Chapter 24 - Rocky jungle

The tunnel Adam had used was only one of many new passages, and it appeared significantly narrower than the average. He also had to watch his footing, as the floor and walls occasionally contained jagged rock and small clumps of white crystals. As he moved further down, he noticed that the was an opening at the end of his tunnel.

The vibrations were definitely coming from beyond that tunnel. When he arrived at the end, he saw a large opening resembling a quarry. He was still very much underground but the enormous cave he had arrived at boggles the mind in its size. Even with his enhanced eyes, he couldn’t see the end of the cave, nor its roof.

Large pillars were jutting up from the uneven rocky ground which was littered with small debris and broken rocks.

The were many different gaps and holes in the walls with his tunnel being only one among many. The real surprise to Adam though was the creatures responsible for the huge vibrations.

His tunnel wasn’t on ground level but rather situated several meters above the cave opening bottom. The was a pile of rocks forming a slope under his feet and from his stop, he could see a large silhouette in the distance.

It looked to be the size of a two-story house and had a rounded shape. He strained his eyes and utilized his greater sight spell to its maximum.

The creature wasn’t a giant ant, like what he was expecting but rather an enormous crab. He seemed to have lost track of the ant's tunnels since he hadn’t encountered them ever since he ran to the mushroom biome to escape them. Or at least ran from some noise behind the ant he had killed and simply assumed it was a swarm of ants.

This huge crab had a huge pincer on one side and a smaller two-pronged fork-shaped pincer on the other. It was digging into the walls with its huge pincer.

Adam wasn’t sure what it was looking for but knew that this thing was extremely strong. Its core was a bright red, a lot brighter than that demon so it looked to be on the cusp of evolving into orange.

He noticed movement next to the huge crab and was surprised to see several dog-like creatures sitting or prowling around nearby.

The crab didn’t seem to pay them any mind and the dogs also didn’t look bothered by the titanic creature. This was good news for Adam since he didn’t stand a chance against such a huge monster. If it simply ignored him too then he might be able to find something useful down here.

The dogs appeared to be a pack and most were either black or grey with only a single red core. He really needed some black cores to absorb and if this pack was able to grow all the way down here, then there must be some sort of species that these predators can prey upon without risking death with every encounter like fighting other predators.

He of course had come across the rodents in the fungal jungle but they were exceedingly alert and hard to catch. He had only ever caught the one when he tested out his rocket-propelled mana blade, but that was mostly simply luck since he couldn’t repeat that feat.

He was tempted to try his luck against the buffalo he found right after climbing up from the tropical jungle but didn’t like his chances against a huge herd. They were willing to sacrifice one of their own when the raptors attacked but he didn’t think that would work for a single human attacking.

No, he needed to find a safer but still abundant source of mana cores as he had with the lizards at the pond. The fungal jungle may have been a bust, be he had a good feeling about this place.

Adam carefully and quietly made his way down from the tunnel and onto the floor of the huge cavern. It wasn’t very solid since a lot of loose rocks made up most of the ground. It was like trying to walk on a pile of fist-sized gravel without making any noise. Needless to say, he wasn’t very good at it.

The rocks would slide and tumble away from his feet with every second step and he would struggle to maintain his balance while wincing at the noise every time.

Luckily for him. There was abundant cover since this giant cave was definitely no open space like his home on the beachside cliff.

The sound of rocks crumbling from the walls where the crab was working and the loud vibrations it produced also echoed across the many large pillars in the cave to help mask his presence.

He had noticed the pack of dog-like creatures far in the distance by temporarily over cranking his greater sight spell, meaning that they were a few kilometers away and on an elevated portion of the ground. Most of the cave was filled with large rock protrusions and large craters in the ground. He also noticed many small tunnel entrances all over the place.

It seemed that the tunnels he had been navigating for the past few days weren’t naturally formed at all. He had guessed as much from how smooth and uniform they were at the original entrance up top but now realized that this entire labyrinth of tunnels was probably the work of countless different species over thousands or even millions of years.

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He was currently making his way in the opposite direction to the loud noise and therefore the pack, since he wasn’t planning on taking on a dozen opponents in this treacherous environment, or ever if he could help it. So far he had been lucky enough not to have been ambushed by a group of predators and he wanted to keep that streak going.

Adam hated the mushroom jungle after his encounter with the horrible red demon and might have a little PTSD from it. The main reason he left that place was because he had no way of knowing what was lurking around every corner. He could come face to face with another monster like it and would have to way of stopping it. That claustrophobic feeling was now coming back once more as he scanned the many hiding places in the rocks around him.

There were caves inside the large pillars or simply holes in the ground of various sizes. Some might lead to more underground caverns while others were simply dead ends. His vigilance paid off after a few minutes since he noticed what appeared to be a curled-up snake made from rocks.

He would have completely overlooked it if not for the fact that it was curled into a strange cone shape while on top of an almost perfectly round boulder, which he found peculiar as a rock formation until he looked closer.

The creature had no visible mana core as its white outline merged seamlessly into the outline of the rock below it. Despite that, with his enhanced sight, he could see the shape of its jagged head and its open black-green eye.

One thing that he missed about the fungal jungle environment was the glowing bioluminescent plants that grew there. It wasn’t enough for a normal person to be able to properly see but it was adequate for his mana-enhanced vision. The pitched black tunnels he had navigated and now this large open cavern both were visible to him thanks to mana sight. The rocks all had a certain degree of mana infused into them, so he could see their white outline with ease with his mana sight.

Mana sight must be the default method for ‘sight’ with most creatures living down here. At least as far as he could remember from the documentaries he watched, creatures like snakes could use heat vision and others like crocodiles were extremely sensitive to detecting vibrations.

Assuming that the creatures here also evolved with different ways of ‘seeing’, mana would only elevate those natural abilities to the next level. Just like he had done with his own eyes, to be able to see in the darkness of these caves. And he ruled out the possibility of sensing vibrations since the crab was constantly creating loud vibrating noise that would cause any vibration-based creatures to get as far away from that titanic crap as possible.

The snake didn’t move from its position but nor did he. Adam had no idea what it was capable of since it had somehow hidden its core and was looking straight at him so he wasn’t likely to be able to escape.

Both simply stared unmoving at each other since Adam was afraid that turning away would give the snake the idea that it had to pounce at the fleeing prey and getting closer would also provide it with an opportunity. The thing wasn’t exceedingly large but it would be able to swallow him hole if it was similar to a python.

“Guess this is it, sorry buddy but I ain’t gonna be your dinner”

He looked inwards for the silver flames and pushed some up towards his eyes. His vision went black for a horrifying second as his eyes were no longer being augmented by his magic. Then a small silver orb appeared in front of him. It wasn’t very bright but shifted after a second as an appendage appeared at the top of the orb.

‘This must be that snake’s soul’

It looked so very different from his own. At least, as far as he could tell since he was simply feeding his eyes with mana using the same channels he had formed when first augmenting his sight into a spell. However, it didn’t exactly work as intended since that pathway was designed to be used to feed standard mana into his eyes and not his strange silver soul mana. As a result, the small blurry ball in front of him might only look like that because of his subpar soul mana control.

The interesting thing was that the snake had moved. To Adam, it appeared as though a hand had risen from the silver ball but in reality, he knew it was its head. Adam hadn’t moved a muscle out of fear since he was effectively blind currently but it seemed that his hunch was correct.

He believed that the creatures down here evolved ways to utilize the abundant mana energies of this world in order to sense their environment down here and as soon as he switched his core to his ethereal soul version, the snake must have lost sight of his mana presence.

The snake must have been surprised when he disappeared in its eyes as it stopped pretending to be a rock and lifted its head to search for Adam. He was feeling rather confident now but still didn’t move or make any sound, after all, it probably had more ways of finding its prey than just mana sight. If it has similar heat vision abilities like earthly snakes, then he could still be discovered once the snake deactivated its mana sight.

But Adam wasn’t idle, he wasn’t trying to hide from the snake anyway, he simply wanted to be able to see what happened when he threw a soul mana blade at the thing.

He pulled a significant amount of his soul mana reserve and attempted to quickly push it into a spike shape. That was easier said than done though since the silver mana was almost impossible to shape. It resembled a sparse cloud of burning silver fire and any attempt to form it into a certain shape was like blowing on a candle. He felt that it was about to disappear if he blew on it too much or too fast.

This all took place in a single second which felt like several to Adam. Not only was he in complete darkness but the only thing in his vision that wasn’t black, was a predator only meters away from him that could decide to pounce at any moment.

Adam gave up on trying to shape the silver flame and instead mentally pushed it forward at the dim ball of light in front of him. He watched with held breath as his cloud of fire charged at the unsuspecting snake.

It looked like a small wave of fire had smashed against the dim orb of light which seemed to fuel the clashing flames as both lights merged into one as both shook and whirled for a few moments. The orb flung itself around in an attempt to escape the invading flames. But it was no use as the fire had caught and nothing would stop its consumption until all the fuel had been burnt.

It only took a few seconds before the silver fires stopped raging and twirling and returned to their previous cloud-like state, only a lot smaller and sparser in size, revealing the absence of the second orb of silver light. Before it too simply vanished and the world became black once more.