Zalroth pulled a baseball-sized orange mana crystal cluster from the ground as the kid adventurers hurried over to a patch of crystally orange flowers, with a ray of light shining apon them from a crack in the ceiling with the occasional drop of orange liquid dripping out of it.
"Woah, there's some many Crystallized Earth Flowers," Milly mentioned. The other kids agreed as they carefully picked the flowers and placed them into a handbag with an earth magic sigil, a square magic stone with an earth magic circle engraved into it.
"I wonder if the adventurer's guild increased this area's danger rank because there was a critical mana reaction at the bottom of the cave." Minia wondered.
"That seems unlikely since the cave would've been completely closed off if that were the case," Zalroth stated. Minia murmured to herself as she rolled over and buried her face into one of Zalroth's tails. The ground began to slightly shake and Minia darted her head up. Zalroth sighed and grabbed Minia by the hood of her winter coat with one of his tails. He placed Minia on the ground and started to walk over to the entrance of the cavern as the intensity of the shakes became more violent.
"You're on support duty," Zalroth instructed. Minia looked surprised at Zalroth and frowned.
"Why?" Minia asked as she help her arms outwards.
"We don't need you dissolving the cave into mush.". Minia defeated sighed and crossed her arms.
"Fine...". Zalroth and Minia got into fighting stances as a dome-shaped magic shield, with a faint silver aura around it, formed over Milly and the others. The shaking began to ramp up and morphed into violent quakes with the sound of loud quick heavy stomps echoing through the cavern entrance.
A cyan light beamed through the entrance with its brightness increasing in intensity, as the thing creating the heavy stomps was seconds away. Cracks sprawled across the wall connected to the cavern's entrance with the cyan light breaking through before the wall exploded into a giant wall of dust as the cyan light faded. Minia got into a more defensive stance while a delighted grin adorned Zalroth's face.
A wolf's howl echoed into the cavern before a large barrage of cyan lightning bolts erupted out from the dust cloud. Zalroth responded by hopping into the air and swinging his leg horizontally creating a large Lightning Serpent (the curved barrier with the snake pattern). The lightning bolts collided with the Lightning Serpent and ricocheted off it before hitting the walls of the cavern. The Lightning Serpent dispersed and Zalroth continued to walk toward the dust cloud.
Zinvalia's dire wolf golem bursted out of the dust cloud and charged at Zalroth. Zalroth came to a stop and slammed his fist together with a confident expression. His sun tattoos began to glow before white and black mana particles condensed around his body; the white magic particles condensing around his right forearm, fist, calf and foot while the black magic particles condensing around his left forearm, fist, calf and foot.
The dire wolf golem came to a stop and lunged one of its snake tails at Zalroth while encasing it in lightning magic. Zalroth pulled his right fist and hurled it through the head of the snake tail shattering it into pieces. The golem pulled the headless snake tail back with the rubble of the head trailing behind it. The snake head started to cobble back together but was pierced by a long black gelatin tendril Minia shot out from her hair. She quickly retracted the tendril back into her hair leaving a hole in the cobbled snake head that rapidly dissolved into mush and melted the end of the headless snake tail. Minia tried to stab another one of the golem's tail's snake heads with her hair but the golem easily leapt out of the way. The dire wolf golem landed back on the ground, sending out a tremor that knocked Minia off balance while Zalroth was unfazed, with the ground below him shining a faint silver until the tremors stopped.
"Are you sure I can't flatten that thing with a-".
"No!" Zalroth sternly said. Minia groaned and purposely kicked a rock that struck Zalroth in the back of the head. Zalroth looked behind himself with a confused expression and noticed Minia sticking her tongue out at him. The dire wolf golem tried to tail swipe Zalroth but he backflipped over the tails. He quickly condensed the magic particles around his right hand into a blade and severed two of the stone snake heads. He landed on the ground and kicked the two snake heads with a wind blast at Minia. Minia angerly huffed and formed two large hands out of her hair that she used to smash the snake heads mid-air before quickly retracting the gelatin hands.
The golem's eyes began to shine before it fired a barrage of eye energy beams while letting out a strong and loud shockwave as it howled. Zalroth evaded the energy beams and shot out a faint silver mana wave that countered the dire wolf golem's shockwave. The golem fired another concentrated energy beam at Zalroth that he deflected with a Lightning Serpent. The energy beam ricocheted off the Lightning Serpent and straight into one of the golem's eyes. The crystal eye exploded and crumbled into pieces as the golem shook its head to get the remaining crystal bits out of the socket.
The golem tried to bite Zalroth but he ducked under the golem and swing kicked through one of its front legs. Zalroth dodged out of the way of the falling golem before kicking its face into the ground. The dire wolf golem tried to get up but was stopped by Zalroth's magnetism magic. Zalroth grabbed onto one of the golem's eyes as they started to glow brightly. The golem tried to fire an energy beam but was interrupted by Zalroth pulling one of the crystal eyes out. Zalroth jumped back before the remaining two crystal eyes fired energy beams that blasted into the ceiling of the cavern. Zalroth deactivated his sun tattoos as his body was briefly covered by a veil of cyan mana.
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"Ok Minia, now you can destroy it," Zalroth said. He dropped the crystal eye and crushed it under his foot before hurrying off out of the cavern.
"Whatever...". Minia disappointedly huffed but she quickly registered what Zalroth had said and a devilish grin adorned her face. She tensed up her legs and covered her entire body, including her winter coat, in black gelatin. She placed her hands on the ground and lunged at the golem in a single leap as she started to let out a restrained laugh. Minia flew over the golem while pulling her fist back as far as she could. Minia rapidly increased the size of her fist before hurling it at the golem with great speed and force. The dire wolf golem frantically tried to get up but it was unable to overpower the force of the magnetism magic as the looming fist of Minia rapidly descended apon the golem with the maniacal laughs of Minia echoing throughout the cavern, with the kid adventurers inside the mana shield still being unaware of the events occurring outside the mana shield.
Meanwhile, a strong earthquake-like rumble reverberated throughout the mana crystal-filled cavern and Vok stumbled to his feet.
"How infuriating," Zinvalia uttered as she stared up at the ceiling as the quakes continued.
"M-my lady?" Vok nervously asked as he looked up at Zinvalia.
"It seems the dog golem's been defeated... and someone's making a b-line for us.". Vok was shocked by Zinvalia's words but before he could say anything else his shadow suddenly widened and he sank into it, along with all the other golems and the crates full of earth mana crystals. Zinvalia reached into her pocket and took out a small black pellet.
"It's a good thing I got one of these from Fei-Ku, but she could have given me a heads up that she and Mei-La had already returned to base." Zinvalia snarked before she tossed the pellet on the ground and disappeared inside the black mist. Zalroth slid into the cavern and looked around the spiral-shaped cavern. He leaned over the edge of the spiral-shaped slope and spotted the dissipating black mist. He leapt off the slope and landed next to the smoke right as it fully dissipated.
"Guess they got away...". Zalroth glanced at the spot before shrugging and turning around.
"The mana remains feel oddly familiar... how odd," Zalroth commented before leaping back to the top of the spiral cavern and running off.
Minia, now sporting six black gelatin arms, unhinged and maniacally laughed as she repeatedly pounded the continually dissolving ground. She pulled one of her fists back and readied another punch with a devilish smirk on her face. However, as she went to punch the ground Zalroth banged Minia on the head with his fist making the ground below Minia's feet crack. Minia placed her hands on her head and slowly crouched down, with the gelatin around her body gathering back into her hair and clothes.
"What was that for?!" Minia Yelled as she angrily stared at Zalroth while she stopped herself from crying. Zalroth disappointedly shook his head and placed his hands on his hips.
"Why don't you consult the ground," Zalroth said. Minia's face cringed before she slowly glanced over at the large puddle of dissolved ground. Zalroth sighed and turned his head when he heard the kid adventurers approaching.
"What happened?" Jazzy asked as the kids had concerned expressions while looking at the puddle.
"Minia just saw a spider, nothing serious." Zalroth joked. Minia stared daggers at Zalroth with an irritated gleam in her eyes.
"Oh," the kids said simultaneously.
"Yeah, the spiders here are really creepy," Milly commented. Minia's body shivered a little before she quickly jumped on top of Zalroth's tails.
"So, you're done collecting your materials, right?" Minia anxiously asked.
"Sure have, we managed to bag several quests worth." Toby proudly stated.
"Good, so let's get out of this place then.".
A few minutes later, the group arrived at the city gate of Kalthorm but stopped before passing through it.
"Thank you so much for your help today, you two," Toby said.
"Don't sweat it," Zalroth replied. Milly could be seen thinking heavily getting Zalroth's attention.
"Something wrong?". Milly snapped out of her deep thought and shook her head.
"N-no... I was just wondering if you managed to find the thing you were looking for.".
"Oh, yeah we did so you don't need to worry," Zalroth replied, making Minia confusedly tilt her head in response. The two groups bidded each other farewell before going their separate ways. Minia waited until she and Zalroth were far away from the city before asking Zalroth a question.
"Were you just saying that to stop her from worrying, or did you actually find the Azure Gem?". Zalroth reached into one of his tails and pulled out the earth mana crystal he had picked up earlier.
"Mind opening this for me?" Zalroth asked as he held the mana crystal in front of Minia's face. She rolled her eyes and gathered some of her black gelatin around her finger before rubbing it around the entire equator of the crystal. The crystal's equator quickly dissolved away until it was nearly gone. Zalroth grabbed the crystal by both ends before easily pulling them apart revealing the azure gem embedded in one of the crystal halves. Minia slumped back onto Zalroth's tails and exhaled in relief.
"So, now can we head back to the others?" Minia exhaustedly pleaded. Zalroth slowly chuckled as he placed the azure gem and the mana crystal back in his tail.
"Yeah, I suppose it's about time, it's gotten pretty late.". Minia yawned as she wrapped one of Zalroth's tails around herself while muttering to Zalroth to make sure they were back before sundown.