After listening to Jake he quickly understood the situation. Each of the villages had a tunnel leading underground. This tunnel, which was already here when they arrived, led to a multitude of different rooms. Each of these rooms held some sort of trial and on completion of such a room, a bunch of resources were given.
This was how they had managed to get a few great resources such as an F grade cultivation technique and the market blueprint. It had helped them greatly in developing their cities.
This obviously made Jay glad, since they already had an F grade cultivation technique bodyguard Gustel and the previous Lord Jake shouldn't have many problems reaching Tier 1. And before he went over to check the tunnels he first went towards the girl who was also an ancient mage.
Name: Isabella Gurthing (lv 7)
Talents: S grade ancient mage, C grade enchanter
Titles: Prodigy (Gains experience quickly), The Chosen one (Ancient magic spellcasting 30% faster and stronger), Blessed by the system (User will gain a random ancient spell at random times), Blind Follower (This follower will not betray you within the next 7 days)
Strength: 7
Agility: 12
Intelligence: 20
Politics: 15
Mana: 0
Core mana: 18
Specialty: none
Cultivation manual: N/A
Description: A blessed ancient mage with incredible talent. Served under Jake Potiski and Jay Collin |
This made Jay feel somewhat shocked, not only was she an S grade ancient mage, her titles were also insanely powerful, especially the 'Blessed by the system' talent. He also found out her staff came from the underground tunnels.
After recovering and temporarily appointing Jake mayor of Twin city, Jay decided to head down the tunnels. He was notified earlier that going down with numbers wasn't helpful. Once you went down the tunnels you would automatically be isolated, they had yet to find a way to go in with a group.
The tunnel he went down was rather wide, it was 2.5 meters tall and 1 meter wide, giving off a spacious feel. Jay hoped that there would still be a lot to explore down here, Jake had told him he had managed to beat the fourth challenge before retreating.
This fourth challenge had gifted him 500 gold and some other items, a truly massive reward. Once a challenge was cleared by 3 different people it would be considered cleared and it would disappear, no longer giving any rewards.
Hence, Jay passed 3 caverns without encountering anything, before he encountered the fourth cavern. This one had been cleared twice, once by each of the Twin cities.
When he got to the middle of the room a hard-to-see barrier blocked the entrance and exit to the cavern, intriguing Jay. After these were closed off, large cockroaches and ants came out of holes in the wall going straight for him. There were about 50 of these 1 meter long abominations, reminding him of the rats he had encountered earlier.
There were 2 differences to back then. Firstly, these bugs wouldn't kill him, they would use the toxins in their pincers to knock him out before backing off, secondly, he was stronger now.
This seemed like a perfect opportunity to test out his last Tier 1 spell.
When he put his hands forward strings of fire came out of each of his fingers, these twisted and merged together to form a flaming bird.
When Jay stopped putting mana into it the bird came loose, flying high into the cavern. Wherever it flew a line of scorching hot flames would fall down onto the enemies underneath. These flames easily burnt through the ants and cockroaches' exoskeleton, killing them by the heaps.
This spell was odd, the lines of fire dropping from the bird didn't seem all that dangerous but it was extremely hot and could burn for a little while even if it landed on regular stone..
The bird itself got smaller the longer it flew, and when it had slimmed down to the size of a tennis ball it flew down in between a small group of surviving ants, the following explosion killed them.
This spell had a major weakness though, he couldn't control it. Other than the caster itself the bird considered every living being nearby an enemy. Hence it could only be used when he was fighting large groups on his own.
The fourth challenge didn't really end up being a challenge, yet he still got a reward when the last insects were killed.
Congratulations user on completing ****** challenge 4 |
Reward: 250 gold, infirmary basic blueprint, E grade weapon |
As expected the rewards weren't nearly as good as when it was cleared the first time, the gold reward had slimmed down a lot and the blueprint was pretty useless as the infirmary could easily just be a regular intermediate house. Despite this 250 gold was still a crazy amount, getting a hold of such an amount was great.
Without further ado, he continued to the next room. Unlike the previous four, this time, there wasn't just an empty cavern. Instead, he saw a coffin in the middle. On top of the coffin was a golden scepter that gave Jay an odd feeling.
Since the fourth challenge was so simple he figured the fifth would most certainly be doable as well.
When Jay walked into the cavern, the barrier once again covered the entrance. Jay walked towards the coffin slowly, he was expecting the coffin to open and for some sort of undead to come out. And guess what, that is exactly what happened.
When Jay was just a few meters away from the coffin, a bony arm suddenly broke through the surface of the coffin, grabbing the golden scepter. A second later, the entire coffin was in shambles as the skeleton came out. The skeleton still had a bit of skin every here and there, drooping off of its bones, but after the first skeleton came out, more followed, it seemed like this was a mass grave and not just a regular coffin.
Additionally, he could feel each of these skeletons had reached Tier 1 during their lives.