The rank 3, red robed Magician that reprimanded Nick was a man that seemed to be in his late thirties, had a white complexion, short, brown hair and brown eyes. He heard Nick's reply to his question and remarked:
"Nick Capitol? Sounds like the name of an uncultured fart."
The red robed Magician then clapped his hands together and a red-orange fireball that was the size of a house appeared above the man's head, following which, the fireball was launched forward towards Nick at rapid speed, traversing over one hundred meters in moments in order to reach near to Nick's position.
Nick sneered and the moment that the house-sized fireball reached within ten meters of him, he manipulated Saturn's effects in order to instantly and completely envelop the fireball using a cream colored sphere of magic power. Once the cream sphere trapped the fireball, the push and pull forces within the cream sphere suppressed it and kept it in place.
After that, Nick instantly summoned Failed Tool from his space band into his right grip and then disappeared from his midair position in order to reappear just as quickly within two meters of the red robed Magician's immediate front, casting:
(Tyrant Armor.)
(Tyrant Form.)
(Tyrant Aurora)
(Cross Stream Sword Technique.)
Nick's entire right arm was immediately covered in black soul magic power and developed sparks of red and black lights until moments later, when the red sparks abated and all that remained were black sparks. Nick followed up by using Failed Tool, which now glowed with grey blade light like a flare, to slash at the red robed Magician's torso, at which point, Nick's right arm and Failed Tool moved so fast that they appeared like a faint black and grey blur from the red robed Magician's perspective. At this time, the red robed Magician could hardly track the attack in real time using his magic sense.
The red robed Magician was shocked by Nick's attack speed, thinking:
(A Space Magician? No, he is also using soul and blade magic. I have to defend; his move is coming in too fast to dodge.)
Although the red robed Magician had that intention, Nick's slash indeed came in too fast and by the time that a flurry of red-orange flames faintly appeared, enveloping the red robed Magician's body, Nick used both his sword technique and magic power to suppress and cut away much of the flames that were attempting to block his attack as well as much of the red robed Magician's clothes and flesh.
Blood spurted out from the red robed Magician's torso and stained some sections of Nick's own clothes and skin. After Nick had finished all ninety-nine sword placements of his technique, he stopped his sword movements for a split second and before he could begin another iteration of his sword technique, the red robed Magician took advantage of the opportunity created by that brief lapse in action to further act in his own defense by casting another spell:
(Self-Immolate)
As a result of the red robed Magician's spell, his entire body was immediately covered in impenetrable red-orange flames that spread out a few feet from his body in all directions, which forced Nick to cover his entire body in black soul magic power using the effects of Tyrant Armor in order to defend against the flames before teleporting ten meters backwards using the power of Tyrant Domain, away from the red robed Magician, who had cast another spell at that point:
(Immolation Jet)
While still enveloped in red-orange flames, the red robed Magician was rapidly propelled upwards and then backwards, at a curved angle. The red robed Magician left a trail of flames behind him as he flew away from Nick as fast as a rocket, soon disappearing beyond the horizon in a little over thirty seconds. Nick floated in place while watching the other Magician flee and thought:
(He's doing the same thing that I did when I faced the green, dog like magic beast, that is, after realizing that his enemy was a tough nut, he moved to escape. I personally find no shame in running away but to be the cause of the running has a feel to it that I kind of like. Being a Magician is dangerous and everything we do is because of benefits. The red robed Magician ran away because I appeared strong while there were no obvious benefits that made fighting with me worth it and so after he received some injuries, he immediately fled.)
In Nick's eyes, the red robed Magician's move was definitely the wise choice and Nick had no intention of chasing him because that would be more trouble than it was worth. The house-sized fireball gradually dissipated and following that, Nick dispelled the cream sphere.
(Rank 3 Magicians are not invincible and in many ways are still as fragile as rank 2 Magicians, so we have to be careful when choosing our battles out in the wild or one wrong move could be our end.)
Nick cancelled Tyrant Form and Tyrant Armor and also stored Failed Tool back into his older space band before returning his focus to his mining operations. Nick then spent the next hour laying his Mining and Detection Formation. After that, he began his search for magic material deposits below the ground by moving the magic formation along the areas of Common Bark that he had cleared.
The Mining and Detection Formation had a radius of about a kilometer, so each check for resources covered a large area and after one area was discovered to be ascent of resources, Nick moved on to an adjacent area without even a change in expression because he was no longer bothered by his failures during these searches.
Nick continued to clear Common Bark over a period of five months and each time that groups of rank 2 Magicians came to the region and discovered his activities, they would become ostensibly enraged but were forced to flee when they found out that Nick was a rank 3 Magician. Soon enough, Nick's name somehow spread throughout various human settlements within Forgotten Peril.
***********************************************************
"Who the hell is Nick Capitol and why is he acting so shamelessly within Common Bark?"
"How the hell would I know? All I know is that he is basically taking away hunting grounds from us rank 2 Magicians."
"Did you hear? Apparently, some people saw him extracting ores from the ground using a magic formation."
...
"Hmph! Nick Capitol is simply doing as he pleases, not paying this daddy here any mind. I'll make him pay tribute for his arrogance."
"Yeah, Boss. Go teach that weirdo a lesson!"
"Right. I'll go after I learn my new spell. I can't take such a confrontation lightly."
"..."
...
"Nick Capitol is only a young buck looking to earn some scraps. He is rank 3 at a relatively young age, so of course he is arrogant."
"If I was rank 3 like him, I would be even more despotic, even more unreasonable."
"How are we supposed to make a living if he clears all of Common Bark? Most of the magic beasts within the region have either been killed by him or have migrated."
"Sigh, we'll just have to find another region to explore."
...
"That brat won't be pleased with himself for long. Word is that a group of rank 3 Magicians from Sidon are on their way to Common Bark to deal with him."
"What? Why?"
"I don't know the details exactly but there are rumors that Nick Capitol killed the brother of a rich kid that is also rank 3."
"Really? Then I guess that we won't have to worry about Nick Capitol for much longer."
...
Within Sidon's settlement administrator's mansion, Keller Oxar's brows creased when he was made aware of all the rumors and complaints about Nick through his informants within and outside of Sidon. He sat at his polished, gold desk within his gold tiled, hardwood walled office and rubbed his temples, saying:
"Doesn't that kid know that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down first. I know that he is rank 3 but does he think that other rank 3 Magicians will just sit by while he hoards the resources of an entire region. The rumors even say that he is extracting ores using a magic formation and so he is definitely becoming a target of envy and an eyesore to the other Magicians."
At that time, while Keller was musing aloud, a woman opened the door to his office and walked in without even knocking first. Keller's frown grew deeper as he reprimanded her:
"Veera, announce yourself first before you come into my office. I am still the settlement administrator and I could have been handling important business."
Veera smiled sweetly and replied:
"Relax pops, I only wanted to talk a little about my training session with John. His star path methods are getting more troublesome by the day."
Keller replied indifferently:
"I don't want to hear about John Rebel. You brought him to our home years ago and convinced me to hire him as your trainer but how does he repay me? By drinking my liquor and desiring my daughter, that's how. Don't you let him convince you of anything that causes my hairs to become grey."
Veera Keller seemed to be in her late twenties, had a gorgeous appearance that featured pale-white skin, charcoal-black eyes, thin, red lips, long, lustrous, black hair that was tied in a pony-tail, and a very athletic but curvy body. Veera chuckled at her father's concerns and then reassured him:
"John is a great trainer, but not the type of man that I would follow. You have nothing to worry about, pops. Hmmm...by the way, have you heard the rumors about Nick?"
Keller waved his hands dismissively in response to Veera mentioning Nick and then answered:
"That kid has become rank 3 and he is acting so wildly. He is doing it out of ignorance as a result of his age. Come to think of it, you should be about his age by now, considering the time period between when he left Forgotten Peril after the banquet and when he returned a few years ago. Hmmm...I'm thinking of having you go live on Grand Earth for a while. You need to stay there for quite some time before you can adopt the same aging pace as those that were born there. Doing so would be better for you so that if you return here, you do not age too quickly while you cultivate your magic."
Veera understood what her father was talking about immediately:
(Because I was born within Forgotten Peril, I naturally age faster than those that were born on Grand Earth. Pops had all kinds of time path spells cast on me when I was a baby in order to slow the aging process to match the passage of time on Grand Earth but those methods are only partially effective because I have never been to Grand Earth in the first place.)
When Magicians went to another realm, they would normally adapt to the new realm's flow of time, which could be significantly faster than Grand Earth's flow of time and if not paid attention to, the effects of such a difference in the flow of time could have significant impact on their lives when they returned to Grand Earth. Many academies would discreetly cast time path methods on their rank 1 and rank 2 Apprentice Magicians when those academies sent them to other realms, in order to keep the flow of time affecting their bodies identical to Grand Earth's natural flow of time.
The circumstance for rank 3 Magicians was different, though, as the flow of time affecting their bodies was significantly more difficult to alter once their rank 3 mindscapes had been formed. Therefore, to significantly alter the flow of time affecting a rank 3 Magician's body, a very powerful rank 3 time path spell was needed or the Magician would have to live within another realm with a different flow of time from the realm where they had become rank 3 for usually more than a decade, consecutively.
Keller put on a thoughtful expression and remained silent for a few seconds before speaking to Veera:
"Veera, I'm old and Forgotten Peril is no place for a young woman like yourself to spend her most important years. I'm thinking of calling in a few favors to have you admitted to a magic academy within the United Kingdom. By doing that, I can make sure that you have a decent chance of getting to rank 3; your foundation is good enough, after all. You just lack certain resources while here in Forgotten Peril."
Keller Oxar did not come from a legacy family, so he had no rank 3 inheritance to give to his daughter and although he was likely to be stuck at rank 2, he did not want the same for his daughter. Veera smiled in response to her father's words and replied:
"I was going to ask for that myself during the next few weeks after finishing this round of training with John. But now that we're on the topic, what academy do you have in mind?"
Veera sat in the office chair that was in front of her father's desk and listened to his words:
"I don't have the pull to have you admitted into an 'aristocrat' academy, especially considering your age, so I thought that an academy in my own home city of London would be the most appropriate. I still have some family living in that city..."
**************************************************************
SPLAT!
On a section of Nick's Mining and Detection Formation, blood, crushed bone and brain matter splattered in a crescent shape behind the still standing, headless corpse of a rank 2 Magician, who had tried to investigate the results of Nick's mining operations too closely. The corpse was dressed in plain, grey leather combat armor and emitted the faint trace of illusion path magic; its head was nowhere to be seen as it had been blown apart after the sudden appearance of a grapefruit-sized, grey sphere of magic power that came into contact with it and that then dissipated immediately after its job was complete.
Two seconds later, the corpse fell backwards like a domino onto the ground that the magic formation occupied. Nick, who was floating about ten meters above ground, shook his head while turning his attention away from the corpse, saying:
"Some of these rank 2 Magicians sure are bold for trying to pry into my business."
Nick mused:
(This is the fifth time that I've had to kill a foolish rank 2 Magician this month. You really meet all kinds of people while out in the field. Even people that don't seem to value their own life.)
Over the past five months, Nick had collected over thirty thousand tonnes of assorted ore, owing to his increased proficiency in manipulating the Mining and Detection Formation and his growing intuition for where magic materials are likely to be below the earth.
(Hmmm...this kind of intuition feels weird since I've felt it 'kicking' multiple times. I think the intuition might have something to do with my earth path mastery. Since I've gained more experience in using the earth path aspect of the magic formation to mine for ores, my mind has unconsciously started to notice signs when I scout throughout the ground for where ores are likely to be. The advantages gained from my previous periods of cultivation just keep on stacking onto my recent efforts, earning me benefits.)
Nick collected the ores resting on top of his magic formation and then willed for the Mining and Detection Formation to self-destruct. The magic formation then degenerated entirely into free flowing magic energy. Although there were much more areas left to be searched within Common Bark since it was a vast region, Nick already decided that he needed to leave:
(I've attracted too much attention to myself and I'm starting to feel the heat around the corner. The fact that five rank 2 Magicians risked their lives to investigate my magic formation despite my evident powers cannot be a coincidence.)
Nick cancelled Tyrant Domain as well as drew in his black, miasma like magic energy into his mindscape. He then flew a few meters above his current position in order to enter Silent Ark, following which, he cancelled Saturn and took his seat in the black leather chair at the center of the cabin.
Nick activated Silent Ark's camouflage and scouting abilities before having it rise to over fifty meters above ground and then had it fly rapidly towards his next destination. Nick left Common Bark within eight hours and cruised afterwards; rank 2 flying magic beasts had difficulty spotting Silent Ark while it was in its camouflaged state, so there were a few of them that crashed into it and died tragically from the crushing impact, following which, their carcasses fell to the ground.
After the third magic beast that died in such a way, Nick was no longer bothered by the incidental deaths of those magic beasts and did not even attempt to avoid crashing into them anymore. Nick simply cultivated while he moved along and thought about nothing else. One month later, he arrived at the border of his intended destination.
The area ahead of Silent Ark was now a murky swamp that seemed to have a persistent haze over its surroundings. The swamp had many pools and marshes throughout its vast expanse. Trees, reeds and magical grasses also grew out from below the marshes and pools, most of them having sickly-green colored surfaces that also featured many tiny, black spots.
The air within and over the swamp did not smell clean and had a pungent, acidic scent. What ground was available within the swamp was muddy and loose. Nick had already researched this area before returning to Forgotten Peril, so he already knew its details:
(This is area is called Sickly Phase and is one of the largest within Forgotten Peril, having about the same surface area as Australia on Grand Earth. There are many water path, poison path and soul path magic beasts living here, as well as relatively few other magic beasts belonging to other paths. Sickly Phase has many poisonous plants and insects and the haze looming over the area slightly corrodes the soul. Although it is not a favorite destination for rank 1 and rank 2 Magicians, they do not avoid it outright because of the abundant resources here in the form of poisonous, magical plants. Those plants are toxic while they remain unprocessed but can be used to produce valuable medicines. My current plan involves mining its pools and marshes but to prevent unwanted attention, I'm going to go as deep as I can into Sickly Phase.)
Nick knew that doing so had risks:
(I might encounter rank 3 magic beasts seemingly out of nowhere or worse, I might encounter magic beasts that are more powerful than rank 3 like the qi path dragon that I met within Dying Mark.)
Nick thought about that mutant qi path dragon and a shiver ran down his spine. He knew that if the qi path dragon had not been a bit strange by nature, that day would have probably been his last.
(But I cannot let those possibilities deter me from taking necessary risks. Rank 3 magic beasts are relatively few in number within Forgotten Peril. If that wasn't the case, this place would not be so popular with rank 2 Magicians and so unpopular with higher ranked Magicians. The odds of encountering a rank 3 Magic beast that I can't deal with or at least run away from is miniscule and the odds of encountering stronger magic beasts are remote. I have to face my fears in order to move forward...)
After having those thoughts, Nick had Silent Ark speed off towards the deeper parts of Sickly Phase. Five days later, Nick found himself within an area where an expansive marsh was situated. Nick assumed that he had reached deep into Sickly Phase by now because the haze looming over the surroundings had grown thicker by at least three times since arriving at this area.
Nick's prior research indicated that the haze slightly corroded the soul but Nick was evidently unaffected while in Silent Ark because of the magic formation's soul path properties that resisted the effects of the surrounding haze. Also, Silent Ark's scouting method allowed him to maintain his sense of direction while flying through the haze.
Nick cast Saturn and Tyrant Sense, following which, he exited Silent Ark's cabin before storing Silent Ark back into his older space band so as not to accidentally lose it while he was working outside. Nick was able to perceive his surroundings clearly enough using Tyrant Sense, so he lowered himself towards the marsh below while avoiding the trees growing out of it.
Nick did not plan to thoroughly clear the environment of the plants and magic beasts as he had done in the past to the places in which he had mined in, because after doing that so many times, he had started to find doing so troublesome because it did tend to attract too much attention. Instead, Nick had been thinking of altering his magic formation to cover only a small area but transmit its effects over a large space at a time. This alteration, which he had already formulated during his travel to Sickly Phase, required him to add space path laws consisting of a little over eighty thousand symbols to the Mining and Detection Formation.
Now, Nick only needed to lay the altered Mining and Detection Formation in order to test its effectiveness. To that end, he continued to lower himself, soon submerging himself within the murky waters of the marsh. Nick used the effects of Saturn in order to keep the water away from his body by at least two feet in all directions. The bottom of the marsh was situated about forty meters below the murky water's surface and when Nick reached the bottom, he placed his right index finger onto the muddy ground below his feet, casting:
(Big Copy.)
Big Copy resolved moments later and the altered base for the Mining and Detection Formation appeared below his feet, having a radius of about one meter and drawn in red pigment that remained unaffected by the waters enveloping portions of it, which were not within range of Nick's current use of Saturn. Nick then summoned formation path, earth path, soul path and space path magic materials one by one from his space band.
Each magic material was easily subsumed by the magic formation using a mix of red, silver or grey lights once Nick placed the material in direct contact with the magic formation after using the effects of Saturn to place the material at the correct point on the magic formation. Laying the magic formation took about four hours due to the dark and water-logged environment but when Nick was finished, it seemed to him that the Mining and Detection Formation was good to go. Nick spoke its trigger phrase soon thereafter:
"Begin."
The Mining and Detection Formation immediately started glowing with a dull-brown light and emanating a low buzzing sound. Nick stood on top of the magic formation and activated its scouting method. Pulses of soul and space magic then spread through the ground, moving not just below the magic formation but because of the space path laws added to the Mining and Detection Formation, many of the pulses spread across the surface of the ground, covering an area within a two kilometer radius before moving downwards at rapid speed.
Within a few seconds after the scouting method was activated, Nick's mind was flooded with information. Soon, however, Nick's activities attracted the attention of the rank 1 and rank 2 magic beasts that were living within the marsh and dozens of them attacked him in a frenzy. Some fish like magic beasts that had visibly sharp teeth moved towards him in order to bite at him, some octopus and squid like magic beasts that had human like expressions on their faces, squirted foul smelling, ink like bodily fluids at him and some large, reptile like magic beasts simply stared at him from a distance with eerily glowing eyes. Nick quickly cast one of his spells in response:
(Tyrant Domain.)
Nick eventually sensed several dozen soul path attacks bombard his soul at almost the same time but the passive defense of his charcoal-black soul seemed to be enough to keep the damage done to a miniscule degree and that seemed largely due to the effects of Tyrant Domain suppressing the magic beasts' soul magic. In the meantime, Nick manipulated the effects of Saturn in order to create grapefruit-sized, red spheres of magic energy that instantly came into contact with each magic beast within Tyrant Domain's area of influence, which was now over three hundred meters all around Nick.
The moment that a red sphere came into contact with a magic beast, the magic beast was swallowed and crushed into faint dust, following which, the red sphere dissipated. Within ten seconds, the dozens of rank 1 and rank 2 magic beasts trying to harm Nick died tragically. The water was still murky so Nick mostly had to rely on Tyrant Sense to perceive his surroundings clearly. The area of effect of Tyrant Sense was also influenced by Tyrant Domain, in addition to Saturn, and Nick could use the scouting method at a far greater range than was usually possible. Nick mused:
(At first, I discovered that Saturn's effects could be enhanced by Tyrant Domain's superior aspects but now after some time, I am able to intuitively do the same thing with Tyrant Sense. It looks like I am slowly becoming able to integrate the effects of my space path spells into each other when I use them simultaneously. I don't think that this is because I am a space path master since I am unable to do the same thing with my soul path spells even though I am a soul path scholar.)
Nick had already tried combining the effects of Tyrant Armor with spells like Tyrant Sense and Blade Specter while he was traveling to Sickly Phase but he failed each time. He thus concluded that him being able to enhance the effects of his space path spells by maintaining them simultaneously had nothing to do with attainment:
(So being able to enhance the effects of space path spells without increasing their overall magic energy expenditure is either a result of a talent or something else. Hmmm...could my Spacial Instinct talent be responsible for this? It's possible but I have no way of knowing for sure yet. Now that I think about it, at rank 3 my deep seeker dragon warlock bloodline should have awakened fully but I have not noticed a significant change related to my bloodline. Why is that?)
Nick didn't know much about Warlocks to begin with so all he had to go on was introductory information that he gained from books. Within a minute, Nick shook his head and decided to put those thoughts onto the back burner of his mind because he still had to continue his mining operations.
After Nick killed dozens of rank 1 and rank 2 magic beasts, he wasn't disturbed again. Nick knew that was a likely outcome because weak magic beasts had a strong survival instinct and would most certainly avoid anything obviously stronger than themselves unless they were cornered. Nick's earlier show of power had evidently made him a deterrent and so Nick eventually cancelled Tyrant Domain in order to conserve his magic energy reserves.
Nick spent close to an hour using the Mining and Detection Formation's scouting method but ultimately found nothing that had a strong magical signature within the portion of ground that he searched, up to about fifty kilometers below the surface. Nick sounded a light sigh before beginning to move the magic formation along the ground in order to get beyond the range that he had just searched.
Nick floated along the loose ground while maintaining Saturn and Tyrant Sense. While manipulating Saturn, Nick realized that since Tyrant Sense had the larger range of one hundred meters all around, Saturn's range in increased from sixty meters all around to one hundred meters all around.
(So, it's like this. When the effects of my space path spells are enhanced, the aspects that are the same universally adopt the superior attributes belonging to one of the spells even if the spells work based on fundamentally different principles. Most of Saturn's and Tyrant Sense's laws are not based on the same principles overall but the laws that determine their range can be said to be similar in that they persistently project space path magic power outward to achieve an area of effect.)
Nick was becoming more and more familiar with just how far his apparent ability to enhance the effects of his spells went and it seemed to be down to the finest details concerning the mechanisms that governed their attributes. Besides coming to terms with that, Nick processed magic energy outside his body at intervals of minutes in order to recover his magic energy reserves and maintain his methods. After processing enough black miasma magic energy, Nick would then draw the magic energy into his mindscape in order to recover about 20,000 magical units.
Nick moved slowly while scouting his surroundings and did not encounter any trouble resulting from the magic beasts that lived within the marsh because they fled whenever he approached them. Nick spent about the equivalent of one day in order to bring the Mining and Detection Formation to a different location where he could search only parts of the undergrounds that he has not already scouted.
Nick didn't mind the slowness of his movements because it better trained him in the use of his spells, his magic formation, his special mindscape and it greatly showcased the value of his Soul Cradle talent. His soul had completely recovered from attacks of the soul path magic beasts that he had previously killed. Even though their attacks had only dealt minute damage due to the quality of his soul, even minute damage was often a problem when it came to the soul.
With that being the case, the Soul Cradle talent evidently healed the damage without Nick having to actively do anything about it like making use of soul healing scrolls. The benefit of not having the urge to sleep was also a great boon during the long mining process, which incidentally, also allowed him to cultivate for longer and with more intensity.
Nick followed the same procedure as before and used the Mining and Detection Formation to scout below the ground and when Nick found nothing of note after an hour of searching, he moved on once again. After one month of searching a large section of marsh and finding nothing, Nick had the Mining and Detection Formation to self-destruct, raised himself out of the marsh and then moved deeper into Sickly Phase using Silent Ark.
After about three days of travel, Nick decided to descend into another random marsh while using the effects Saturn and Tyrant Sense after storing Silent Ark within his older space band. After laying the Mining and Detection Formation again, Nick continued his search for underground resources over the period of a month, which ultimately had the result of no resources being found. After that failure, Nick simply went deeper into Sickly Phase using Silent Ark and eventually searched other random marshes or large pools.
At times during this process and as the haze that often surrounded Nick became thicker, his soul would be significantly harmed by the looming haze but Soul Cradle's recovery of his soul proved faster than the wearing down of it by the haze. Nick was overjoyed each time that his soul recovered from damage inflicted by the environment, whether the damage came through magic beasts or the seemingly natural haze, because it further assured him that his efforts to earn Soul Cradle were not in vain and instead profited him. Because the constant regenerative effects of Soul Cradle, Nick was able to go deeper within Sickly Phase without fear of his soul being worn down to nothing.
After months of travel, Nick started to wonder if humans bothered to come this far into Sickly Phase, which was at least over three hundred kilometers away from the border from where Nick initially entered the region. As Nick went deeper into Sickly Phase, even the number of magic beasts that he encountered became less but the strength of each magic beast was significantly higher for every dozen kilometers that he crossed until eventually, he met three mutant magic beasts.
One was a pick-up-truck-sized, brown, crab like magic beast that had ten legs, four arms and pincers and a beautiful singing voice that it made use of while it moved from pool to pool. The other mutant magic beast was a snake like magic beast that seemed similar to a fifteen-meter-long anaconda in appearance but had completely ghost-white scales and black markings that extended along its body, from end-to-end. The snake like magic beast watched Silent Ark as it passed even though the magic formation was camouflaged at that time and it was somehow able to project its thoughts into Nick's mind but it's thoughts were conveyed in a mystical language other than Valteese, so Nick could not understand them.
The final mutant magic beast was a dog sized, bright-orange frog that spat curses in Valteese at a large group of its crimson colored brethren. When it somehow noticed Silent Ark, it ran away into a nearby pool while its brethren obliviously idled about. By that time, Nick had crossed over five hundred kilometers into Sickly Phase from its border and had been traveling in this region for over six months with no gains to be spoken of. Nick had laid the Mining and Detection Formation a total of eleven times during that entire period and so his magic materials began to run low at this point.
Nick eventually stopped above a quiet marsh where he sensed almost no signs of magic beasts other than some faint and scattered footprints in the mud. Nick decided that it was time to search again and so he exited Silent Ark, storing it within his space band. As soon as he had come out of Silent Ark, however, he felt the thick haze around him wearing down his soul faster than usual. Nick exasperatedly looked around him and shrugged in response before submerging himself within the marsh below, having cast Saturn and Tyrant Sense, thinking:
(Tyrant Sense has a base magic energy consumption of about 9,000 magical units each time I activate it and originally, its scouting effect was supposed to linger about twenty minutes after activation but after these few months of using it, Tyrant Sense's duration lasts as much as twenty-five minutes. The spell's effects are gradually growing stronger as I use it. I sort of sense the same thing with Saturn in that its effectiveness is also subtly increasing the more that I use it.)
Once Nick was at the bottom of the marsh, he laid the Mining and Detection Formation again and used its scouting method the search underground. He had been doing this for so long that he started to half expected nothing at this point but only after a few seconds of the scouting method being active, Nick sensed that the ground immediately beneath him, which was entirely made of soft mud, was actually almost entirely composed of rank 3 earth path magic materials of very high quality. After almost an hour of scouting, Nick was thoroughly alarmed by the sheer quantity of the mud like magic material:
(This rank 3 mud basically fills up dozens of kilometers of space underground. That's an insane amount! Although I don't know what the identity of this magic material is, at this quantity, it is definitely bound to give me a tidy profit.)
After many months of search, Nick's indifferent expression finally broke into a light smile. He spent a few days integrating a space path sub-formation into the Mining and Detection Formation in order for it to produce a compact space bubble during the mining process so that the Mining and Detection Formation could then store a certain volume of mud magic material into the space bubble. The space bubble would have an extremely compact space that would allow Nick to effortlessly store the mud magic material into his newer, red and black space band.
After the sub-formation was fully integrated into the Mining and Detection Formation, Nick began the mining process while calmly sitting cross-legged at the edge of the magic formation. Half an hour after that, a compact space bubble appeared three feet above the magic formation while slowly being filled with the mud like magic material. In the meantime, Nick processed magic energy outside his body and drew it into his mindscape at intervals of minutes.
Every few days, Nick would collect the compact space bubbles that would be filled with many kilograms of mud magic material. Nick allowed the Mining and Detection Formation to extract the mud like magic material layer by layer so that after each successive compact space bubble was filled, the muddy ground would uniformly sink by a few feet. This involved the water level lowering momentarily until water from adjacent areas of the marsh filled in the gap created in order to restore the murky water's surface level.
The deeper the ground sank, the more water pressure Nick sensed accumulate above him but he knew that he was safe so long as he kept Saturn active. He eventually mused:
(If Soul Cradle didn't incidentally keep my mind fresh for long periods of time, I would have a hard time maintaining my methods while in this environment because I would need to get frequent sleep if I was ordinary Magician, especially with the soul damaging haze being above the water.)
These days, Nick could go a few weeks without sleep comfortably and up to two months without sleep until he felt a kicking urge. On this occasion, however, Nick forced himself to stay awake for eight months while he collected the mud like magic material within the marsh. Unlike with the process of shifting ores within solid ground, extracting mud was relatively rapid, so at the end of the eight months, Nick secured an estimated seven hundred and fifty thousand tonnes of the mud like magic material.
So much of the terrain below the murky water's original surface level had changed that the marsh that Nick occupied had been basically ruined because the large and deep trench that he created acted as a sort of drain. Nick had extracted so much mud that he finally reached bed rock at about one hundred and thirty kilometers below the marsh's original surface level.
After storing the last compact space bubble within his newer space band, Nick wearily forced the Mining and Detection Formation to self-destruct and it soon becoming free flowing magic energy as a result. Nick was visibly tired and his soul was worn down by much despite Soul Cradle's regenerative properties but he had no physical injuries because he had not fought any magic beasts within this now destroyed marsh. The reason for that was simple - no magic beasts lived here in the first place.
Nick tried to raise himself out of the trench but before he was able to, the bedrock immediately below his feet crumbled, revealing a dark, hollow chamber. Nick remained floating on the spot because of Saturn's effects but the sudden change surprise him a great deal since he had assumed the bedrock to be solid throughout the kilometers of distance below, until now.
Nick moved aside a few seconds after the hole in the bedrock appeared and sat on a section of the bedrock cross-legged while watching as the murky water immediately began to be drained into the hole. In the meantime, Nick processed magic energy outside his body at intervals of minutes in order to keep his magic energy reserves at an acceptable level. The murky water that remained within the trench did not cease slowly being drained for about ten hours straight until the marsh that had previously spread throughout this area was now truly nonexistent. Nick mused:
(Strange...the Mining and Detection Formation's scouting method did not detect hollow space beneath the bedrock so I thought that it was entirely solid rock.)
Nick got up from his sitting position and walked around the hole in the bedrock; he tried to use the effects of Tyrant Sense, which he had maintained along with Saturn for all these months, to peer into the bed rock but his scouting method still indicated that there was no hollowed out space below and that the terrain was likely rock solid but now that the murky water was gone, he could see through the hole using his own eyes and confirm that beneath the layer of rock below his feet, there was indeed a hollow chamber.
Due to the thick haze above him and now descending towards him, the space was severely darkened but by concentrating magic energy within his eyes, the hollowed chamber was visually evident to him even though he could not see too far into it. Nick felt that this situation was some kind of call to adventure, so after a few minutes of thinking and despite his weary mind, he resolved:
(I have to see what is down there.)
Nick maintained the effects of Saturn and Tyrant Sense and jumped into the dark chamber, not knowing what to expect. Once he was beneath the layer of bedrock, Tyrant Sense was finally able to properly scout the surroundings and peer into the darkness. What Nick perceived shocked him and he immediately stopped descending. Below him, there was actually a fifty-meter-high tree that had a thick, dark-grey tree trunk and that also had a canopy of large, grey-green leaves that grew along its numerous branches.
Every second, many grey-green leaves would crumble apart and become similar in appearance to the haze that persistently haunted Sickly Phase. The haze would then float up to the rock layer above Nick and seep through it. Following that, new grey-green leaves would quickly take the place of each one that was destroyed and this process occurred all over the massive tree's canopy, involving hundreds of leaves per second.
This created a scene of a faint ascending mist that radiated high quality soul path magic power. Nick could not tell what rank the magic power belonged to but he was sure of one think:
"I've stumbled onto something special."