Smashin’ rocks is fer amateurs. A real miner, like me, blows shit up. Boom! Here come da shinies!

~Goibniu, The God of the Forge and Brew

Ghosting through the stone, he arrived at the first gap he discovered. The space was barely enough to rest but was larger than his vine dome below. However, this place wasn’t as stable as his previous location, so he found the loose soil in the gaps and used vines to reinforce areas to prevent shifting.

Crow rested after phasing to ensure he was at his peak whenever he was ready to move. After he was sure it was safe, he’d secure the environment and rest. After half a dozen jumps, he found something while using vines to support the ceiling. It was an unnaturally straight shaft that had a gradual upward slope. The only problem was he had to crawl. Using his vision abilities to see in the darkness was taxing on his mental energy, but he didn’t have much choice. As long as he rested his eyes every few hours and cultivated for an hour, it wasn’t that bad.

He could have probably lasted six hours at a time but feared coming across something in those last few hours and not having the mental capacity to fight. While this floor was dangerous for him, Unhulde wouldn’t be able to locate him using magical means. He didn’t have to rush to escape this underground world, but that didn’t stop his anxiousness.

Once he reached the end of the shaft, he found himself in a large natural cavern. The thing that made him nervous was this place looked like a sponge because of all the fist-sized holes. Crow wondered if he wandered into the nest of those grub creatures. The only thing that let him breathe easily was that he didn’t see any sign of those white wiggling beasts.

To be fair, it wasn’t the grubs that bothered him but his ability to fight them. Crow was afraid to use any of his powerful spells because he didn’t want the cavern to collapse on him. It was one thing to ride the stone down as the floor beneath him collapsed. It was another to be on solid ground with everything dropping on him.

Looking around, he didn’t find anything moving. The left side looked like it narrowed down toward a dead end, so he went right. After a time, he came to a massive pit that extended far enough that he couldn’t see the other side. Peeping over the edge, there was nothing to be seen either, just the blackness of a gaping abyss.

Scanning around him, he only found one way forward, a narrow ledge that went around to the left. Along the wall on his left, he saw claw marks. They were old, but the gouges were deep, leaving him wondering what had happened in this place.

It wasn’t until an hour later that he realized what had been bothering him. The path he was walking on was too… clean. There was a lot of dirt and dust, but there were no stones or debris, and the trail was relatively smooth—no dips or raised areas. It looked natural but wasn’t. Someone had made an effort to keep the aesthetics of a cave path without the dangers of misplacing their feet.

Realizing that he was probably in a place others had been previously, he kept on high alert. Based on the dust alone, he knew no one had been here in a long time, but Crow long realized that beasts weren’t as scary as a cultivator protecting their treasures.

“Lily, can you scout ahead for me?” Crow decided he didn’t enjoy having the wall on one side and the abyss on the other. Lily was sensitive to mana, so she was the safest bet.

*Okay.*

Lily arrived as her tiny self, not her current size. Which meant she couldn’t speak to him, but he understood her reasons. Not only was Lily conserving mana, but her tiny size had a lot of hidden benefits, including a higher sensitivity to all energies, not just mana. Kinetic traps also had stored energy that wasn’t related to mana, but Crow wasn’t sure if she sensed that or something else. Even Lily wasn’t sure because it could be related to a fae’s ability to detect danger. Either way, it was helpful to him to have her explore since her presence was so minuscule that it wouldn’t trigger any traps or alarms.

Well… he wasn’t sure that was totally true. Crow could think of several ways to modify traps to capture fae, not that he would want to do that. Still, thinking as someone trying to protect their hideout, if he expected fae to invade, he could think of plenty of ways to prevent their intrusion.

Crow followed behind Lily at a distance and stopped when she did. They followed this same pattern for a day before they rested. Because of his spatial awareness, he knew they were circling around the pit, which wasn’t something he wanted to do. Reaching the surface was his priority because he wanted to leave Witchwood forest before Unhulde had time to prepare for him. The Python’s Tongue was a hot potato because it resonated with the Vodun tomb on this floor.

Another two days followed this pattern until Lily stopped midway through the third day. Crow did the same and waited for her, but she remained unmoving for long enough that he felt uncomfortable. If it wasn’t for her little head turning left and right, he’d have already rushed forward.

Lily flew backward almost two meters before stopping again and waving him forward. A series of hand gestures later, she explained the situation. There was a door hidden here, but when Crow looked around, he felt it was stranger than a trap. The path continued onward, and he still couldn’t see an end. He wasn’t sure if the inclined ledge would lead him out or not, but since he couldn’t see the light above, he had some doubts. The question was whether this door was the way out or he needed to keep following the current path.

“Door or not?” Crow finally asked, and Lily shrugged, causing her full-sized chest, even in her miniature form, to bounce seductively. A detail he wouldn’t have usually paid attention to, so he was concerned about how much mana he’d spent over the last week. “Do you think it’s trapped?”

Lily held up her two hands like a door, then pointed toward his side and shook her head. Pointing at the other side, she waved her hand back and forth, telling him all bets were off. Crow believed in his luck which meant there was almost a guarantee the opposite side of the door would contain plenty of nasty surprises.

Thinking through his situation, Crow also remembered how he got here. The trail ended at a cavern, and he didn’t explore the other end. The people that modified and cleaned this place might have used that cavern below as their trove, and this door might be something else entirely.

Standing in front of where Lily said there was emptiness on the other side, Crow sent a vine through the wall. Even in spectral form, it couldn’t slide through, which meant a formation was present.

Using his mana sense, he investigated everything until he found the trigger. He’d spent all that time only to see Lily pointing at it with a smile and a shake of her head. It was a stone at the bottom of the wall and was obvious once spotted. The switch wasn’t part of the solid stone surrounding it but was easily overlooked by how rough the surface of the cavern was.

Crow stepped forward and kicked it while Lily flew up and landed on his shoulder. Thankfully, they were both to the side of the door because as it opened, a gust of air expelled dust and carried the smell of old death. It was like a tomb, making him even more cautious. Regardless, he stood there for another hour until Lily tapped his cheek.

“Letting it air out,” Crow explained without even looking at her. He already knew what she wanted to know. “Who knows what toxins have been residing in that place, so it’s better to let fresh air in. In fact, I’m fairly certain entering now might be the death of us so let’s way a few more hours.”

Lily sat back down and nestled into his neck. Crow sat down and took a little nap. After he woke, they’d enter.