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The Crying Cave is a massive natural cavern located in the Nala Mountain Range in the central part of Neville. It's more than three hundred kilometers from the southern bank of the Bylgas River. The wide Bylgas River provides abundant groundwater for both banks. Over a long period, the Nala Mountain Range was washed and soaked by underground rivers, eventually forming a complex web-like structure of the Crying Cave. For some unknown reasons, when the wind blows across the cave entrance, the cave will produce intermittent sounds that sound like the desperate cries of humans. Locals named it the Crying Cave. Since the Fourth Epoch, legends have been passed down that evil demons inhabit the cave, and the cries are produced by these creatures torturing the humans who have wandered in. These tales have deterred many from entering the cave, and the brave adventurers who ventured in seldom return.
It wasn't until more than six hundred years ago, in the year 30xx of the Continental Calendar, that people who explored and returned alive gradually increased, and these legends were debunked. People then discovered that there were no evil demons torturing humans in the cave; the reasons for previous adventurers' demise were mostly due to getting lost and demonic creatures.
In the Yarran World, sometimes a power called the demonized energy would gush out from beneath the ground. If creatures are exposed to these energies for long or in high concentration, they would get contaminated, become insane, extremely aggressive, and their abilities greatly enhanced. Some might even undergo physical changes. For this demonized energy, the humans have developed an Array to seal it at its source, but for areas where the demonized energy has no specific source and slowly seeps out, or if its range is too large, there's no solution. Luckily, the demonized energy greatly fears sunlight and can be purified within a few hours under its rays. Even creatures contaminated by demonized energy will collapse if exposed to sunlight for more than ten hours. If not for this, the entire Yarran Continent would probably be overrun by demonized creatures, rather than their presence being confined to caves, underground, and areas with no sunlight as it is now.
"We're back again." Vivian, who is usually lost in her own world, becomes focused after Catherine announces "mission starts" before entering the cave. As they step inside, she points to the two oil lamps hanging on both sides of the cave and says, "In the stories told by seniors at the academy about their adventures, cave exploration was just like this. There were oil lamps on either side of the cave, or the adventurers would carry torches, traversing long tunnels, hunting magical creatures or looking for treasures."
"Actually, those depicted in the stories are just some abandoned mines." Pannis sneers, "There you have tunnels, flat roads, stairs up and down, or vertical ladders. Compared to real caves, those places are like heaven."
"Will we be seeing a real cave soon?" Vivian, who has hardly spoken to Pannis and barely glanced at him, feels exceptionally close to him. As they advance through the tunnel, she naturally reaches out and grabs onto the hem of Pannis's clothes.
Pannis looks at Vivian in surprise, frowns, and brushes her hand away, "Sure, very soon."
Vivian looks up at Pannis with a puzzled expression, pouts a little but doesn't protest and just points out, "It's getting darker up ahead, it seems we're about to leave the safe zone."
"Yes, there are no oil lamps up ahead." Pannis patiently explains about the adventure, "The area with lamps is the safe zone, where magical creatures rarely appear. Even if they do, they're the weakest ones as they're close to the cave entrance and the least demonized. The local Guild branch has set up twenty oil lamps here, usually hiring a retired lower rank professional or a strong ordinary person to replace the lamp oil every five days. Humph, as you know, in many low-rank adventure areas, the Guild has a similar setup. They just like to do these boring things."
"You can't really call it boring," Catherine, following behind, retorts, "These are all low-rank areas, and the Guild is simply trying to protect the newcomers and minimize their losses. After all, there has to be an adjustment period when you first enter the field."
"They might as well assign a nanny to each one of them," Pannis quips sarcastically, but his eyes betray a complicated expression, "If they're not allowed to struggle for survival when faced with death, if they haven't experienced the test of death, then even if they become stronger, in reality, they're just a fancy piece of trash."
Catherine shakes her head and doesn't argue anymore, silently taking a torch from her backpack. Before leaving, they had discussed using torches for lighting before they reached the lower levels of the cave to avoid standing out among the low-level adventurers above.
"The Guild once considered replacing these oil lamps with Crystal lamps," Pannis points to the oil lamp and says as they pass the last one, "Unfortunately, they eventually gave up the idea."
"Why?" Vivian shows great interest in Crystal products, "Crystal lamps are great, the light is stable, and they won't be blown out by the wind."
"The cost is too high. The minimum price for the crystal used for lighting is a thousand Tael, or at the cheapest, twenty gold coins. Even though it can stay lit for three days without attention, it's far more expensive than lamp oil, so the Guild wouldn't be that foolish." While speaking, the four of them had already lit their torches and walked into the darkness.
Darkness is a common attribute of most caves, and also one of the greatest foes for adventurers exploring within. Even though professionals' sensitivity to light far exceeds that of ordinary people, and some races even possess dim vision, these abilities only apply when there is light, albeit weak. In complete darkness, neither dim sight nor superhuman vision is of any use.
Catherine, holding a torch, led the group. Lina and Vivian were in the middle, and Pannis brought up the rear, continuing to describe the distribution of magical creatures in the cave: "Go straight ahead, and you'll encounter three cave entrances. The left one is the territory of demonic rats, the center one is full of demonic bats, and the right one has demonic scorpions. In addition to these three magical creatures, the upper level also has some communities of demonic gnolls, who set up simple traps. If you're lucky enough to encounter a community with a gnoll elder, you may stumble upon powerful magic traps, which are very annoying. Fortunately, the entrance to the lower level is on the left, and it's not far, so we won't need to deal with the rats for long. By the way, you've seen demonic rats before, haven't you? How did you feel?"
"Not bad. None of us are afraid of rats. It's a shame we're on a mission and don't have time to collect demonic rat tails; otherwise, we could make some extra money."
Catherine's casual reply eased Pannis's concerns. Pointing ahead, he said, "Be careful, the first swarm is coming. We need to quicken our pace. Otherwise, the rat swarm will gather in greater numbers, causing us to expend a lot of energy."
Demonic rats are the most common magical creatures in the Crying Cave. Under the pollution of demonized energy, their bodies swelled to the length of a human's shin, with sharp teeth capable of biting off a human arm. The boss-level demonic rats were even larger than domestic dogs, easily gnawing on metal. From afar, over twenty demonic rats formed a carpet on the ground, madly charging towards the four adventurers.
"There's no boss, eh?" Catherine muttered to herself without making a move. It was Vivian who moved. She casually took out an orange potion from one of her many pockets, gently brushed her finger across the mouth of the bottle, murmured something quickly, and tossed the crystal bottle at the rat swarm.
The crystal bottle traced a beautiful arc in the air, conveniently falling into the path of the advancing rat swarm and shattered at the center of the swarm. Accompanying the crisp sound of the shattering crystal, a ball of flames exploded from where the bottle landed, expanding violently in a circle. After burning for about ten seconds, it extinguished, leaving a mark of scorch on the ground. The explosion's impact seemed potent, smashing most of the rats into pieces. Only a few of the strongest managed to survive with their limbs damaged for a few seconds before succumbing to the lingering flames.
Noticing Pannis stumped, looking at her intently after she casually eradicated a group of demonic rats, Vivian glanced down at herself, found nothing unusual, and asked, "What's up? Is there something wrong with me?"
Pannis thoughtfully scrutinized the numerous small pockets all over Vivian's clothing for a moment before asking, "What would you do if you took the wrong potion?"
"Hahaha, impossible." Vivian patted her clothes and laughed, "Never mistake it as all my pockets are filled with the same potion." Seeing Pannis's speechless expression made Vivian even more triumphant, "I fooled you. You dared to touch my hand earlier. Scared now, huh?"
Pannis sighed and pressed his forehead in exasperation, not daring to continue the conversation further. He pointed ahead towards the distance and warned, "Be careful, another swarm is approaching."
"No problem." Vivian then saw a gigantic boss amidst the upcoming swarm of forty to fifty demonic rats. She took out a white potion and, with the same motion, threw it. The potion exploded in the center of the rats, except this time, it unleashed an icy force. The impact of the ice was far more extensive and less powerful than the fire explosion and carried a freezing effect. Over half the rats were turned into ice and shattered under the following impact. Only the boss and a few rats with higher resistance managed to avoid being frozen solid and escaped the fate of shattering, yet they were affected by the freezing effect, slowing them to a quarter of their usual speed.
Before the crystal bottle hit the ground, Catherine gave a soft shout and activated Charge of Fearlessness. Wrapped in her silver chainmail, she transformed into a silver ray of light, her black hair fluttering in the light. As the icy impact just started to fade, Catherine already appeared beside the boss rat. Her one-handed sword struck out like a swift serpent, piercing through the boss's gaping mouth into its brain. She quickly pulled out the sword, so fast that the boss rat didn't even have time to close its mouth. Killing the boss in one thrust, Catherine used the momentum from retracting the sword to perform a Crescent Slash, sending a lunar-shaped blade of energy flying through the surviving rats, killing them all.
Having cleanly eradicated the demonic rats, Catherine turned her gaze to Vivian. Activating her protective charge, she reappeared in front of Vivian in the blink of an eye, as if she had never left.