That night, everyone sat together in the main cavern. That was an unusual event because Ron and Betty had been bedridden for nearly a week. The old folks were really on their last legs, so the first thing Logan did after the battle was purchase medicines to help them recover.

He also fed them enough elixirs and pills to reach the peak of early Body Tempering. The price was staggering, and while it had cured Betty’s arthritis and Ron’s bad knee, they were no more fit than they had been the day before. Boosting their cultivation made them younger and healthier, but that didn’t automatically turn them into peak athletes.

They would still need to use a life force manual and exercise if they wanted to survive the journey up. Of course, that wasn’t a problem with how excited they were. If it weren’t for the feast Logan had purchased or the fact that they needed some time to return to full health, the couple would be running around like children. With enough multivitamins and food to keep an elephant healthy, their recovery would be swift.

Logan wasn’t too worried about them. Instead, he was stressing about the gloomy atmosphere suffusing the cavern. He had purchased tents and other luxury equipment now that he had access to the Shop, including sleeping bags, camping chairs, and even a fire pit to sit around and keep warm. Compared to how they had been forced to live the previous month, everyone should have been grinning from ear to ear.

Instead, there was a mournful feeling in the air as everyone pretended to relax. They had finished eating now, and the events of today were catching up with them. No one was in the mood to talk. They all sat in silence on their camping chairs, the only sounds being the crackling of the fire or Ron sighing after each sip of his beer.

How did it turn out like this? Logan wondered. He shook his head since the reason was obvious. Janet was dead and her husband, Dave, had either been mauled to death or captured by the Skeleton Lord. At least, that was what Logan believed.

There was no actual proof that the ghost was behind the Crystal Rat’s odd behaviour, but no one could come up with a reasonable explanation for why it had retreated downstairs. It stood to reason that the Skeleton Lord had used its mental powers to take control of the vulnerable Crystal Rat. With the monster firmly under control, the ghost now had a powerful helper to subjugate the other monsters residing beneath the cells.

And with Dave, a new body to possess.

Logan didn’t know if that was correct, and no one else did. There was an intense debate on returning to save Janet’s husband since he may very well be alive. If that wasn’t the case, they could at least interrupt the Skeleton Lord’s plans. Since it hadn’t attacked them in the previous month, it was either dead or vulnerable, which may change now that it had Dave and a Crystal Rat to order around.

That was the other reason everyone was quiet. They had all been fighting over what to do, the decisions being whether to go down and try to save Dave or leave the monsters down there while they escaped. Stephanie, Deon, and Betty thought it was a good idea to go down and try to end the Skeleton Lord’s plots before they could blossom into a deadly plan, maybe even saving or getting revenge for Dave.

Logan, Amelia, Tom, and James were all against that plan. Their main goal was to escape, not to kill the Skeleton Lord. Only Logan could harm its ghostly form, not to mention that the Crystal Rat was too strong for them. Logan could shrug off its mental attack, but until he thoroughly learned his new intermediate technique, he couldn’t injure the Crystal Rat unless he was willing to jump on the monster and burn it with his body.

He wasn’t willing to suffer that much pain again, and that was that.

If only his decision could stop the others from feeling wronged or guilty about Janet and Dave. Unfortunately, it couldn’t. That only made him an obstacle to assuaging their sorrow, which was why everyone was mournfully silent and upset. Some were even disappointed in Logan as the unofficial leader of their group. If he could abandon Dave, would he leave them behind?

Well, everyone except for Ron was upset, who only agreed with Betty since she was his wife.

“Ah,” Ron sighed, lowering his beer as he spoke to no one in particular. “Twenty-five years I’ve been sober. The camping chairs and medicines are great, but there’s nothing quite like a cold beer after a long day of hard work.”

“Why did you quit if you like drinking so much?” Logan replied, glancing at the old man who looked forty years younger. “Health reasons?”

“That was one of them. Really, it was mostly because of my wife’s nagging.”

Everyone glanced at Betty, the rejuvenated woman reading a magazine. “Sixty years ago, I married a thin and handsome boy with a passion for woodworking. I did not marry a fat old bastard who could eat that boy for lunch.”

No one reacted, the tension only breaking when Ron spoke. “I love you too, honey.”

Everyone burst into laughter. The atmosphere relaxed quite a bit, James requesting a bunch of different beers for everyone to try. Ron didn’t like the first few he tasted, but by the time he reached the fifth, the old man was visibly shocked.

“This one actually tastes pretty good,” He muttered, taking another sip. “Fruity. I like it.”

“That one is a mango and passion fruit IPA,” James said, sipping his own. “It was really popular at our campus bar before they stopped selling it.”

“Back when I was still drinking, we only had piss-flavoured,” Ron said.

After that, everyone lounged around and snacked on various treats. They were still upset about Logan’s decision, but there was nothing they could do. He didn’t want to risk their lives or waste the few revival potions he had left. End of story, so why not relax and enjoy their first taste of food in a month? Everyone was a cultivator at the peak of early Body Tempering now, meaning their bodies were very quick at processing food. Even Stephanie’s slender form managed to clean four plates overflowing with food.

No one went to bed hungry for the first time in a month. Raw meat was no longer on the menu, and the hard sleeping mats were ash at the bottom of the ice braziers. Logan even had a tent of his own. He didn’t mind sleeping with Tom and James since he had gotten used to being around others, but having privacy allowed him to relax in a way that he couldn’t around others.

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Logan quickly drifted off to sleep. Not only did they fight a Crystal Rat and win, but they had taken out most of the horde and even killed the Rat King, freeing their path to the biodome above. They had been fortunate, solving almost all of their problems in one overwhelmingly difficult day. And now that the month was officially over, it was time to prepare for the next leg of their journey.

Logan drifted off to the deepest sleep he had ever had. He didn’t dream he was so tired, yet he still found himself in a familiar place. A field of vibrant, blossoming flowers appeared around him, the Long Night turning into something real. He could feel the warm breeze dancing over his skin, smell the pollen of nine different flowers, and even see a meteor shower as it flew endlessly overhead.

He focused on a set of purple lavender flowers without even realising it. After skipping over three weeks of diligent meditation, he had comprehended the third set earlier today, making this the fourth. There was no conscious thought or intention to his studying. His mind was simply captivated by their swaying in the wind. Since he was in a dream, Logan didn’t bother to focus on deciphering them or anything bothersome like that, allowing him to lay down and become one with the hillside.

Like that, he passively studied the Long Night, only realising what happened when he woke up the next morning. After getting mauled by the Crystal Rat and withdrawing into his visualisation technique, it appeared that Logan had made some kind of breakthrough. He could now study the Long Night while asleep, speeding up his comprehension speed and gifting him an extra six hours to study and improve himself.

Even better, he felt incredibly well-rested and focused. There was no yawning or need to stretch. He opened his eyes and was ready to start the day, even going so far as to sit up the second he regained consciousness. Still, Logan was slightly disoriented, forcing him to take a few seconds to think everything through before he fully understood the changes.

Status

Name: Logan Gates

Race: Human [Mortal]

Cultivation

Realm: Body Tempering - Early (3/12)

Visualisation Technique: Long Night [Flower Field (3/9)]

Concepts: Rotation (29%), Vibration (24%).

Martial Techniques

Amateur: Piercing Thrust, Flash Step, Shattering Strike, Shadow Thrust, Parry.

Logan hadn’t managed to suddenly break through and master the fourth set of flowers, but he had made significant progress in the last six hours of sleep. Even better, he no longer had to waste his time in the day to meditate. He now had an extra six hours that he could dedicate to the Long Night.

Logan calculated that he would comprehend the next set of flowers within a month. Before, it should’ve taken him two months for the fourth set, but having a quarter of the day to study had nearly halved the time he required. That just went to show how much more efficient his meditations were at night.

Previously, Logan had spent over twelve hours a day studying the painting when he was imprisoned. That was a lot of time to dedicate to one thing, resulting in him deciphering the first set in under a week and the second in two. After being freed, it had taken him an entire month to solve the third, and that was with a sudden jump in progression thanks to the suffering he had gone through.

Logically, the time required should’ve doubled. Now that he was trying to solve the fourth set of flowers, twelve hours of studying a day for an entire month would be needed, or six hours a day across two months. But while Logan only slept for six hours, that time was worth twelve while he was awake.

With that out of the way, Logan got up and prepared breakfast for everyone. He cooked bacon and eggs, made porridge, cut up fruit, and fried some toast in the bacon grease. While he believed that Dave was dead, he still felt terrible about abandoning the guy and failing to revive Janet.

That was why Logan tried his best, even going so far as to make poached, fried, and hard-boiled eggs since everyone liked them differently. Once people began to wake up, they started helping him set up. By the time they were done, there was also freshly squeezed orange juice, pancakes, and waffles.

It was a feast that would mostly go to waste, but all that food cost less than 1,000 credits. A regular Ore Rat could sell for ten times that much, and while he hadn’t sold or dissected the corpses yet, over a hundred were strewn about the cavern. Also, Logan had already gone down to the cells and sold all of the crystal scrolls and treasures made of gold.

To say that he was wealthy was an understatement.

Once breakfast was over, Logan enlisted everyone’s help to dissect and sell the rat corpses. It took an entire day and made him feel like an oil baron once they were sold. He didn’t do any of the leg work himself, though. He spent the day trying to learn his new intermediate technique since it was slowly fading from his mind.

The corpses were worth more after being broken up. The Ore Rats sold for around 10,000 credits each depending on the damage, but if processed using some tools and materials, their value would massively increase. As such, the average Ore Rat sold for nearly 100,000 each when sold in pieces, and all that was required were a few thousand credits in tools that could be reused and a few hundred credits worth of materials to process the injured corpses.

By the end, all the Ore Rat and Giant Ore Rats sold for a mouth-watering sum of over ten million credits. That was a lot of money considering the piles of gold and jewels only sold for eight million, but when Logan recalled the danger they went through, he realised it was a pitiful amount.

If they hadn’t been protected by a wall of crates, a horde of unranked and Common enemies would have been far more dangerous than an Uncommon Crystal Rat. This was the virtue of overwhelming force and something that Logan was swiftly coming to understand. They would have all died if it wasn’t for the hallways and crate walls.

As for the Crystal Rats? They were also very deadly, but if all was hopeless, a few people might’ve been able to escape. A horde of enemies simply wouldn’t allow that to happen. And yet that wasn’t the most terrifying thing about a horde. After all, most packs of weaker monsters were led by a powerful individual.

Combined, they were disgustingly powerful.

Logan sold the Crystal Rat he had killed before the Rat King appeared. Broken down, it was worth far more than the Crystal Rat he had been forced to sell before running. That had only earned him 700,000 credits while the fully processed Crystal Rat in the hallway was worth over 1.5 million.

Of course, they were nothing compared to the value of the Rat King.

If sold unprocessed, the Rat King, or the Lucid Rat as it was officially named, was worth over ten million credits. It appeared that while quantity could make up for quality, higher rarity beasts were simply worth far more than their less-evolved counterparts.

Logan began to do the maths in his head, realising that it was roughly a ten times difference. Unranked Ore Rats were worth tens of thousands, Common Giant Ore Rats were hundreds of thousands, and Uncommon Crystal rats were over a million each.

Of course, that wasn’t to say that ten Ore Rats were equal to one Giant Ore Rat. If ten Ore Rats tried to kill a Giant Ore Rat at the same stage, they would likely succeed with only a few losses. Of course, that was within the species. If two different creatures came up against each other, the weaker monster might be able to wipe out a horde of stronger enemies by virtue of their bloodline countering their enemy.

Something like an Uncommon spider that was immune to soul attacks could likely entangle a Crystal Rat. The beast would try to escape and only exhaust itself to death. Strength mattered, but so did the landscape, match up, and scenario in which the battle began.

Logan was coming to learn that all too well after fighting the Lucid Rat. Its ability to attack his soul was too terrifying, even reducing the energy he could draw from the egg. If a group of powerful humans came to fight it without making the necessary preparations, it would wipe them out in the blink of an eye.