Chapter 1864: Profitable Arrangement
Chapter 1864: Profitable Arrangement
Tian’s method for searching the dungeon was a simple one. First he scanned the area with earth manipulation, and then when he found something that he couldn’t duplicate, he knew that he had found a rare ore or an elemental stone.
It wasn’t perfect, as there were many veins of other elements in the area that interfered with his senses, but those were also usually rare resources, so he would take those too.
He could make high-quality metals for gear, but these ores were imbued with many different elemental aspects that he wasn’t even compatible with. So, when he encountered them, he directed the golems to go dig up the strange stuff and pile it up for the Karl to sort.
After all, he didn’t want a bunch of weird elemental metals in his space, messing up the vibe.
Rae was using the golems to do a similar thing, sensing mana fluctuations, but also sensing changes to the temperature of the ground with her vision. Many of the metals transferred heat differently than the surrounding stone, and that told her where to have spiders dig up the rock.
They weren’t perfect for the job, but they also weren’t terrible.
Karl’s strategy was the opposite of the others. He was practically tilling the mines, tearing up chunks of every surface, so the dryads could search for anything that he couldn’t sense.
With thermal vision and [Earth Manipulation] he could sense most of the mine well. But there were surprisingly high amounts of material that were hidden well below the surface, and only found once the Dryads broke the surface open.
And they were good resources.
Most of it was rare grade or better Immortal crafting materials, but he had found four Supreme Rank fire gems in a vein of fire element ore earlier, which Hawk had already claimed, as well as one Supreme Rank Ice Elemental Gem that Remi had claimed just to annoy Hawk.
It was useful, as she had a high affinity with ice and all things water.
But that was not why she wanted it. She had chosen to put it as the centrepiece of the altar where she kept her treasured Alchemy Tomes, which meant that if she was home and Hawk wanted to talk to her, he would be staring right at it to look at her.
Perhaps she could get it made into a necklace?
She would have to ask Rue.
The dragon was making Supreme Grade good stuff for all the others, even if Karl forgot to pick his up before they left. That was fine though, it gave him a reason to test out his new skill, which was valuable research data.
Even the Dana Mage didn’t use her Supreme Grade {Dancing Blade of the Dana Mage} until they were out of sight of the mining team.
If Dana didn’t show it off, knowing that she was the strongest duellist among them, in Remi’s mind that meant that it would equate to a tacky show of wealth, like wearing too many gold chains, or rings on every finger. Only one could be magical, so wearing more was just tacky.
This run had been good for them, but none quite as much as Rae, who got to lead an army of fifty Immortal spiders into battle for the first time.
Not only did that please her, it pleased her Goddess, seeing one of the powerful chosen children looking out for the others and making sure that they were well-fed, even if they weren’t going to be around for long.
Spiders were meant to help each other find food.
Karl moved slowly through the dungeon with his team, not wanting to clear the dungeon’s area too fast and end up causing the miners to lose more than their fair share of the loot.
But the dungeon was enormous.
At a regular walking pace, not the full running or flying speed of an Immortal, it would take hours just to walk back to where the mining team was. And, even with over a dozen dryads, they still weren’t digging up the tunnels at any faster pace than that.
They had to be careful about some of the spots that they dug, as Karl could sense other tunnels and empty spaces here that weren’t part of the dungeon, and he didn’t want to accidentally drop himself into a massive sinkhole or abandoned mine shaft.
There were multiple traps like that spread through the dungeon. Hundred metre vertical drops with a bed of spears planted at the bottom.
Thin stone had been grown over them, so they blended seamlessly with the rest of the dungeon. But if you stepped on one, even Dana’s weight would be enough to break through and fall to your doom.
Assuming that you couldn’t fly.
Now that he thought of it, most Immortals should be able to fly. It was something that came with control of energy. But from what he had seen, most of them never learned to do it properly on their own and used a tool of some sort, like a sword.
So, perhaps the traps weren’t entirely useless.
Karl cleared the dungeon starting from the far side, getting every tunnel as he approached the others, and made sure that there was nothing left to take out of the dungeon at all.
In the end, it was nearly five hours before the four teams met and there were no more tunnels left to dig.
"Well gentlemen, it’s been a pleasure to loot this dungeon with you. As a reward for a job well done, you can keep the protection fee.
We did quite well on our own."
The miners laughed. They had collected ten times what they usually did in a run, so they weren’t short on materials at all. But Karl and the Darklight Host had most likely collected far more than that.
There was so much dungeon to explore, and some parts of it they rarely got to search for loot.
It was simply too far from the door, and if your team couldn’t handle multiple bosses, you couldn’t safely try to get anything from it. Unless you tried something truly innovative, like that team who had brought all Rogues with stealth to mine the place out.
That worked better than most methods, as they could sneak away from the bosses for some time, before a member was detected and the bosses started doing area damage to find the miners.
"Thank you for your generosity. We will contact you again in a week to see if you are interested in returning. This has been a most profitable arrangement."