There was another reason as well.

Not every magical beast possessed a magical core.

And among those that did, some would deliberately detonate their own cores when cornered, destroying both themselves and the valuable core within.

Hunting magical beasts therefore depended not only on strength, but also on luck.

“Quick! We can’t let it get away!”

Kent immediately pulled Daphne to her feet and rushed after the fleeing creature.

Earth Lizards were pack-dwelling magical beasts.

If this one escaped and returned to the rest of its group, then they could be facing serious trouble.

There were occasionally solitary Earth Lizards, but such cases were extremely rare.

Daphne hurried after him.

Her heart was still pounding wildly from the moment Kent had thrown his arms around her.

But Kent clearly had not noticed anything unusual.

Seeing that he was completely focused on the fleeing magical beast, Daphne could only give his back a slightly resentful look before following.

She had never seen a living Earth Lizard before, but she knew a great deal about the species.

After all, she had received proper training and had studied common underground magical beasts.

Unfortunately, it was precisely this pursuit that led Kent into much greater trouble.

Neither he nor Daphne noticed what had been revealed beneath the section of wall struck by the Wind Blades.

Where the blades had cut into the stone, a faint metallic sheen now glimmered beneath the damaged surface.

Had Kent looked more carefully—or had Daphne not been distracted by her own thoughts—either of them might have realized something was wrong.

After all, Wind Blades cutting into ordinary stone should never have produced sparks.

“Damn thing... it really can run.”

Kent continued chasing the Earth Lizard until, eventually, he lost sight of it completely.

When he finally stopped, two passages lay before him.

One sloped upward.

The other descended deeper underground.

Kent stared at them, thoroughly irritated.

Trying to outrun a magical beast with an ordinary human body was nearly impossible to begin with.

Daphne, being a magic archer, possessed much greater agility than most people and had managed to remain close behind him the entire time.

But speed was no longer the problem.

Now Kent had to decide which path to take.

Up...

or down?

And at the same time, he had to remain alert for the Earth Lizard that had escaped.

If that creature had already returned to its pack...

and if Kent and Daphne happened to walk straight into a whole group of Earth Lizards...

then they would be in very serious trouble.