The spectacled lady led us through the vine-filled entrance of the cave. While the first 20 meters of the cave entrance had been just a tunnel made out of plain barren natural rock, once we got past that, the entire place opened up to a much larger circular cave structure that almost resembled a man-made dome, at least if you were to exclude all of the stalactites and stalagmites that were hanging from the entire landscape.

All across the giant chamber, I could now spot the dilapidated stone ruins of what must have once been an Imperial Military Fort. It looked like a place that must have been used as a supply and relay station for Imperial some conquest campaign waay back in the past. Most of the buildings had already lost their wooden roofs, as the material had decayed over time, but some of the two-story buildings could still be used as makeshift housing, which is exactly what the group of Cultists was currently doing.

I also noticed that the cave also branched-out in several other directions with tunnels of different sizes leading to left and right towards other buildings which probably used to be the former old Dungeon's Boss rooms.

"Senior Xue-Ye, young Sister, the Boss will want to see you both. We've been searching for your missing party for a couple of weeks now, after all communications from your side died down, yet we have only been able to trace back your footsteps as far as this place."

"Since when did everybody get here? I could have used your help a whole lot earlier! Maybe if you guys had arrived sooner, Master wouldn't have ended up in this state!" I pointed with tears in my eyes at the zombie-like Mr. Vacant.

"Ergh...I'm sorry about that, but we only got here about 3 days ago. We barely even had enough time to do some preliminary scouting. We didn't even know that you guys were still alive until you two showed up here."

"I...I know...I'm sorry...It's just so hard to watch Master shamble away in such a state. He's been getting worse and worse ever since he came out of the Dungeon."

"Phew, so these guys are freshly-arrived around these parts," I rejoiced in my head.

"Dungeon?" The spectacled lady asked.

"Ah...yes...since you guys are new around these parts, I guess I should explain. This cave system that you guys are currently residing in used to be a Low-Level Dungeon, but Group One defeated all of the Bosses inside here and then removed the Dungeon Core to use as a catalyst and power source for their summoning ritual.

"But because of certain unfortunate circumstances, the entire Ancient Monastery that lies beneath that Buddhist Temple on the top of the hill near the Village of Piece has now become a new Dungeon Space because of the Core, and is continuously spewing out monsters."

"Ugh...that sounds quite troublesome and terrifying. The Boss will definitely want to hear about that." One of the bodyguards with the big weapons replied.

Once we got to the center of the cave, I saw a decently large fire and what looked like the half-eaten remains of a wild boar that had been roasted on a spit.

Chomping down on a large boar leg was a very large and buff yet young-looking guy wearing what I could only call a barbarian fur outfit. Compared to everybody else in the room who either had brown or black hair, his own disheveled head mane was the color of tiger yellow with some streaks of wild orange mixed within, and I could also see that his front incisor teeth were a tad larger than that of most regular humans, giving him quite a fierce appearance. My assumption was on him being someone that had a touch of beastman blood inside of his veins, probably from the Tigon tribes, yet very diluted.

Also, the huge-ass metal claymore that was stabbed into the ground next to him made him look even more intimidating. You would need some huge ass muscle power to swing that steel chungus around, but the guy looked like he would be able to perform such a feat without even breaking a sweat.

"Ok, so I guess that's the Boss. Sure as hell fits the image." I thought to myself.

"Yue-Yi, you bastard!" The guy snarled at Mr. Vacant the instant we walked into the room while he tossed away the empty pork bone he was chewing on. "Where the hell is everybody else? Your entire group has become dead silent! What happened? What did you do? Was your mission a success? Headquarters forced my ass to come down here and look for you! What the fuck did you all find so interesting in this shitty little area of the world? This fucking place is as far in the boonies as it gets! *Ptew*"

"Hold on a second, Chief Tou-Rou! Master is sick and can't answer to so many of your questions at the same time!" I pleaded to the big guy while sticking out my head from behind Mr. Vacant's frame.

"Eh? And who the fuck are you? Never seen yo’ face before!" The Boss immediately went for his weapon, only to get slapped over the face by a book that had been tossed by the spectacled lady.

"Aauu! My eye! What'd you do that for!"

"Put down your weapon, you lunkhead! All you can think about is how to fight against everything that comes across your path. The little girl is a Sister, as she has taken the oath. I have already tested her outside of the cave. Apparently, she is Yue-Yi Alchemy apprentice and holds important knowledge about what happened with the other group."

"S'dat so?" Tou-Rou kept giving me the stink eye. "I don't like her. She smells funny, like strong booze, incense, and plants, like one of them Monks."

"That's because I am one," I replied while pulling back the hood of my Cultist Robe to reveal my bald shaven head. "I'm the contact and inside-man at the Temple that Master always told you about."

"Huh? S'dat so? I always thought that it was somebody from the magisterial guards, from the way Yue-Yi kept talking about his contact. I never thought it was actually one of you Monk freaks, and a girl to boot!"

In truth, it had indeed been one of the magisterial guards that had been the inside man for Yue-Yi and his group, but that person had also died during the chaos, so I was free to assume the “informant” position.

"No, it was me all along. Master opened my eyes to the Truth, so I couldn't simply follow the Dharma anymore, as the whole reincarnation cycle and the escape from Samsara ideology is only a big fat lie. Until the Earthmother is defeated, none of our souls shall be escaping from her grasp."

"Hrrr...true enough, Sister. Take a seat, then."

*Skkkrroing*

I couldn't help but turn red in the face, as my stomach suddenly betrayed itself to the entire world. The smell coming from the roasted pig had been really enticing, and I had forgotten to eat throughout the entire day because of the spy problem.

"Erm...mind if I have a bite? I haven't been eating so well as of late, ever since I've had to take care of Master without alerting the other Monks. I have been splitting my rations with him all of this time, so I’ve lost some weight."

"Sure, help yourself. But weren't you Monks a buncha’ weed eaters? I thought meat was off the menu for you guys."

"Well, that's actually a pretty common misconception among the masses. Monks usually swear that they will not intentionally hurt any living creature that respects the natural order of the world. It does not mean that they will not partake in the meat of an already dead creature, if invited to do so. To put it simply so you can understand, I had no hand in the demise of this beast, and it would also be a shame to let the meat go to waste." I stuffed my face with a chunk of tender pork.

The boar had been young enough that it wasn't stringy or hard to chew, even though it still retained an earthy flavor of wild meat.

"So...what's wrong with you?" The Boss switched back to Mr. Vacant while also grabbing another piece of meat for himself.

"Uuughh...got head smashed...bad...something...not...right...inside. Slow talk. Hard find...words...uughhh…" I made Mr.Vacant moan back slowly.

"S'dat so? Well, you do look like crap! We should have Deng take a look at you!"

The Boss then pulled out what I could only equate to a cracked golden Genie lamp from a leather pouch on his belt, then began shaking it up and down.

"DENG! GET YOUR BLUE-ASS OUT OF THE LAMP, I’M IN NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE!"

"Don’t wanna...I’m taking a bath right now! Come back later!" A muffled tiny voice came out from the lamp.

"DENG! YOU FUCKING LITTLE BITCH! THERE'S SOMEONE IN NEED OF YOUR MEDICAL SKILLS RIGHT NOW! COME OUT ALREADY!"

The Boss shook the lamp even harder, until a tiny little blue dot fell on the floor through the wicker hole. Immediately as it hit the floor though, it instantly grew to full size in the blink of an eye and became a rather androgynous-looking blue-skinned humanoid that was in a state of half-undress.

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"AH...Such a mean slave driver...I can’t even take a bath without being disturbed! What did you want from me, Boss?" An androgynous voice also came out of the blue humanoid’s mouth. "Have you finally decided to accept my advances and fall for me? Do you need me to warm your bed tonight?"

"AS IF, FREAK! No...we found Yue-Yi from Team One, and he looks like shit. See if you can fix him up somehow!" The Boss began pushing Deng back, which was now crawling all over him in a seductive way.

I could only gulp in panic as the blue-skinned man/woman/thing (wasn't still sure WHAT it was) changed its focus to Mr. Vacant and began touching the Hollow’s head with glowing hands.

The blue person was obviously a Djinn, given the rather obvious golden lamp that was hanging from the Boss’s belt, but I had no idea what it could do or how deep it could prod into Mr. Vacant’s soul, or lack thereof.

"Oh my! This is awful! I’ve never seen such traumatic damage! It’s like...like half of his brain has stopped functioning! Dead as a rock! Oh, dear...I don’t know if I can fix this at all, this is beyond my meager medical skills and spells!"

"Will a Wish do it? I haven’t used today’s wish yet!" The Boss asked.

"Umm. I don’t know? I told you, I can only grant one MINOR wish each day because of my cracked lamp, but this looks like some MAJOR damage, so I’m not sure that it will work at all!"

"Try it anyway. I WISH for you to heal Yue-Yi back to full health, to the best of your abilities. There. DO IT!"

"Ok...but don’t blame me if this fails."

Immediately, the Genie became very focused, and shining sun-yellow tattoos began glowing all over its body then faded away.

All throughout the whole process, my heart was racing right up into my throat, and I was readying a smoke bomb from my spatial ring to bail-out at the first sign of trouble but in the end, it turned out that I was worrying for no reason.

"There...I did my best. I don’t think it worked though. Something is very wrong with him and is beyond my current powers."

"Yue-Yi...How do you feel? Any better?"

"Grooan...words...still...slow...but head...not hurt that bad...anymore...uggghh...small...improvement."

"Shit...damn! Sorry man...I’ll promise we’ll find a way to fix you somehow! But you need to tell us what happened to you first!"

"Let...girl...talk...me speak...too slow..."

"Right...OK. SO...WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THEM? WHERE’S THE REST OF GROUP ONE." The Boss immediately switched his menacing gaze back to me.

"Everyone else is dead," I replied with a pained look of sorrow and guilt on my face. "The secret mission that Master and the others from Group One were entrusted with was a total success, and also a complete failure."

"Huh? How can it be both?" The Boss raised an eyebrow.

"The creature that they were supposed to summon has indeed appeared, but it’s not what anyone expected. After the ancient creature got successfully summoned, everything went wrong.

"It got loose from its magical restraints immediately, grew thrice in size, then proceeded to slaughter everybody in sight while also mocking everybody for their folly by saying that our Blood Cult was only playing to the Mother System’s tune by freeing it, and that we have been deceived all along.

"After that, they tried to regain control over it using the Dungeon Core, but the creature simply ATE the Core altogether in a defying gesture, then proceed to kill the rest of Group One.

"Master was the only one that was lucky enough to get away, because the creature thought he was doomed after it had slashed Master’s throat open and left him for dead near the staircase that led to the upper levels. Only by using his Blood Arts did he manage to stop the bleeding for long enough to run away and then find me back on the surface. After that, I nursed him back to health in secret, but the damage has already been done."

"But...if the creature is already summoned and you say that the ritual worked, why do you call the whole thing a failure? Everybody from Group One was quite aware that they might die when they went ahead with that plan." The Boss raised an eyebrow.

"Because after the summoned creature ate the Dungeon Core, the whole Buddhist Temple and the Ancient Monastery beneath the earth became a Dungeon Space after the Core started drawing power from the infinite magic of the creature, and it changed the way that the floors and walls behave in that place.

"All of the floors have now become nigh-impenetrable, so the creature is currently stuck on the lowest floor of the Dungeon and cannot come up or get loose due to its giant size, as the Dungeon Core prevents it from smashing through the floors to get to the topside."

"SO, yer saying that all of our brothers basically died for nothing? FUCK, THAT’S AWFUL!"

"Oh...unfortunately, there’s more than that, Senior. When the creature told Group One that our Blood Cult has been deceived, it was not lying."

"HUH? What’d ya mean?"

"Uff...Everybody, you should brace yourselves for some bad news, because Master has found out quite a terrible truth beneath the earth from that monster, and I have also confirmed it through other alternative methods. We have all been lied to.

"The Founding Father was not the one behind the whole summoning plan, but rather it was prince Hongmu Qin from the Qin Dynasty. That person has now betrayed the Brotherhood and has manipulated our Ming Chapter into several suicidal missions that had very low chances of succeeding, only to further his own agendas."

"I do not know if you heard the latest news, considering that all of you have been out here in the wilderness for a while, but because of the Ancient Evil that got released beneath the Monastery right here in this province, all of the Major Sects and the Emperors got alerted by many incoming divinations that their life was in peril, so they all retreated to the safety of the old Forbidden City, like they always did when major problems surfaced across the world.

"Unfortunately for them, it was all a trap devised by Prince Qin Hongmu who has currently allied himself with an Ancient Fire Demon from Hell name Ifritt, and the two caused an incredibly large explosion through some unknown means that leveled the whole Forbidden City and killed all of the Imperial families from all of the three Empires together with all of the Sect Masters of the Major Sects and all of their disciples. The latest rumors I heard say that the blast leveled everything for miles around the epicenter, and that the old Forbidden City is no more.

"Of course, the only one that was missing when the blast occurred just happened to be Prince Hongmu himself, and now, the bastard is next in line to become the next Qin Emperor, because his father and all of his brothers are now dead."

"I...Ifritt? Are you talking about THE Ifritt, the ancient Demon that burned the whole Perseian Empire 1000 years ago, and not some other fire demon? Are you sure it’s him?" I noticed the Genie start to shiver.

"Positive. Why, do you know of him?"

"You could say that. My father had a real beef against that bastard, and they clashed many times throughout history. He affected me and my mother directly several times as I was growing up, so I have some bad memories from that time."

"Erm...father? Mother? Growing up? How does that work...I thought Djinn were just magical creatures that can grant wishes, and not some people that can have a family...Sorry for my ignorance..." I couldn’t help but blurt back.

"Ah, yes, I can see why you might be confused. While I may look like this (the Genie pointed to his blue skin), I’m only Half-Djinn. My mother was just a regular human, and that cracked lamp that you see over there used to belong to my Djinn father before…before (*hic*Sob*) he...vanished."

Aw shit, maybe I stepped on some emotional land mine and I did not even know it.

"Ugh...sorry! I shouldn’t have pried! I did not know!" I immediately apologized and bowed my head.

"Ah...no...it’s no trouble. It’s all waaay in the past now. But back to what I was saying, since I’m a Half-Djinn, a "Jinn" to be precise, I only inherited the power to grant minor wishes to the owners of the lamp once a day. I’m basically just a defective version of a real Djinn." Deng put on a self-deprecating smile on his face.

"How Minor is Minor? Is that why you couldn’t fix Master? Maybe if we were to repeat the process several times in a row, he might get better? He did seem to improve a little bit."

"Minor refers to wishes that are not destiny-altering. It all kind of depends on the situation, but it’s usually stuff like a bag of gold, a pair of fancy new clothes, the removal of a boil from the skin, a full-course royal meal, and other stuff like that.

"But if let’s say, for example, your Destiny given by the Mother System was to die of starvation, then I wouldn’t be able to summon food for you to save your life, even if you did have my lamp in your possession at that current time.

"My father could have done that though. Outside of forcibly taking or giving a life, he could have granted almost any wish possible. He’s also the one that revealed to me the Truth about the Mother System and her vile machinations."

"So, you’re basically an item-summoning machine? Also, is that a single wish per day on the overall, or is it per person? I’m interested in that because it sounds like a nice way to get my hands on some rare alchemical ingredients for a pill that Master and I were working on which might ameliorate his situation."

"Per day. Even if the Boss gives the lamp to someone else, it’s limited by the same constraints. Also, I cannot make something out of nothing, I can only bring an already-existing item over here. If you want a bag of gold, the coins are going to go missing from some King’s or Noble treasury and then they are going to get summoned into your hands, or if you want a dress or something similar, then it's going to vanish from a tailor’s shop and get summoned on top of you.

"Also, there’s a limit to how big or how heavy an item can be, I can only transfer items that are less-heavy than a quarter of my own weight, or have less than a quarter of my own magic power. For example, I wouldn’t be able to transfer a full-sized statue made out of gold because it would exceed the threshold, but I might be able to transfer away a part of it, like only its palm."

"What about plants? What if I were to ask for a bunch of Spiritual Plant ingredients?"

"Sure, no problem, but only one ingredient type per day based on availability and weight limits, and also constrained by the magic contained within the plant itself. I can’t summon some rare-ass mythical plant, because it would have a whole lot more magic inside of it than my total self."

"By the way, is that once a day based on general time, or based on the last time a wish was made?" I asked again.

"Since the last time a wish was made. It takes about a whole day for the magic power within my lamp to get restored before I can use it again, as it fuels all of my Wish magic. If the lamp is empty, I can only cast my own personal humanoid magics, since those are not bound to the Source within the lamp, but rather they depend on my physical body instead. That leaves me only as an averagely skilled mage if I have to fight without my lamp powers. But I’m a lover, not a fighter. Too bad that Boss refuses to fall for me already. I could do so many things for him with my accumulated knowledge of Kamasutra that I have perfected over centuries...hehehe..."

"Damn, even with all of his limitations, this dude-thing seems quite useful to have around." I thought to myself. "I guess I should try and find a way to brainwash these cultists into becoming my minions. Well, at least most of them. Some will definitely have to go. I can’t possibly forgive the people that have sacrificed other innocents in their mad blood rituals, but fortunately, there’s only a handful of those fanatics amongst these guys. Most people in this group are just the rear-support-types that never hurt a single fly in their entire lives."