Without his mana eyes ensuring his safety, Jason ascended the elemental crystal cave slowly, while trying to understand what happened.
'For instance...My mana eyes are not perfect, even though I can see quite a lot, they're not capable of perceiving everything...In the end, it's pretty rare to see something without any mana fluctuations at all but that doesn't mean I can rely on my mana eyes to 100%...F*ck!! What am I even doing?!
This untraceable Drake seems to be a beast underground and they're most likely unable to find me.
Without mana fluctuations, their senses should be worse than other beasts…I think?'
Thinking about all of this, Jason couldn't help but sigh inwardly, not without forgetting to activate his mana eyes in order to know where the small human group from above would be, even if he couldn't trust them fully anymore, they still helped him.
Their small group was far away from his and Jason took only tunnels that wouldn't overlap with the others, as he perceived something particular, causing goosebumps to spread all over his skin.
'Why now?' Jason wondered as he saw a mass of humans at the Master rank entering the elemental crystals cavern entrance.
Without knowing if any of these groups came from the government or if they're all hunters venturing into the four-star rift in order to gain something, Jason had to acknowledge that he was in a tricky situation.
But what was even worse, was that the large human group stayed at the entrance, without doing much.
At least that was what Jason could perceive and he estimated that they established a small camp in order to stay at the cavern entrance for the time being, which caused him a great headache.
'Walking past them like a passerby won't work, huh?' he asked himself, and even without anyone answering, Jason knew the answer.
With his current mana core rank, he could be considered as a pushover at most, which wasn't really how Jason imagined his trip inside the elemental crystal cave to end.
If at least Malia was with him, he wouldn't feel so powerless.
Suddenly Jason recalled Lin and Lux who shot at the magical ranked python without caring about his life at all.
'Or did Lux aim at me?' Jason wondered while Lux's smile appeared in his memory once again.
'I hope Malia is fine….' He thought....feeling guilty that he convinced Malia to enter the four-star rift.
Malia and the Fler's were the only humans he could trust the most while Shane and Dalia were ranked immediately after them.
Even if Jason trusted his masters to a certain extent, he wasn't sure if they only used him for their goals or not.
It was unlikely, but he would probably need some more time to figure out everything for himself.
As such, he couldn't give his full trust to them, at least for now.
If something happened to Malia, Jason wouldn't be able to face the Fler's and even less Greg, as a small trace of guilt filled his mind.
However, even if he felt slightly guilty, it was not as if he forced anyone of the expedition team to enter the materialized four-star rift within Cyro-City.
In the end, everyone decided for themselves and nobody was forced, which relieved Jason's sense of guilt a tiny bit.
Jason still sincerely hoped that she was fine and healthy, but he was likely to face more threatening situations than her, alone from the vast gap of strength between the two of them.
Looking back every now and then in order to figure out if an Untraceable Drake, Jason called them, followed him, he could only be glad that this was not the case.
Meanwhile, Jason continued to approach the cave's upper layers, while he became slightly nervous.
After two hours, the presumed human camp was fully established and smaller groups ventured into the four tunnels, only to find a few collapsed paths.
As such, they were forced to free them, without worsening the situation within the cave.
This would most likely take some time and was the only thing Jason found slightly advantageous.
Due to the construction work, these groups had to do, the number of groups venturing deeper into the cave decreased by a large margin.
'Oh!' After another hour passed, Jason was already quite close to the other groups, when he noticed that the first group that arrived inside the cave, met one of the many small groups that had to split up.
But only, now, upon looking closer, Jason noticed something important, his mana eyes couldn't perceive before when he was deep within the cave, as his eyes widened involuntarily.
'The first small group included only one human, with three….undead human-like beings?!! Is that LUX??' Previously his mana eyes couldn't perceive the transmuted mana, because he was too far away from them while his mana eyes' accuracy was altered by the surrounding mana.
There were thousands of tons of soil between them and each grain, pebble, crystal, and so on released mana fluctuations.
As such, it was only normal for his mana eyes to see not everything through soil far away.
But sensing that Lux was nearby him, caused him to frown, while his eyes turned slightly red in anger.
However, even if Jason was extremely angry and Lux, there was something important he couldn't deny at all.
'How did his strength increase this much in such a short time?' Jason wondered, as his eyes widened in shock, and he rubbed them subconsciously.
Even after rubbing them several times, Jason thought he was in a dream, as he saw ten undead unblemished ranked beasts with dozens of undead evolved ranked beasts emerging next to him.
"WHAT?!" He exclaimed and he could now see 13 undead unblemished ranked human-shaped beings standing next to dozens of undead evolved ranked beasts…
'How?.. The soul energy to contract so many beasts is vast…..At least 10.000 units...but...how did he suddenly obtain so many undead beings??'
Jason didn't know what exactly to think anymore, as he remembered the remaining expedition team members looking around pitifully.
'Did I misunderstand everything?! But isn't an undead awakening, banned in the government?... Why did he suddenly reveal so many undead soulbonds? With 10.000 soul energy units, he could contract a late-magical ranked beast or almost a guardian ranked beast…. Why so many lower-ranked beasts and why now?'
Without seeing how large Lux's mana core exactly was, Jason couldn't tell for sure if Lux used a forbidden undead awakening ceremony in order to obtain more soulbonds, but from his former inspection, Jason was almost sure that Lux shouldn't have had so many soulbonds when they ventured into the four-star rift.
Furthermore, from the rarity of intact, high-ranked undead beings, Jason concluded that something was extremely foul!!
'What the hell is going on?!'
Jason subconsciously halted his steps, as he focused his attention on the battle that broke out above him, causing loud noises to resounded throughout the whole cave.
What was even more shocking, was the thick dense aura seeping through the cave, reaching Jason.
Retching a few times, Jason's body adjusted to the thick dense aura, as he perceived multiple condensed elemental attacks thrown towards the small skeleton army, that accepted them, as if they were nothing, barely pushing them back a few meters.
The number of undead beings overwhelmed the small human group and their summoned soulbonds and Jason witnessed his first murder, even though it was through the soil and quite a distance away...
'F**k!' He exclaimed and his sour mood plummeted further, as he barely perceived something within Lux's hands that glowed like the blood elemental crystals he picked up before, only much more condensed and with a death-aura intertwining within.
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