The cave was extremely dark. It had been dark enough outside under the moon and stars, but in here it was practically completely black. Zoe was forced to rely on her {Manasight}, and so she wondered how the others were able to follow the grumpy old man. The so-called guildsmaster, probably.

Her answer came when Lily turned around to look back at her. The shorter woman’s eyes glowed with a dim, eerie green light. She waved, and after a moment, Zoe waved back. I guess she was checking to make sure I can see?

Lily nodded, and the three of them continued following the guildsmaster. Those green eyes must be some sort of night vision ability. Or maybe it was something that the alchemist, Andric, had cooked up.

In any case, it was just a winding, natural stone cavern that widened and narrowed seemingly at random. Zoe could just barely make out the shapes of stalactites and stalagmites, traced out in the dull tones of earth mana. It was enough for her to steer clear of them, at least.

The only other mana of note belonged to the guildsmaster. His form was suffused with a crackling neon yellow. Based on his class description, Zoe surmised that it was lightning mana. Or maybe it was something broader like electromagnetism — yet another thing to ad to the towering list of questions to investigate.

Aside from the neon yellow, he also had those same streamers of regal gold, and there was a base layer of green underneath. Zoe was now confident that green was life mana, or something basically equivalent, but she wasn’t sure about the gold. She had it, along with Lily and the paladin, but most of the people in the town were just green. Honestly, she had no clue on that on.

As for Andric, he was just nothing but gold. Well, he did have the green, but it was once again just a diffuse, base layer. His entire form was streaked with ribbons of gold, more than anyone else she had seen so far.

Well, the paladin’s gold was brighter and thicker, but Andric had a much higher proportion.

Zoe continued squinting at it until she stepped in a puddle that the others had avoided. Fucking brilliant.

In any case, Andric stood out to her {Manasight}, making her all the more curious.

The other three stopped.

Catching up to them, Zoe stopped as well, and then she realized that there was nowhere more to go. The way ahead was entirely blocked off by a wall of faint earth mana — which meant that it was a dead end.

“Alright,” the guildsmaster barked, “It’ll only take a few minutes for the lift. If anyone wants to back out, now’s the time.”

No one spoke.

Several minutes of silent agony later, Zoe heard something rumbling from below. It grew louder and clearer, and then there was a loud metallic clang and a blinding light split the darkness. Squinting, she realized she was staring into an elevator set into the rock face.

It wasn’t a very modern looking elevator. It was more of an exposed metal platform with a few rusty wheels and levers and a glarish, yellowish light overhead. It didn’t look particularly safe, either — but Zoe wasn’t going to back down.

After all, the fact that it looked ancient and totally uncared for meant it had stood the test of time. And also, she had already been eaten and fought with multiple people to the death. This was nothing in comparison.

“Right, in you go.”

Lily stepped on first, and Andric followed her. Zoe saw that the guildsmaster was waiting for her, so she strode forward and took her place. She began to suspect that he wasn’t going to follow — but then he stepped on and closed the railing gate behind him.

After a loud crank of one of the levers, the platform shuddered and began to descend.

The floor rose up in front of them, and then they were descending through a square hole of solid rock. As they dropped into the darkness, Zoe studied the rock formations with mild interest. It was pretty cool seeing the different layers and striations peeled away like this. She had never studied geology, at least not since the sixth grade, but it was still cool to see.

“By the way, what is it we’re even exterminating?” Lily asked.

Zoe blinked. They didn’t already know?

“Tunnel rats.” The guildsmaster’s tone carried zero interest or inflection. “Just a few of them that scared the miners away.”

Zoe frowned. “What’s so scary about rats?”

The guildsmaster stared at her like she was a total idiot, and Andric gave her a dark glare. Lily sighed. “Not normal rats. Tunnel rats. Their claws and teeth are sharp enough to dig and chew through stone. One of them is a nuisance, a swarm is easily deadly.”

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Zoe nodded, and as she did, she saw that Andric was frowning deeply. “A tunnel rat infestation should have been marked as such.” He stared at the guildsmaster. “We can handle it, of course, but what if you had gotten a crew of rookies instead?”

“It’s only one small nest,” he grunted in response. “Rookies can handle that. And do you think we’d be as likely to get anyone to come out if we said we had tunnel rats?”

Lily’s expression soured, and Andric glared. “They breed quickly.”

At that moment, the platform jerked to a stop, nearly throwing Zoe off balance. “We’re here.” Swinging open the metal gate, the guildsmaster stepped off the platform and gestured for them to follow. Zoe left last, eyeing the platform as she did so. She wondered what powered it.

The space they were now in was a chamber of sorts. The walls and ceiling were extremely rough, but unlike the cave above, it was clearly unnatural. There were no stalactites, and score marks and regular scratches were visible on the rock surfaces. It looked like it had been carved out with some kind of tools.

There were multiple tunnels branching out in different directions. Loosening her collar, Zoe realized it was no longer cold at all. In fact, it had grown quite warm. Was that just insulation, geothermal warmth, or something else?

Without another word, the guildsmaster took the light from the platform and set off down one of the tunnels. Shrugging, Lily caught up to him and Zoe and Andric both begrudgingly followed. “So why are we being so casual if there are tunnel rats around?” She whispered.

“The miners sealed them off,” he replied, once again without any attempt at being quiet. “Supposedly, they closed a hatch on them, and the enchantments on it as well as the ones keeping the whole mine from collapsing have kept them from digging out.”

Zoe nodded, and then paused. “Wait, then how did they get in?”

Andric shrugged. “From below, I guess.”

After just about a minute of walking, they arrived at another dead end. Instead of an elevator, this one had a large, metal door with a wheel in the center. It made Zoe think of a bank vault like she had seen in movies, only slightly less impressive.

“Alright, kid, you’re up.”

The guildsmaster gestured toward the door, and Andric stepped forward. Kneeling down, he gestured with his hands and a large black briefcase appeared before him.

“The miners said they accidentally broke the lock on it,” the lightning elementalist explained. “But they said an alchemist should be able to cut through it.”

“They were right,” Andric confirmed as he unlatched the case, not even looking at the door.

“How long do you need?”

“Five minutes, give or take. If you want to ensure that the door still works afterwards, that is.”

The guildsmaster grunted. “I suspect they’d prefer that.”

The young alchemist got to work as the guildsmaster watched, and Zoe and Lily stepped back to give him some space. Leaning against the wall, Lily stared at Zoe. “So, you think you’re ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

They simply waited around for about a minute before Zoe leaned in and glanced at the guildsmaster.

“I’ve been wondering. He’s level fifty two, right? What do you think he’s doing here? And why isn’t he doing the extermination himself?”

“He isn’t doing it himself because he needed an alchemist,” the ice mage replied, “and once he had to call in an alchemist, he had to place a bounty. Once we took the bounty, he wasn’t allowed to be part of it aside from showing us the way — or we’d have to split a cut of it.”

Zoe frowned. “I… guess that makes sense?”

Shrugging, Lily glanced over as well. “As for your first question, I have no idea. Maybe he just wanted a quiet place to retire in obscurity. He seems antisocial enough.”

Zoe nodded, and they remained silent for another minute until she caved in and asked yet another question. “What about his level? It seems pretty high, but he’s way older than you two, and Andric is like sixty percent of the way there.” Also, she was already about forty percent after a day, but she didn’t say that.

“It’s because he failed the first stage of the awakened realm,” Lily replied. Zoe arched an eyebrow, and the other woman continued. “Once you reach level thirty three or higher, you can attempt to break through another stage of your awakening. Most people fail. In that case, you can still level, but you’re basically crippled for any additional gains. He probably reached that level not long after our age and has been creeping along ever since.”

Zoe blinked. That was some pretty important information she had just learned. She would definitely need to ask more about this. “Andric is level thirty three — does that mean he’s going to try soon?”

“Oh, he’s already reached stage one, obviously.”

Zoe couldn’t resist rolling her eyes. Obviously.

“The second stage is level sixty six,” Lily continued, “which is significantly easier, but don’t take it for granted. After that is level one hundred, where you ascend to the immortal realm.” She grinned. “That one is hard. Harder than awakening in the first place.”

Zoe frowned. Lily kept throwing around the phrase awakening, but she didn’t know what it meant — even if she now had a suspicion. “I’m guessing this is pretty basic knowledge, but what it awakening?”

Lily laughed, but it didn’t sound mean spirited. “Oh, that’s where you obtain a path and get access to the Grand Design, which most people just call the system. If you’re lucky, or in our case, skilled, you can unlock two paths. People can also unlock a second path later, but it’s even harder then.”

Leaning forward, Lily booped her on the nose. Zoe had to restrain herself from flinching back.

“Of course, I know that you awakened and got two paths for free.” Leaning back, Lily eyed her with a smirk. “But don’t get cocky. If you want to progress, you’ll have to advance the hard way from now on — and it’s more complicated than just killing things.”

Zoe was about to reply when a loud hissing sound caught both of their attention. Colorful red smoke was spurting out of a small hole in the door. Andric raised his hands triumphantly. “4 minutes and fifty six seconds.”

“It doesn’t count until the door is actually open, idiot.”

Andric sulked and Lily chuckled. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

The three juniors lined up in front of the door, and the guildsmaster took his place behind them. Glancing back, Zoe saw him pull down an enormous lever that she had failed to notice before, and the door swung open with a heavy groan.

Lily raised her hands. Zoe activated her mana sight.

Small blobs of green and brown bloomed into her vision before them. Hundreds — thousands — tens of thousands of bundles of mana turned their attention towards the trio. And then they writhed and squirmed forward.

“Uh, I think there might be more than we thought,” Zoe started to say — but Lily was already rushing ahead into the dark.

She and Andric shared a glance. The alchemist shrugged, and Zoe sighed.

What the hell. Fist raised and abilities at the ready, Zoe strode straight towards the waiting hoard.