Over the course of the next six days, Alex delved deeper into the poison pits, hunting and refining the materials from the poisonous Newts.
Alex repeated the things he did on the first day, and with each passing day, he grew more familiar with the treacherous area and the creatures that inhabited it.
The Newts' lairs became larger and more dangerous, some even housing multiple creatures of the peak Fourth Rank, making the battles more challenging and requiring Alex to adapt his tactics to handle the increasing threats.
Alex took a break after clearing a new lair of poison newts and took that time to focus on refining Ricin's dominant bloodline into the Venomous Virulent while also refining his own skills.
As the days passed, the refinement of Ricin's bloodline continued, and the changes in him became even more profound as with session, his appearance, physique, and even nature gradually changed.
Ricin's body became leaner and more streamlined as his physical transformation progressed, resembling a predator that could glide through the air with deadly grace.
Ricin's nature which was only that of an innocent child who loved to eat and get attention from Alex, also underwent a shift, with him now having an air of deadly grace surrounding him, his eyes caring a pearl of enigmatic wisdom as if tapping into the ancient instincts of his species.
Ricin's affinity with poisons and venoms deepened while he also developed an affinity with plague, an extremely rare poison variant, and unlocked a few skills of its nature.
As the days passed, Alex also worked on improving his abilities, getting attuned to his enhanced capabilities, and making significant progress.
Alex faced various challenges throughout the days, but each challenge made him get closer to his goal, with his level rising at an incredible pace with him, gaining 24 levels in the last seven days.
Alex didn't leave the mines even for a moment, dedicating himself entirely to his tasks. He only took a short break every two days to log out before returning to the relentless pursuit of refining Ricin's bloodline and hunting for materials.
The bloodline refinement process for Ricin's bloodline was completed on the Fifth day, and Alex watched with anticipation for his companion to emerge from the red mist, eager to see his final transformation.
However, when the red mist dissipated, Alex was startled to find that it was not Ricin who stood before him, but instead, it was a dark red egg-like cocoon pulsing with a weak aura covered in small veins.
At first, Alex felt a surge of worry and panic, but he soon realized that this was a natural part of the bloodline refinement process, and the cocoon indicated that Ricin's transformation had not yet reached its final stage.
Alex felt a bit disappointed as he was eager to see Ricin's final changes, but he couldn't do anything other than wait patiently and let nature take its course.
Alex kept a watchful eye on the cocoon over the next two days, observing its drastic growth in size, knowing that Ricin was undergoing a metamorphosis, but even at the end of the seventh day, there were no signs of the cocoon breaking apart.
On the seventh day, Alex refined the last of Etherealite Shards, and now having collected a good amount of them with the week coming to an end, he left the mines with the plan of performing the heist.
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After leaving the mines, Alex returned to Silverridge City and went to a hotel before informing his guardians about his plan to steal a magical grimoire from Morgan's collection vault and told them that he wanted them to do nothing until the situation was out of his control.
Elder Darrien asked no questions about his theft purposes, but he did inform Alex of some critical information, with it being that Morgan's collection vault was located right under Aureate Merchect Group's main building.
All the items in the vault were protected by high-Rank barriers, with there also being other trap barriers in place, with the outside of the vault having a space distortion barrier in place that prevented teleportation skills from working.
Elder Darrien told Alex such detailed information to inform him head-on that if he triggered any alarm, then the Elemental Ruler protecting Morgan from the shadows would most likely use his Elemental domain to cut off any route of his escape route and even his Temporal Beacon skill wouldn't work.
If Alex could escape in time, good, but if not, then Elder Darrien will need to take action and most likely would end up killing quite some individuals because a clash with even an early-stage elemental Ruler would'nt end without creating chaos in the city.
For a moment, Alex thought of outright abandoning the heist because so much could go wrong with his guardian being unable to provide any help without alerting Morgan.
Alex understood that if a fight broke out between two Elemental Rulers, no matter how short, thousands upon thousands of individuals would get killed, and he would be the reason for their deaths.
Lady Margaret seeing Alex in a dilemma, comforted him, telling him that he just needed to use his magical eyes to detect any trap and remove them using the selective refinement skill.
As for the risk of a battle breaking out, Lady Margaret promised she would make sure that no innocent lives were lost, and if he still didn't want to do it, then she could acquire the grimoire for him by simply threatening Morgan.
After getting some reassurance, Alex decided to do the heist but rethink his plan, knowing that the previous idea of cleaning the whole vault of everything was not happening because the more time he spent in the vault, the higher the chances of things going haywire.
Alex understood that time was of the essence to pull the heist perfectly, so he planned to enter the vault in an Intangible state before swiftly locating every barrier that could give his presence away.
After the barriers were located, quickly locate the best of the best items in the vault that came in the two hundred meter range with them, numbering a total of ten as it was the current limit of Selective refinement skill.
After the barriers were refined and removed, Alex needed to take away every item before using the Temporal Beacon skill to leave the vault.
Alex still had many concerns about his plan, but he couldn't do anything about them, so after calming his emotion, he got ready to act upon it.
'Let's hope everything works out without any major issues,' Alex thought as he drank an intangibility potion and used the Invisibility skill from his old cloak to be extra careful.
"Wish me good Luck," Alex said, looking toward Lady Margaret, who stood beside him.
Alex took a deep breath as he activated the Temporal Beacon skill, selecting the marked location inside the vault, and in mere seconds, he got covered by temporal energy.
Alex's sight turned dark momentarily as he vanished from the hotel room and arrived at his destination, and as he regained his sight, he found himself standing in a room filled with a magnificent collection of rare and powerful artifacts.
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