Chương 1256: 1255. ...New World?

Getting the sorceress away from the allure of demonic monster-spawning tech, the blacksmith sped-run the remaining point of interest indicated by the swarm of golem eyes. Just like the previous places, they found materials ranging from common all the way to some scarce epic resources. Most of them were meant for <Alchemy>, spells, and arcane enchantments, but they also found a few ore veins that were of interest to the Tower Master, or rather his growing crew of blacksmiths.

They had explored roughly three-quarters of the tunnels mapped out by the golems when Seth got another notification, one he had not expected anymore.

"The golems found the exit of the cave system," he exclaimed surprised, to let the sorceress know. He gave a her questioning look. Should they finish prospecting the rest of the tunnels, or take a look at the world above? Technically, their mission here was to find the inhabitants of this place and either strike a deal or close the gate for good, not assessing the land.

"I'm okay with whatever you decide," the sorceress said wistfully. She was still thinking of that ruin. it was not like Seth didn't see the scientific allure of the technology. it was the demonic version of lab-grown super soldiers. An unending supply of strong bodies that could be refined into an army of intelligent, loyal golems, but even Seth knew when to stop.

The blacksmith wouldn't call himself a principled person, but ultimately this was one of the rare occasions where it didn't matter that they could do it, but whether they should. The demonic bard knew enough about the nature of demonic magic and ballads, to knew that these facilities could not come without a horrible price, and, in this case, he was not even talking about the ethical or moral destitute it would take to pull it off. Demon magic like this was like capitalism.

You needed hard cold cash to get things moving, Especially on that scale. Whether this was mana, souls, sacrifices, or things on a higher scale didn't matter to him. He didn't even want the option to make that deal.

"Let's go up and take a look at this world. We can leave prospecting the rest of the tunnels to Tored and the others," the blacksmith decided, to a big part to get Al'Zalsar even further away from the birthing pools. Following the map, Seth quickly led them toward the exit, only prospecting the places on direct route to the exit. So far, they had spent 3 hours in these caves and it took another hour to reach the exit despite knowing the way. The vicinity of the exit was indicated by light brightening the cave.

Al'Zalsar was able to dispel her light soon, as they took a turn and saw light at the end of the tunnel. No weird stench, no weird orange light, came at them was fresh air and bright daylight. Floating at the edge of the entrance was the small golem eye that had found the exit, waiting for them. Seth had ordered it to stay there, so as to not alarm any potential people or monsters outside.

"Any sign?" Seth checked back with Al. Although the presence of monsters had fallen the closer they got to the exit, maybe something was waiting outside for them. The sorceress halted for moment, checking her detection spell. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

"There is a small group of beings, about 50, right opposite the exit, but they are roughly 500m away," the legend informed him. Seth nodded and put on the helmet of Hades to go out first and check the situation. 500m may sound like a lot, but when using magic and system skills, it was surprisingly little. Now undetectable, the blacksmith stepped out of the cave system, not onto a vat oven field, but a massive cavern whose ceiling had collapsed to allow daylight to come in.

Lush greenery was growing on the collapsed debris of the ceiling, a literal cave forest. using <Theia's Vision> Seth was also able to identify the group of being at the other side of this forest. opposite of the entrance to the cave system, was an expansive opening to the giant chamber. Guarding this vast entrance was a small fortification. A castle was built directly into the entrance to the forested cave. The fifty being Al had detected were most likely the crew of this garrison.

taking an even closer look, Seth was able to see the patrol on the walls of their small castle.

"Humans?" he thought surprised. These were neither demons nor the hulking elfs that had attacked the birthing pools. What were normal people doing in an Abyss world? Actually, at this point, Seth began doubting whether this was or ever had been an abyss world. The demons had been killed by someone, the birthing pool was destroyed, and the hell gate was apparently an abandoned relic. The cave system was infested by a horde of monsters and people were guarding the entrance.

Everything painted a different picture, compared to the other worlds they had visited. Albeit curious about what had happened here, Seth had a more pressing question. Was it a good idea to make contact with the people on the surface? If this world was in the hands of humans, then there was a great chance they had the resources Minas Mar was looking for... but if they were people, they would also contest their claim on the resources in the cave system.

After all, unlike demons, they would want the same resources as Minas Mar.

"We will return to Minas Mar for now. We are here to deal with demons, not people. I will leave this question to Mary and the others," the blacksmith said after returning and explaining what he found.

"Al, can you set up a spell, that makes sure none of those guys approach the entrance? I think things would get really annoying if those guys find out that we cleared the cave and they started exploring before we had the time to come to a decision," Seth asked Al, thinking of the possible consequences if they didn't seal off the cave for now.

The guardian tree had gotten rid of the stronger beasts on the lower layers when they rushed into the gate, he and Al had killed a whole bunch of the beasts in the middle layers and cleared them all the way up to the entrance. At this point, nothing would stop those guys from coming in and claiming the fruit of his labor for themselves.

"No problem. The non-deadly kind of blockade, i presume?" the sorceress jokingly made sure before setting up a spell formation, that would stop most things below the legendary level from approaching. After she was done, the two quickly returned to the sapling of the Guardian tree and passed through the hell gate. After spending over six hours in dark, damp caves, it was a real relief to be back in the dry wooden corridor.

"let's take a break and get something to eat. I will talk to Mary and Leana about what we found and then we will pay a visit to the last gate," the blacksmith said. Al nodded and they both ported to the cafeteria to get some fresh meal from Link.

"I have just the thing for you," the gourmet hunter said proudly and gave them two big bowls of soup, with huge chunks of dark meat floating inside. it already looked appetizing, but it smelled incredible.

"I called it Soup of Rhino Strength, yeah, I know. Not the best name, but it described what it will do perfectly," he insisted with a confident smile. They sat down at one of the many tables in the hall to eat their soup. <Ding! You have consumed "Soup of Rhino Strength" and inherited some of the power of the Rhino of Destruction. Strength +1> The very first spoon revealed why Link was so proud of this meal. it gave permanent attribute improvements.

It was not every spoon he ate, but every few he would either gain strength or endurance upon consumption. By the time he finished his bowl, he had gained 5 strength and 12 endurance.

"Unfortunately, this one only works once," Link explained with a wry smile, seeing Seth coming for seconds. Seeing how big the rhino was, there was a ton of this soup, but there were no further improvements after consuming a single bowl. How much one was able to gain, depended on themselves and their current stats. They talked a little longer, eating the strengthening meal, before they decided to continue.