As John ventured deeper in mine all he was hearing was the noise of his own footsteps and the shallow sound of his breathing.

It had been already 30 minutes since he entered the mine, and he had yet to find a single creature.

He walked very slowly while carefully looking everywhere. There was no light source but his flashlight.

Now and then he would find some mineral ores that were left behind by the miners and he would impolitely take them for himself. Coal, iron, silver, gold, and occasionally some gems, that was what he was able to find.

"Hm?" John saw that in front of him the path divide in two. The footsteps show that they went to the right tunnel, the left tunnel was shrouded in darkness.

John pointed the flashlight at the left tunnel and saw that there was a building right at the end.

He decided to check out the wood building at the left side first.

As he approached the wood building he was able to see more clearly the infrastructure. It looked like a countryside wood shack, not big and neither small.

He stopped by the door and placed his ear in the wood frame to try to listen if there was something or someone inside.

Nothing. There was no audible sound coming from inside. John carefully opened the door and peeked through the small opening.

Using the flashlight he was able to see what it looked like inside.

There was no furniture inside, just a lot of metal boxes.

He used the flashlight to illuminate the ceiling. The was some creatures dangling in the ceiling. They looked like bats, but they were at least twice bigger and they, strangely enough, had some big tongues coming out from their mouths.

Batongs. The name of this creatures. They often reside in caves from all types of planets. Their existence was recorded inside the Universal Bestiary Codex. This Codex was created by the Terrene Protectorate joining hands with all the races and Explorers. The Codex record all the creatures that were found from across all the possible planets in the universe. One of the few joint research made by all the races.

Batongs don't have eyes, they use their big and developed tongues to taste the particles in the air and this allow them to sense what is ahead of them. They are twice as big as Earth's bats and their entire body is completely colored black, while their tongues in crimson red. They are carnivorous and they often practice cannibalism in time of food shortage. What is threatening is the fact that in their tongues there are small spikes that contain a powerful paralyzer poison capable of causing the heart to stop beating in mere seconds.

John silently opened the door with one hand and he used his other one to store the pistol and retrieve the Razor Feathers, a name that John came up for those feathers he took from the colorful bird, with the same hand. On his way toward the mine he had killed some more of those birds and he accumulated almost 300 of Razor Feathers.

With the flashlight in one hand and Razor Feathers in the other he finished opening the door.

With a fast motion he threw 3 Razor Feathers into the flock of Batongs. He turned around and hastily withdrew from the door. He kept his distance and waited, soon enough he heard some shrieks coming from inside the shack.

In no time flocks of Batongs started to leave the shack from the narrow door, searching for the insolent who dared to kill some of their own.

John sinisterly smiled and started throwing a bunch of Razor Feathers into the door. He didn't need to actually aim, since the door was narrow he just need to throw forward and there would be almost 100% sure to hit one of the Batongs.

In a few seconds he threw more than 10 Razor Feathers, by the next minutes it had reached almost a 100 Razor Feathers, he continued until he saw that no more Batongs were leaving the shack. He started to approach when suddently a Batong dashed out of the door toward John.

John took a step to the side, dodging the charge, and he threw 3 more Razor Feathers at the same time.

The Batong swiftly flew around making the Razor Feathers miss the target, but John took the chance to charge toward the creature with the hunting knife in his hand.

He kicked the ground and jumped high enough to reach the Batong. With a swift move the knife cut one of the creature's wing, making the bat fall directly on the ground.

John then gave the finishing blow by piercing the head.

He cleaned the blood of the knife and stored it, then proceeded to retrieve the bodies of the Batongs, he would deal with the bodies once he left the mine.

John took and cleaned the Razor Feathers that were in the ground.

After he finished cleaning he once again entered the shack. He looked around and found a switch beside the door, he flipped it and then the old lamp on the ceiling turned on.

With the help of the light coming from the lamp, John started to open one of the metal containers.

Just as he opened one of them he saw a faint reddish light coming from inside.

He curiously looked inside and saw that there a pile of oval red stones that kept emitting the red light.

John reached his hand to take closer look. The moment he touched the red stone he heard S.A.I.L's voice, "You discovered a Core Fragment" It said, "These naturally occurring crystals are commonly found near the core of a planet. They produce energy for a long period of time. They are often used as batteries or grinded into powder to produce explosives. I suggest that you collect as much as you can, they have all kinds of uses, and it might help you in the future"

John looked at the crystal in his hand. It was the size of his palm and was warm at the touch. He fallowed the S.A.I.L's suggestion and absorbed all the Core Fragments into his Inventory.

He opened the next container and then the next. All of them was filled with Core Fragments. Each container had about 20 of Core Fragments.

John had collected almost 100 Core Fragments when he heard something.

He stopped what he was doing, closed his eyes and tried to hear carefully.

*Bang*

He was able to hear it. The sound of gunshots echoing through the abandoned mine.

He hurriedly left the shack and returned to the bifurcation.

*Bang, Bang, Bang... *

The sound of multiple gunshots were coming from the right passage, where the footprints were.

John took his pistol and flashlight again. He entered the right passage and started to walk deeper into the abandoned mine.