Cronix left the water magic crystal in the roof alone, he used the rest of the formation's time finding only one extra crystal.

Although Cronix used more than half of the formations that took months to create, he didn't regret it a single bit. The discovery of the water magic crystal made it all worth it.

After turning in the crystals Cronix walked out the mine, through the forest and hurried home.

He wanted to make even more energy sensing arrays, he felt like his understanding of formations increased in a different type of way.

But now he also has a new goal. His new goal is to create a different formation, the Energy Sealing Arrangement.

With this formation, he would be able to hide magical signatures from people whose mental energy level was below him, so basically most of Alktarsha.

And since the security formation at the entrance of the cave was so basic, the energy sealing arrangement should be able to mask the energy signatures from it as well.

If the reason for his interest in this formation wasn't obvious, then to put it simply, Cronix was planning to steal the water crystal right under everyone's noses.

After becoming a four star Caster Cronix had made zero improvements towards his fifth star, mostly because he didn't have the time.

But another reason was because the fifth star was simply more difficult than the other stars, but If he could absorb the water crystal, reaching the five star Caster stage would definitely be a breeze.

But this could be very dangerous if he was caught, he didn't know how he would get punished, but the M.M.C was a very big company and if they wanted to kill him, it would be extremely simple.

When Cronix got home, he went straight to his room, passed the listless crow. He went through the formation book and looked over the Energy Sealing Arrangement.

He found it to be on a similar level to the energy sensing array, they both had 15 lines and five primary lines, and thanks to his experience with the energy sensing array, it wouldn't take as long for him to get it working.

He looked over the lines, and created a draft. The purpose of the draft was to create the structure, and how the lines connect with each other.

But Cronix did something different than last time, he finally found a way to properly analyze problems if things went wrong.

When he began working on the energy sealing arrangement, he didn't use the original draft, but traced it over with another paper, so if things went wrong he still had the original to find out why.

It took him three days to create the arrangement, and just like with the energy sealing array, the first time failed and it exploded.

Cronix sighed and grabbed the original draft. He already expected the formation to explode. It was wishful thinking to think he could get it right on the first try, but it was still disappointing.

Going through the original draft was actually helpful, for example, he easily found that one of the secondary lines was going through the wrong route interfering with a primary line.

It took some awhile, but he was eventually able to get the energy sealing arrangement working. This time it only took me a week to get it working, but its power is still not enough.

The current energy sealing arrangement had a similar time limit as the energy sensing array, but five minutes wasn't going to be enough to get the water crystal out.

Cronix shook his head, and started working on another arrangement. Two more weeks passed by and thanks to his experience and new way of making formations, Cronix got the energy sealing arrangement to last up to seven minutes.

But it still wasn't enough time in Cronix's opinion. He wanted there to be enough time to last at least 10 minutes.

Thankfully, he had a solution to that, in the formation book there were chapters on the different materials to use to make a higher quality formation.

While it's going to hurt, it's the easiest way to make a higher quality formation

Cronix grabbed his tail with his right arm, his tail looked like a lion's tail except for the dagger-like claw at the end, he positioned the claw right on top of a vein in his left arm.

With his eyes closed, he used his tail like a knife and cut into his arm, bright red liquid started dripping from his arm. Cronix gritted his teeth and dripped his blood inside a bottle.

Cronix didn't have any bandages so he had to improvise, he got some fabric from inside his magic bag, wrapped his arm in them, and sewed it shut.

He felt a bit faint and his face was pale, but he looked at his work with a semi-satisfied smile.

Cronix then grabbed a brush out of his magic bag, dipped it in his blood, then started drawing the energy seal arrangements, while infusing his mental energy inside the blood.

This is what Cronix did the whole week.

In the end he only made four blood energy sealing arrangements, but now it was the time to test one of them.

When it came to the energy sealing arrangement there was only one test Cronix needed to do, and that was time.

Doing any other test was useless for now, as long as someone was in the Caster stage then they wouldn't be able to sense any energy signatures the arrangement was sealing.

Cronix was currently too weak when it came to mental energy to hide anything from the higher stages.

Cronix flipped his hourglass over and activated the arrangement. The original energy sealing arrangement already lasted seven minutes, how long will it last now?

After waiting longer than ten minutes the formation exploded. Cronix checked the hour glass and a small smile rose on his face.

It lasted for 12 minutes! That's all I need.

Cronix packed all his formations in his magic bag, but there was still one more task that needed to be done.

Since Cronix only had a low quality magic bag, he couldn't contain anything that had too much magic or mental energy inside.

So while Cronix could keep low tier lower grade crystals inside his bag, which were most of his crystals, he couldn't place any activated formations or attributed crystals inside.

There was actually a simple solution to this, Cronix grabbed his cloak, some black fabrics and his sewing kit.

Cronix laid the fabrics on the back of the cloak underneath the formation Cronix still couldn't name. He grabbed a needle and some string, creating a pocket big enough for the crystal and the arrangement.

Since the mysterious formation is able to hide my wings, it should be able to hide whatever I put in this pocket.

Cronix packed all his formations and other equipment he took out and silently began working on his fourth star.

The next morning Cronix made his way to the mines, the administrator at the adit was only in the Caster stage today which was a relief.

Cronix walked to the third level but before he entered, he also had to find out who was in charge of the third level.

The man in charge had black hair, dark eyes, and looked to be either 18 or 19. He was wearing all black, with a jacket over his shirt.

But Cronix was able to get a glimpse of a family emblem on the left side of his shirt the size of a pocket that he didn't recognize.

The emblem had a huge flame consuming the entire world with the only remaining survivors being a giant orange A in the middle, a sword on the left side of the A and an axe on the right.

With the way the man was presenting himself, it seemed like he was trying to hide the emblem.

A relieved smile appeared on Cronix's face, Thank goodness it's only Tornic.

Tornic was still in the Caster stage with five stars, and although it was higher than Cronix, the energy sealing arrangement could hide energy signatures from everyone in the Caster stage.

Cronix casually strolled into the third level trying to not look suspicious and made his way to the dead part of the mine again.

But how could he not look suspicious, his entire being was suspicious, especially with how he always wore a cloak in the mines.

The moment he entered the mine, he already caught Tornic's attention, and Tornic already noticed the way Cronix peeked at him.

Tornic frowned but he didn't have any real excuse to stop Cronix so he just left him alone.

But this didn't stop him from watching which direction Cronix went, and when he saw him enter eastern tunnel, his frown deepened.

Cronix only had to glance around the mine for little before being completely sure he was alone, no one really ever came to this part of the mine.

Cronix took out and activated a normal five minute energy sensing array to locate the water crystal again. Once located, with a bit of hesitation, he destroyed the roof with a dark magic blast.

The water crystal let out an aura distinctive to the water element, but its magic power was a bit weak.

This is only a mid tier lower grade crystal, should I take the risk of stealing it?

Cronix shook his head and cleared these thoughts,

we already spent so much time creating the energy sealing arrangement, it would be a waste if we simply turned it in, and what will we get in return, a smaller attributed crystal or a normal crystal?

He took out a red energy sealing arrangement and placed the water crystal in the center. The crystal's aura vanished.

He grabbed the formation and put it away in the hidden pocket in his cloak. He only had about 12 minutes until the blood formation exploded.

Cronix didn't hesitate to rush out of the mine, but a man stepped in front of him. The man was none other than Tornic, "What's with rush man, didn't you just get here?"

"Rush? Well it's... because I forgot to feed my bird." Even with all of Cronix's preparation he somehow couldn't come up with any good excuses in case of this event.

Panic was began setting in, he knew he didn't have much time and he couldn't afford to waste any.

Tornic didn't look convinced, "Why so nervous, got something to hide?"

Cronix only shook his head, and subconsciously backed away a few steps.

"You know I wonder why you wear a cloak even in such a dark mine, aren't you uncomfortable?" Tornic spoke very comfortably, and put his hand on Cronix's shoulder, which in turn caused Cronix to flinch.

"Woah, is there really a need to be so nervous?" Tornic asked, his tone contained a hint of suspicion.

"I'm nervous because my bird might die if I don't feed it!" Cronix exclaimed.

His sudden burst of emotion caught Tornic off guard, and it wasn't like Tornic had any real excuse to keep him here, even if his excuse was bullcrap, "Okay, okay, go feed your bird."

Tornic finally let Cronix Leave, with Cronix's heart pounding by the end of it.

As he ran through the tunnel leading up to the upper levels, the pounding of his heart only got stronger,

Now it was time for the real challenge, to test if the energy sealing arrangement worked against the entrance formation. They were both basic formations, so the energy sealing arrangement should work.

Cronix slowly walked out of the mine and... nothing happened. He let out a sigh of relief and ran off. His heart was racing, both from fear and excitement.

Cronix dashed through the forest trail, constantly looking over his shoulder; he wasn't even 50 feet from the mines when an explosion suddenly launched his body forward.

The energy sealing arrangement finally exploded, destroying the makeshift pocket Cronix created, but strangely the cloak itself was okay.

Cronix quickly stood up and continued the run through the forest trail, putting the crystal into the cloak's real pocket, he didn't slow down even when he made it to town.

Cronix didn't stop running until he slammed his house door.

The crow sent a peculiar gaze and flew closer to him. Cronix had an excited expression on his face, he grabbed the animal and laughed out loud, "I did it, I got an attributed crystal!"

The crow was startled, and spread its wings to escape. Cronix simply laughed and let it go.

He stopped paying any attention to it and went to his room. He reached out into his cloak's pocket and took out the water crystal, it lightly illuminated the room an aqua blue color.

Cronix felt the magic in his body go crazy, like a poor man suddenly finding gold. He sat cross legged on his bed, and focused on absorbing the crystal in his hands.

....

(Nightfall)

Tornic couldn't get his interaction with the cloaked kid's out of his head, it was just too weird.

There is something off about his behavior, he was definitely hiding something, I just don't know what.

"Don't you think the southern tunnel of the fourth level is going to become a dead vein soon?"

"It's going to happen eventually if Arthur Mott keeps mining there."

Tornic was pulled out of his thoughts by the conversation of the two miners.

Dead vein? Now that I think about it, didn't that cloaked boy go inside the eastern dead vein?

Tornic followed the same path Cronix went too early in the day, he found himself in the secluded part of the mine known as the eastern dead vein.

Tornic looked around for a bit,

There was no sign of any mining here except...

There were a pile of rocks of the floor, they were jagged and rough,

These rocks were broken off, but from where?

Tornic looked at the walls of the mine, it was as he thought, there has been no mining here for a long while.

In fact in the almost two years Cronix worked at the mines, he's hadn't seen anyone mine here before.

Maybe if I use...

Tornic closed his eyes, and although he just learned this skill and wasn't proficient in it, he knew enough on how to use it.

A strange formless, colorless energy left Tornic's body and using that energy he examined the whole area.

If Cronix was here, he would've been awestruck, the skill Tornic was using required mental energy, and it allowed the user to examine everything in range while only using their mental energy.

Tornic found the location where the rocks were destroyed, it was the roof right above him.

Why did he destroy the roof?

Tornic had no doubt that this was Cronix's doing, like Cronix he has never seen anyone else come here in a long time.

Using his mental energy he examined the destroyed roof more carefully, and it was there where he felt it, the faint magic signature of an attributed crystal.

Others may not have felt it, but with Tronic's mental energy, as long as he focused on the spot he could feel it clearly.

So, it's a water attribute, while I'm not talented in that area, it could've still have been useful, bummer. But that doesn't matter as much as the method of how he got the crystal out.

Greed slowly started to fill his eyes, "This could help me reach my goal."