Chapter 286: Act 53 – The King of the Underground (Part 4)
Two people walked in the pitch-black mine tunnel, illuminated only by the faint light from the lighting crystals ahead. The collapses had clearly not only occurred in the area where they fought earlier; Brendel noticed that there were signs of collapses everywhere, with mounds of earth and rocks blocking off most of the passage.
In some places, the path was completely blocked. Although Brendel himself could break through these obstacles, he opted to take detours most of the time to avoid causing a second collapse.
Xi leaned against Brendel, clearly feeling the strong heartbeat of this young lord. Her heart raced in response. The red-haired girl felt a bit flustered and thought she should say something to break the awkward silence, but her mind was a mess, and she didn’t know where to start.
After pondering for a moment, she asked, “What about the others?”
Brendel shook his head. He recalled that he, Xi, Kuran, and Medisa had been separated, while Juliette was even further away, making it impossible for him to know where she went now.
In his mind, he scanned Medisa’s card; the silver card had not turned gray, which at least indicated that the Silver Elf Princess had not encountered any danger.
“I’m not sure, but it doesn’t seem to be a big problem,” he replied, remembering that when the collapse occurred, Medisa should have been sealed with Kuran. Since she hadn’t faced any danger, it was likely that the others were the ones in trouble.
Brendel knew that Medisa was not a match for Kuran on her own.
Xi nodded.
“Are you okay with your wound?” Brendel asked, wondering why this red-haired girl had suddenly become so talkative. He worried whether the blood of the gods might flare up early.
“I’m fine,” Xi quickly changed the topic, “but it’s a bit strange.”
“What’s strange?”
“When we just started fighting with them, I can’t understand how it could lead to such a massive earthquake—”
Brendel fell silent. In fact, he had been questioning this since he regained consciousness. While fighting with four Golden-level powers in a mine was indeed a dangerous thing, they had only exchanged blows a few times, and apart from his first sword technique, the White Crow Sword Art, he hadn’t used any powerful moves.
Even Golden Swordsmen were generally no different from ordinary people; it wasn’t like such people would cause the earth to shake just by stepping into the mine, was it?
It was just that there hadn’t been time to think it over, and looking back now, he found many points of suspicion.
He thought, could it be that they just happened to encounter an earthquake? If so, then Lady Martha’s joke was quite over the top. Regardless of whether it was an earthquake or not, this doubt could only remain speculative until they reached the surface and learned the full extent of the collapse’s impact.
But for now, Brendel had to navigate through these dark, intricate underground tunnels like a mole.
As time went by, he increasingly doubted whether the area he was in had become completely sealed off. It wasn’t until he hit a dead end for the third time and had to turn back that he finally confirmed it.
However, his long search was not without gains; at least he discovered that the elevator he had come up on this level was still operational. The only downside was that this elevator only led to the fourth level.
The fourth level of the mine was segmented and connected to the third level, but the descending fifth level was a complex cave system connected to the Great Beehive, from which one could enter other segments of the fourth level, potentially re-entering the third level from another area.
Brendel had previously inquired with Joeka about the mine; there were five elevators connecting the third and fourth levels. While his current area was sealed off by falling rocks, other regions of the third level might not be.
He quickly made up his mind to take Xi with him into the fourth level in hopes of some luck.
When the elevator crashed against the rock layer and stopped, it made a heavy sound. Brendel was not unfamiliar with this level of the mine; in fact, he had come up from here earlier. The fourth level was equally dark, but under the light of the crystals, Brendel immediately noticed signs of collapse here as well.
He looked up at the loose rock layers and the accumulated mud on the ground, but the rock layers here were more solid, so the damage to the tunnel was far less than that above.
However, Brendel increasingly felt confused. He was more convinced than ever that the earthquake he had encountered was probably coincidental.
But could it really be such a coincidence?
If this truly was an earthquake, then there should have been similar occurrences in the Amber Sword. In the past, Toniger had been considered a transitional area from a lower-level to a mid-level area. Time-wise, some players should have only just arrived here.
He couldn’t help but recall the posts related to earthquakes; there should have been more such posts in Ostan, yet they were quite rare in Erluin. This kind of anomaly should have left some impression in his memory.
However, he thought for a moment and couldn’t remember seeing any related posts on the forum. He suddenly remembered one thing: there had indeed been something related to Toniger on the forum during this period.
It was an odd post—
Brendel recalled that the post was a request for appraisal of cold iron ore and two other unknown items—when the four words “cold iron ore” flashed through Brendel’s mind, it immediately alert him.
He quickly remembered the title of that post; it was: “Large Batch of Cold Iron for Sale, Also Seeking Appraisal of Two Unseen Items.” Truth be told, posts like this were quite common in that era’s forums—after all, players had only been in the game for a few months, and there were too many new things they hadn’t seen before. For Brendel to remember such a post was somewhat demanding.
However, during a time when players couldn’t get their hands on many high-level materials, the sudden appearance of a large batch of cold iron made that post go viral. Some people even questioned the authenticity of the matter, but it also helped Brendel recall the post.
His memory of the post was somewhat vague; he had long forgotten most of its contents and could barely remember that the original poster seemed to have received a quest and discovered two strange items while mining in a cold iron vein.
As for why he took on a quest to mine, Brendel couldn’t recall. Yet he clearly remembered that the strange items were well-known. The first was striped quartz, the first time the Eye Stone appeared on the forum.
The second item, based on the image, he recalled was a silver sphere. This item never reached a conclusion in that post—however, it did not completely vanish from the public’s sight; in fact, later, others found it in more places and learned about the origin of this silver sphere.
The Silver Heritage—
In the Crusian’s Duskgazer Dragon poem, there were accounts of the era before the Age of Chaos, known as the “Twilight” era, before Martha’s creation.
Legend has it that in that age of antiquity, there were people of gold and silver living in chaos, and even “divine peoples” from legends.
One saying is that Martha is one of many divine beings, while another says that Martha was created by the divine peoples. However, what the divine peoples truly were is long lost to time. In fact, apart from ancient myths like the Duskgazer Dragon poem, they never appeared in the world of the Amber Sword—even the vast majority of rumors circulated by bards in crowded places across the continent made no mention of them.
Therefore, just as Martha is referred to as the representative of rules, the divine peoples are seen as the representatives of reality, with players typically considering the divine peoples to refer to the game’s designers. Thus, while Martha possesses a semi-real, semi-virtual existence, the divine peoples should be seen as entirely real, a synonym for “non-existent” in the game.
However, one thing is clear: historical records indicate that it was the divine peoples who led the first generations of gold and silver to create the first batch of sanctuaries, and only then did Martha open the world of Vaunte using these “points” under the support of the Elemental Codex.
The shaping of the world was a long process. The initial golden and silver peoples relied on the sanctuaries to fend off the attacks of the Duskgazer Dragon—up until the last sanctuary recorded in history, the Tower Babel, was breached.
Then came the era when the bloodlines of gold and silver scattered across the land, marking the beginning of the Age of Chaos.
The history before and after has long been lost in the dust, and the bloodlines of gold and silver nearly disappeared while wandering the earth across countless ages. However, the remnants of those sanctuaries have not been completely obliterated.
Just like the fairyland of the Knight King that Brendel entered while leading the refugees of Ridenburg to escape, the remnants of sanctuaries widely exist in this world.
Some are semi-materialized, for example, hidden in the cracks of space and time, like the fairyland.
Some are completely imagined, such as the legendary last fortress at the peak of the world—the Tower Babel.
But there are also some that are completely materialized; most of these are sanctuaries built by the Silver peoples. These sanctuaries were most thoroughly destroyed in the wars; for instance, the Iron Plains sank completely beneath the ground, and the Rune Dwarves nearly became extinct.
Yet some still remain, becoming sacred places today. One of the most famous is the Gateway to Paradise of the Knights’ Order, as far as Brendel knows.
But there are also some lesser-known, such as the Dust-bound Kingdom, Valhalla.
Regardless, some of these sanctuaries are not entirely empty; entering them often allows one to find something, which comprises the heritage of the golden peoples and the heritage of the silver peoples.
In fact, the Golden Apple in Brendel’s hand is a type of golden heritage.
From a quality standpoint, while the heritage of the silver peoples may be somewhat inferior, its effects are not too far behind.
Thinking about this, Brendel could already guess that the earlier earthquake might very well have been caused by a magical resonance triggered by the unearthing of a high-grade holy relic. The Eye Stone, the cold iron—he was almost certain about where this quest was located.
Yet merely relying on the heritage of the silver peoples seemed insufficient to cause such a commotion.
Brendel felt perplexed.
…
(PS. Routine plea for support.) (To be continued. For more chapters, please log in, support the author, support the original reading!)
