บท 37: Chapter 37 : Sneaking Away

The Green-Snout Metal mole joyfully feasted on a huge rock that lay in front of it. Within the rock were metallic black pieces, which were a special metal that was quite common. Despite that, the desolate beasts behaved as if this was the best meal it had ever had in its life.

One could only feel pity for it, as it was clear that the beast was ostracized by its kind to the point that a common metal could arouse such satisfaction from it.

The desolate beasts community, even for the social ones, was one in the form of a pyramid. Those at the top would enjoy all the resources, while those at the bottom would almost have to cater for themselves. It operated by the rule of the strongest fist reigns supreme—a dog-eat-dog world.

However, none of this concerned Lucas. His plan was to move ahead while escaping the senses of the Green-Snout Metal mole. As for killing it? Was that even possible?

The current Lucas, despite all the physical training he did in his spare time, was only on par with a Body Strengthening stage practitioner at the Bones refining step. Even when paired with his signature gloves and a Grade 3 vestige, he could only compare to a first level Apertures Opening stage stellar practitioner in terms of power alone. As for physical abilities like movement speed and reaction speed, Lucas still wasn't there.

In other words, even in his strongest form, a third level Green-Snout Metal mole was beyond him. If he were to face it, Lucas might die without even knowing how.

There was the option to escape and go elsewhere, but he didn't fancy that. The reason was quite simple. The Cicalien Mountains was very big and as previously mentioned, on par with a city. It would take a very long time to search every high and low for the Violent Sun ores. If one were to consider the roaming desolate beasts and other risks within, heaven knows how long it would take and whether Lucas could live through it all.

But the presence of the Green-Snout Metal mole changed it all.

Green-Snout Metal moles typically loved underground and loved to feast on metals; the more precious and powerful the metal was, the greater their desire or gluttony for it. Also, they were social desolate beasts and lived in a pack known as a labour [1]. In a labour, there would be at least an average of one hundred and fifty (150) to two hundred (200) Green-Snout Metal moles. With such numbers, it was easy for them to cover a large part of the outer region of the Cicalien Mountains.

Lucas intended on sneaking into the moles' tunnels and using them to explore the outer region of the mountain range. If there was any Violent Sun ore lode in the outer region, there was a ninety percent (90%) chance that the moles had found it. As long as he followed the explored path of the moles, Lucas would definitely find the lode.

From his position, he could see that there was a hole a few metres away from the Green-Snout Metal mole, which was most likely dug by it. As long as he followed the hole, he would be able to trace it back to their burrow. The problem, however, lay in not only getting past the beast, but also sneakily entering the hole and exploring the burrow while remaining hidden.

For this, Lucas pulled out a couple of talisman. He had made proper preparations before coming here. As for how he made the talismans, it was through using a secret technique from his past life. The talismans required mystical energy[2] to be activated and without being a stellar refiner, Lucas couldn't pull it off. But he was a grandmaster blacksmith and also talented at drawing magical runes, so it was only natural for Lucas to know a few strange methods of manipulating mystical energy without having refined it himself.

However, such methods were limited and difficult to utilise in battle; otherwise, Lucas' fighting strength would have been raised by at least one level.

Of the three talismans he pulled out, one of them was an aura erasing talisman, meant to eliminate his scent as well as seal his aura and heat within himself. Green-Snout Metal moles, due to living most of their lives underground, had bad vision. But to compensate for that, they had evolved to possess infrared vision, which helped them track down predators and live prey. Apart from metals, these moles occasionally ate smaller desolate beasts or creatures for their source of protein.

The second talisman was a cooling talisman. This was to counter the adverse effect of having his body's heat completely sealed inside of himself. At the same time, it could help Lucas outer body's temperature match that of the underground environment since, typically speaking, the underground was colder than the surface.

The third talisman was an invisibility talisman. Compared to the others, this was much more difficult for Lucas to make. The complexities were well above-average and, logically, should have been impossible for someone without mystical, but Lucas managed to pull it off thanks to his experience. However, he could only make two of them.

With all three talismans hanging on him, Lucas browsed through his system inventory and withdrew a pair of boots from his inventory.

After the system had upgraded, following the opening of the store, Lucas could now store foreign objects -which were items not provided by the system- inside the inventory.

The pair of boots were purchased the day before he left, and he modified them right after, improving their ability. The boots were meant to reduce the sound of one's footsteps to the point that it was almost negligible. However, after trying it out, Lucas found out that the advertisement was deceitful, and so he made appropriate changes to it. Now, the boot could mitigate the force one used when walking, even distributing it in such a fashion that the noise generated was truly negligible. He also added cushions, which helped to reduce the sound.

After changing his shoes to the new pair of boots and storing them in the inventory, Lucas prepared to take action.