Chapter 1736: Deep Trouble (Part 2)

She kept each fissure open for barely a second before moving the exit point forward to another dimly lit area. The distortion in space didn't last long enough to be noticed and it was so small that it blended with the shadows.

'You are almost as amazing as Quylla.' Morok said in amazement as Friya drew a map of the mines with water magic without ever taking her eyes off Scope. 'You are saving us hours of crawling between corridors and pointless scouting.'

Nalrond tried to look into the dimensional fissure by standing behind her shoulders, but the swift changes in perspective made him nauseous after a few seconds. 

'Anyone can use Scope, but only a dimensional mage can identify a set of spatial coordinates so quickly without- Sweet mother of all gods!' Her banter was cut short by a scene that looked out of a fairy tale.

The bright violet light had been suddenly replaced by a bright white light so intense that not only did it illuminate the area as bright as day, but it also left Scope no way to move forward.

No matter how small, the dimensional rift would have looked like a small black hole amid all that light. Friya changed the height and the angle of the fissure to make sure that no enemy was around.

The tunnel she had found was filled with pure white crystals the size of a football protruding from the walls. Each one of them had a metal ring of unknown design at its base.

From further down the corridor came the noise typical of mining and chatting, but the echoes and the distance made it impossible to hear them clearly.

'I think we found our enemy.' Morok said while pointing at the devices around the crystals. 'Whoever this guy is, they use goblins and Balors for their dirty work. Don't underestimate them just because they are monsters.

'Among them, there are a few that by wearing those rings around their necks can revert to their unfallen status and use true magic along with their old bloodline abilities.'

Nalrond looked at the new version of the Harmonizers with greed, wishing he could take one off the crystals and wear it.

'I don't care what Faluel wants, this time I must make sure to take one of those things for myself. I'm just like the monsters. I can't Awaken without dying. Yet if the Harmonizers work on me as well, my problem will be finally solved!' He thought.

The group followed Friya's map, reaching the area of the white crystal quickly. From that point, they had to move slowly and always keep in mind the coordinates of a safe location where to Blink in the case they needed to retreat.

They would have loved to move straight toward the source of the noise, but without exploring the rest of the corridors, they would have risked being taken by surprise from enemies coming in their direction.

'I can feel a lot of people ahead of us.' Nalrond placed his hand on the ground, listening to the vibrations running through the rock to have a rough idea of the number and position of the miners.

'What about the rest of the area?' Protector asked.

'Either the corridors are empty or the people in there are awfully quiet.'

'My nose is of no help either.' Protector said. 'The stale air makes it impossible for me to distinguish between old and new smells. To make matters worse, I don't recognize the scent of the creatures in here.

'Whatever they are, they aren't goblins or Balors.'

'Great! We are surrounded by an unknown number of unknown enemies.' Friya inwardly sighed. 'Moving together is too risky. I'll go check the other corridors alone. I just need a few dark areas to use Scope and be done in a few minutes.

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'You guys make sure to watch my back. If anyone comes my way, I need to know as soon as possible.'

She crouched on the ground before peeking behind the corner from a height that was supposed to be out of the line of sight of a humanoid-sized creature. Once Friya made sure that the coast was clear, she Blinked to the side of the nearest corridor and activated Scope.

'I could watch that back for hours.' Nalrond stared at the hunter pants that stuck to her like a second skin while Friya was in a crouched position.

Luckily for him, that kind of mind link required will for the thought to be transmitted so Friya didn't hear him. Unluckily for him, the others weren't blind and it didn't take them long to notice that the Rezar looked in the wrong direction.

Lith created a hologram that said "She asked us to watch her back, not her ass!", Morok took a long, appreciative look at Friya before giving Nalrond a thumbs-up, and Protector mouthed at him to ask her out instead of being a creep.

Friya finished checking on the corridor, Blinking to the next and starting over. After a few minutes, she was done and returned to the group walking to not waste more mana.

'I have good news and I have bad news.' She said via the mind link. 'The good news is that the rest of the area is empty. The bad news is that our enemy has mined a lot of white crystals and is preparing for more.'

Friya shared with the others an image of a stone wall filled with Harmonizers. Lifestream had revealed to her that the metal rings drew the energy of the mana geyser and focused it within them to the point of draining the surrounding area.

In the middle of the metal rings, there was a small deep-red crystal growing at a rate that would allow it to reach full maturity in just a few months instead of years before the refinement process started.

Solus calculated that the pace would be on par with the tower's, turning the red crystals into pure white in about a few years instead of decades.

'Oh, shit! They found a way to grow the crystals without the Balors, but how?' Morok said in shock.

'Like this.' Friya pointed at one of the white crystals that filled the corridor they were in.

At first, no one understood what she meant, pondering why the miners had taken the rest and ignored that particular area. Then, they noticed that the crystal Friya had shown them from her memories was a scaled-down version of the one she pointed at.

'The mana stones in this tunnel managed to grow without interfering with each other, optimizing the space they needed. It's a miracle of nature that's being artificially reproduced in the rest of the mines.' Friya said.

'How did you notice such a thing?' Lith was honestly impressed.

It was a feat that only Solus could have performed thanks to her eidetic memory.

'I didn't, at least at first.' Friya shook her head. 'But at the third corridor, I noticed that the different rune patterns on the Harmonizers were arranged always in the same order. I wasn't sure of my theory until I came back.

'They didn't touch this portion of the mine to use it as a template. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense to use a Harmonizer on a white crystal since they can't grow any further.'

The group nodded and resumed their advance, moving toward the source of the noise. The mining operations had dug most of the crystals, leaving enough dark spaces for Friya to use Scope unnoticed.

It didn't take them long to reach the source of the noise. The group took a good look at the miners thanks to the light emitted from the unmined crystals that made the corridor ahead as bright as day.

'What the actual fuck?' Lith said, taking the words out of everyone's mind.

The creatures in front of them didn't look like anything any of them had ever seen before.

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