It has been a few days since the beginning of the raid. How are the people? What is going on and... are they in danger? Well, i dont think so?... i haven't seen them myself, i'm waiting until they find an entrance to the l... oh, right... hahaha!
Okay, okay. Now, let's go and see what's going on with Kerren, he must be working hard, right? Right???
...
-* F*kk that rock, f*kk that rock too, f*kk this tree and f*kk everything that is around me. -- Kerren was quite lively inside, but on the outside he looked defeated.
-* No, no, even if i f*kk every single thing around me i wont be happy, i need to get it right this time... -- signs of happiness appeared on his face.
-* Hhhhuuuu... Okay, now i'm fine. Let's do this again, i have 4300 magical particles and around 2100 value particles, that's 6400 in total, divided by 15 that would be... 426.6 gramms of pure A crystal, times 5 that's... uh... 2133 gramms in total? -- he scratched his head, basic math was kind of a problem for Kerren, not like he was... stupid, it's just that math is hard, right?
-* 2133 gramms in total means for this raid i will get more than i got in the past 15 years, okay, good, now if i buy a level 6 inventory i will be left with around 600 gramms, would that be enough for level 5 inspect skill? Hm... -- he continued thinking about spending the money he didn't even have yet, what a useful thing to do!
While all that happened in Kerren's head...
- What do we do? There's no way we missed the entrance, maybe we were wrong? -- man in golden armor, who was surrounded by other people said worryingly.
- We dont have to be right, we just have to scout the area for long enough, cartographer has been remaking his map each day, those mountains are still moving, but since we dont feel any ground moving... -- beautiful woman scratched her nose -- maybe they're in the sky? -- she concluded.
- Sky? So first we thought that was just a golem, it was fine since we'll be able to deal easily with it, then we thought those were Deathbed Worms, which was still fine, kind of, then we thought it was a facility underground... and now u're saying it's something in the sky? -- man in golden armor said with a strange expression.
- Yeah, you have any other ideas, Mr. I Know Everything? -- beautiful man with a shield and a manly jawline asked, looking dissapointed.
- No, not really. It's just strange that we weren't able to find anything, even thought we can clearly see mountains on the map move -- man in golden armor said, looking dissapointed and somewhat tired... i too am tired, you know? They didn't find anything even though it's right under their noses!
- So what? U're saying that it's in the sky? Sky mountains? Dragons, maybe? Or something from different perspective? No way that is true, this dungeon is of a different type, scanning showed no unusual mana behaviors so the world around doesn't have any mythical creatures... or they're concealed... -- man with a shield was seemingly getting angrier... i am too getting angrier!
- Wait, concealed? -- that beuty realised something! finally! -- maybe the entrance is hidden? Do we have any strong dispel amulets or scrolls with us? Maybe it will reveal something! -- she looked beautiful at the moment, finally realising what the problem really was!
- We dont, but i have strong dispel as a skill, it's at level 7, do you think that will be enough? -- man in golden armor asked, looking at a beautiful woman.
- I dont know, but we should definitely try.-- she said while watching the man in golden armor -- cast it, we'll find out if it's working or not, look around to see any ripples or instabilities in mana -- she then concentrated and mana around her became animate.
Well, since it has come to this point i will not hide anything - they're going to fail. Why? Because level 7 is not enough! What are they thinking? This is an S rank dungeon, this facility under their feet is the greatest achievement of a now fallen empire! Their geniuses were close to ascending and they want to use level 7 skill to see them!? Even an ancient scroll wouldn't be enough!!!
I dont even know anymore, if they fail, what do i do? Go back and continue watching Kerren? No, that's stupid, he's just a porter, but i cant do anything else, really... Maybe?...
Right! I will just meddle! I can simply break off one or two circuits and maybe they will notice?
Then, with a light pop, something happened not too far away from the group, of course, they did notice it!
- Go, faster! Dont lose the exact place from your eyesight! -- man in golden armor screamed
They all arrived and stood around the crack in space, it looked like a hole in reality, it was completely white with red borders quickly "healing" the wound.
Beautiful woman then used some skills, but they were ineffective. She stood for a second and then used her sword mastery to it's limit, finally making the wound bigger.
- Yes, yes! Continue! -- man with a shield screamed, attracting gases of people around them.
To them, it looked like those 3 people were just trying to kill... nothing? But it still felt natural to them, because many people knew that without special methods you cannot see any cracks in space, so they quickly used their skills in hopes of seeing what exactly they were doing.
Many failed, to see the cracks people needed at least level 6 skills, not many people could afford them since they were really expensive, and using items? Nope, they had limited uses unless you knew how to charge them again, so not many of the bunch could even see what was going on.
Beautiful woman continued to use her skill, followed by other two men who also used their strongest skill in hopes of making a hole in concealment shield that hides a facility from them, even tho they're basically standing inside of it.
...
A few dozen on minutes later the hole was big enough for people without skills to see it, one of the first to notice was Kerren, he had an eye for things that could give him some cash... or fun, it was great, he also "used" that eye to steal underwear from the beautiful woman previously...
- Holy! That's the first time i see a barrier of that color! White!? What does that mean!? -- a random man from the crowd screamed.
- Uhhh... Red means battlefield, black is a trap, green is a transporting barrier... blue is... training as far as i remember, white must be concealment! There's something here! Maybe that was what we were looking for all this time?! - another man expressed his thoughts in words.
- Yes! White is concealment, but it's usually closer to being gray, that's the first time i see a barrier of that pure color! Whoever made it was a genius! -- another man whol looked like a smart guy said, he really was smart, but the story is not about him, so yeah...
Some more time later a proper hole was formed. People could look inside and see a facility. It looked like something between an ancient structure and a high-tech lab, the contrast was really something! Here and there you could see things made from some stone-looking material, other places were made with some metal! Aesthetics of the place were perfect!
What every single person here noticed as soon as they put their eyes on the hole was a giant sun above, it was not a real sun of course, those people didn't know it, but in reality that was a Dragon Heart, it supplied the whole facility with an endless amount of mana, the heart that once was in the mightiest and greatest dragon was just a battery now...
Why didn't it look like a proper heart you might ask? Well, that's because whoever built the facility tempered with it! A raw Dragon Heart would probably just explode once made expose so much mana, but since people who took it knew their job - it didn't. By the way, that explosion was enough to destroy the world that was on another end of the exit from the dungeon...
Well, then what about the main bunch of 3? They looked fine, tired, but lively still. They took out some potions from their inventories and drank them, adding more color to their faces.
Then, the man in golden armor used a a communication skill, i dont know what exactly he said, but it must have been something along the lines: "We found what we were looking for, get back to us, here's the location", since a few hours later attack squads 1 and 2 came back from their sole-journeys.
They looked happy and excited, one or two people from the new arrived squads came towards the main 3, chatting with them about all that happened, the amount of recources they got etc. It's not important so let's just skip this part, should we?
Later, after having a conversation for about an hour they decided on something, and people came back to their respective squads, giving orders to people here and there, mostly just collecting whatever was left in porters bags and other stuff that didn't matter in front of such a discovery.
Of course, Kerren was one of those porters whose bag was searched through, but since Kerren was a little special and had a high-level inventory skill he managed to save a lot of materials for himself!
What, you thought that level 4 inventory is bad? Well, it is! But for a porter whose greatest achievent in life is collecting more scraps from bodies than others? It was insanely good! At most, porters had a level 2 inventory skill, which was not bigger than a box, and could not contain something that was filled with mana to the brim, that limitation wore off with level 3 inventory, and those porters were valued a lot more.
But, Kerren not even once in his life exposed that he has an inventory skill, it might be benefical to get more payment and validation, but... if he did that, his yearly income would plummet from ~130 75% A crystal a year to around 80 or so, because he would not be able to steal things from dungeons he came to. Is that what he wanted? Nope, not at all.
In Kerren's eyes, stealing was a noble thing to do. Why? Because his income, even though it was insanely big for a non-awakened, for him? He was poor. He could not even afford to safely grow his powers since it consumed lost and lost of mana crystals, alternative method was a special dungeon that had high mana concentration in air, but those were rare, and if known - Kerren would not be able to go it, they were reserved for the "elite".
With that mindset Kerren was able to live somewhat decently, even though he was poor compared to "real" awakened, he still had way more money compared to other porters, so he didn't think anything about doing it, he was doing it to survive and it's not like those people would care, those 50 gramms of 75% A crystal ware nothing to the likes of a man in golden armor, who wouldn't care if those were 50 gramms of 100% pure crystal.
Anyway, after porters were robbed of everything they had they were sent to a specified camp prepared for them by... other porters, awakened wouldn't spend their time on something like that.
Why were they sent back? Because going around an open-world dungeon and entering a facility or another place were two completely different things! In open world there were almost no dangers, at most they will see some A class monsters in groups which weren't a problem for attack squads, for rare occurences they would see... you guessed it, rare monsters, phoenixes, wild or mad dragons and golems who lost their owners, even though they were dangerous, not to the level they had enough time to bother with a group of people who didn't even attack them.
So, you might ask, what will happen now? Will Kerren just sit and watch as rich got richer? Nope! Up to this point he was thinking about money, his life in general, his life decisions... Yeah, while others were fascinated by the facility, Kerren was fascinated by the Dragon Heart. He was amased by it's sheer power, it was not the first time he was bent on doing something, first case was... underwear.