Crystal clung to Alan's clothes, peeking over the edge into the seemingly bottomless pit. *I suppose being afraid of heights makes sense when you are that small.* Alan sighed as wrapped his arms around her and lift her up. She turned her attention to him, noticing the edge of the pit slowly receding up above as they fell.

*Three, two, one.* Turning his body Alan raised one of his hands into the sky, blue lines of energy flowing through it as he brought it down.

He felt his hand hit the water and slowly sink down, the energy being released a moment later and causing a shower, as well as softening their landing to some extent.

He took the brunt of the impact, not feeling much more than a slight stinging sensation on his back and hand. Not wanting to take unnecessary risks Alan quickly swam to the shore, dragging Crystal with him as anything could be lurking under the water. The inside still remained extremely dark, barely bright enough for him to even see his own hands.

On reaching the shore he distanced himself from the water before attempting to dry his clothes to some extent with flames, that illuminated the darkness to some extent. His blue flames however, did not make everything as easily visible as he would have liked. He turned to Crystal to help dry her clothes as well, only to find her standing by the shore, staring into the dark waters.

Using his flames he searched the surface of the water, finding nothing to be there. Looking around himself he spotted a trail not far, carved into the stone from where the elevator would have descended to a tunnel. He heard Crystal snarl at something, followed by a quiet splash, causing him to turn in an instant.

He expected the worst, but found Crystal to be unharmed and still staring at the water. He caught the slight rings in the water formed by the splash reaching the shore, confirming his doubts about it. Walking over to her and grabbing her collar he dragged her away, not wishing for her to get into any more trouble.

"All your clothes are drenched, how are they more wet than mine even." Alan sighed as he crouched in front of her, standing a good distance away from the water and facing it. Using his flames to carefully dry her clothes and hair he got back up, looking at the tunnel for a few moments. "We are closer than I expected, and if this leads us in the right direction we might not have to climb out the hard way."

Crystal tilted her head at him, her bright eyes shining in the blue light of the orb of flame in his hand. He gestured her to follow, to which she raised his arms towards him. Lifting her up with a sigh he continued forward, following the tunnel which luckily did not split off into other directions for a while. Seeing some light up ahead Alan chose to speed up.

It turned out to be a small camp, two small tents supported by wooden beams as well as a small wooden shed. Placing Crystal down he kicked open the gate of the fence that surrounded the camp, another sign of the presence of monsters, though not dangerous ones as a fence seemed to have been enough.

Crystal continued to stare at the lanterns that illuminated the area, made with the help of mana crystals that were most likely mined here. She seemed to be fascinated, though not enough to keep her distracted for long. By the time Alan completed searching the two tents and found nothing but a few general supplies useless to them, Crystal already moved on to playing with a glass ball.

"Wait, where did you find that?" Alan questioned as he approached her. Crystal looked up at him, pointing to the shed with its door wide open and the contents, which seemed to be just some tools, lying on the ground inside and near it. "This is quite an unexpected find, but I suppose we can use it for something. These are quite rare now, though half a millennia ago these could be found in any city or even small villages."

Crystal held it up to him, only for it to be pushed back in her hands. "Hold on to it and focus. Think of it as a part of your body and slowly let your mana flow into it." Alan instructed as he placed his hand on her head. Closing her eyes Crystal did as told, the orb slowly changing colors. "Interesting." Alan mumbled as his deep blue eyes glued to brightly colored and constantly changing orb of light.

Crystal glanced up at it, losing her focus for a small moment. Before either could react the orb shattered into pieces, sending small glass shards dropping to the ground. Crystal flinched and tripped backwards, being pulled to the side by Alan before she could.

"Careful." He reprimanded, helping her stand properly. "The orb turned out to be worthwhile, good work finding it." Patting her on the head he glanced at the glass shards, each of a different color. *Black and white, two of each too. What do those stand for? I have never heard of these colors appearing in a glass orb test before.*

A sound caught both their attention, seemingly from the earth itself. The rumbling stopped within a second, shaking the entire tunnel and everything inside of it in that time. Alan gestured Crystal to follow as he walked out of the fence gate, glancing at the two paths they could take other than where they came from.

"Which one did the sound come from?" Alan questioned, glancing at Crystal for her guess.

The two continued to the path on the left on her judgement, the winding tunnels already having caused Alan to lose his sense of direction. The path twisted and turned the entire way, and even split off into seperate directions many times, but Crystal picked a direction each time without any hesitation.

*I wonder if her senses are just that sharp.* Alan thought as he walked beside her, keeping an eye out for any sign of monsters.

After another long duration of walking they reached another camp, consisting of just one shed and an open area with many chairs and tables. Alan chose to search it as well, hoping to find something here, which he did. Ripping open the wooden top of the crate Alan tossed it away, a smile appearing on his face as his eyes set upon the dynamites and small boxes of gunpowder sitting inside of it.

Setting the crate aside, which he found outside the shed, he kicked open the locked door and searched inside. Placing the final crate he outside he counted them, a total of sixteen crates filled with dynamite and gunpowder, all in perfect condition. Realising something he paced back and forth for a short while, turning to Crystal as he noticed her watching him.

"Do you remember where our objective was?" He questioned her, receiving a confident nod. "Can you lead us as close to it as possible?" He inquired, looking around.

Receiving another nod, just as confident as the first, he walked over to the back of the camp and returned with a cart. Placing the sixteen crates on the cart he followed behind Crystal down the tunnels, reaching a dead end not long after. Crystal pointed to the side, stepping back as Alan ordered her to.

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He punched the wall with a charged attack, creating a dent in it as well as causing many rocks to fall down from the ceiling of the tunnel. "Won't do, the dynamite would have to do. You know how much we should use?" He inquired as he turned to Crystal, receiving her usual confused head tilt.

He gestured her to stand further back as he placed all sixteen crates by the wall, not having any experience with proper mining explosions. Walking further down the tunnel he gestured Crystal to stand behind him. Igniting an orb of blue flames in his hand he tossed it towards the dynamites, setting it all off at once and shaking the whole tunnel.

"Expected as much." Alan sighed as he looked up at the ceiling of the tunnel beginning to collapse. "Fortunately, I am still faster." He shrugged before using his flashstep to jump through the hole blown open by the dynamite.

He landed on the ground some distance lower, holding Crystal in his hand. Her body trembled from both the loud noise of the explosion and the sight of the tunnel collapsing, as well as suddenly being grabbed and transported to a completely different looking place. Alan inspected the surroundings as he set Crystal down.

Geodes of all sorts of crystals dotted the cave, it's walls shining in the bright light emitted by the mana-infused crystals. The beauty of the cave seemed to calm Crystal down to some extent as she continued to stare at them. As Alan looked around for the signs of any Earth Dragons he noticed Crystal suddenly turn behind them, alerting him of the presence as well.

A girl stood behind them, seeming to have just woken up from the drowsy look on her face and her droopy eyes. Her eyes opened fully as she fixed them on Crystal, both of them staring at each other. The girl's dress, a mix of brown, white and black, alongside many gemstones embedded into, matched her similar colored hair, some of it tied into two buns at the top of her head.

He took a look around to see if there were anyone else stood in the cave now that the dust and smoke settled, but there weren't. On returning his attention back to the girl, he found her to not have moved even slightly. Both her and Crystal continued staring into each other's eyes, neither of them so much as blinking.

He stood awkwardly to the side as they continued staring at each other for few more minutes. The point of the weird occurence also became apparent to him as he noticed the Earth Dragon's eyes beginning to tear him, though she still forced them to remain open. However, she did blink a couple seconds later and fell to her knees, wiping her eyes.

"Are you two done?" Alan questioned, slightly annoyed now that he realised what just happened. Crystal nodded as she puffed her chest, pleased by her clear victory. Alan sighed on noticing her, patting her on the head regardless as he walked towards the Earth Dragon.

"Hey, what's your name?" He inquired, stopping halfway to her.

She raised her head and inspected him, tilted it to the side a moment later. Getting up she mumbled something to herself that Alan failed to hear, turning to him right after. "I am Kristine, nice to meet you. Are you two here for magical ores by any chance?"

"No, I am here for you." Alan informed with a smile on his face.

Kristine flinched back, her eyes widened and slightly reddened. "For me?" She questioned, covering her face with her hands before shaking her head and regaining her composure. "Oh, for me, what can I do for you?"

"I needed your help and would like you to join my team." Alan requested with a slight bow. "You are quite strong, much stronger than you look, though you seem to be restricting your power."

"I am really happy to hear that there is someone who thinks I can be of use to them, but I have no interest joining the human-demon war on any side, and hence, I would like to pass on this offer." Kristine replied with a bow.

*I didn't expect an Earth Dragon to be this respectful, considering they are the least intelligent species of draconic creatures.* Alan thought to himself as he raised his hand to his chin. "It's for the human-demon war, that has ended a long time ago. It's more like a small competition, I would only require your help with some monsters."

"I suppose I can lend my help, but as an Earth Dragon there are some laws I must follow," Kristine informed. "If you can defeat me in a mock battle, I will lend you my power and fight under you, otherwise I would have to request you to leave."

"Well, that wouldn't be any trouble at all." Alan chuckled as he prepared himself to fight.

"Don't be too overconfident. I can tell you are by no means weak, but it still isn't easy to fight Earth Dragons inside of a closed cave." Kristine warned as she closed her eyes and raised her arms to the sides.

"Its not problem. So, shall we begin?" Alan inquired as he placed his left leg a step back.

Kristine nodded as Alan summoned his all black greatsword. She clapped both her arms in front of herself, sending forth of wave of stone. Alan disappeared from his place just as the rocks reached him, appearing right behind Kristine. A wall of stone erected beside him as he swung his greatsword, stopping it before it could gain much force.

Stepping forward Alan pushed his greatsword through the pillar, bringing it closer in a guard as the ground in front of him shot up. The sword took the brunt of the impact, only managing to soften the blow as Alan slid several steps back. Kristine spun her fingers in the air before pointing them towards Alan, two drills of stone shooting up from the ground towards him at the same time.

Sidestepping one of the attacks he smashed the other with his sword, jumping into the path formed by it. The first attack circled around to attack him from behind, barely missing his back as he jumped off the side. Kristine did not move as Alan fell towards her, his greatsword raised above his head. Kristine stepped to the side at the last moment, leaning back in as she drove her fist into his chest, sending sliding some distance back.

"I expected and Earth Dragon to be strong, but I must say you surpassed my expectations by quite a lot." Alan grunted, clutching his chest with one hand. "If you used all your strength then your hand might have been able to go through me."

"This is just a mock battle, I have no need to use all my power against someone who requested my help." Kristine informed with a shrug. "I don't expect even you to stand much chance if I did go all out. The last time I did was to help the humans who requested my help a long time ago."

"Who made you go all out in a fight even?" Alan scoffed as he prepared to continue the fight.

"A being with immense power that killed everything that indiscriminately, atleast that's what they told me." Kristine sighed, reminiscing about something as her eyes drifted to the ground. "I have spent most of my life here. There are few times when I have been on the surface, so I know little about the nature of other beings or what happens there. Still, I believe some things were left untold back then, and I do not suppose any know about them in this time."

"Perhaps, but you will never know unless you try." Alan replied as she dashed back in, swinging his sword upwards.

Kristine slammed her hand into the sword, knocking it to the side with ease. Stepping forward she again drove her fist into his chest, feeling nothing as her body leaned too far and she lost her balance. Appearing behind her Alan stabbed his sword towards her back, two stone spikes appearing from the ground headed for his head at the same time.

Crystal let out a shriek as Kristine landed on the ground, the sword resting on her back, having failed to pierce her scales. Drops of blood flowed down the spikes as they slowly drew back into the earth. Alan stepped away, inspecting the two small cuts on his face as Kristine got back to her feet.

"You could've killed me there." Alan sighed, almost tripping to the side as Crystal threw herself at him.

"Yes, but as I said earlier, this is just a mock battle, and you know that full well." Kristine shrugged as she walked away.

"My sword is not sharp enough to pass through your scales." Alan informed, allowing his sword to fade away before lifting Crystal up.

"I know." Kristine replied as she raised one of her arms. "Pretending to be a swordsman is hard, their mannerisms are refined through much training. But I believe you are well aware of that." She smirked at him as a staircase slowly raised from the ground, connecting to the collapsed tunnel they entered from. "You certainly made quite the mess here, but fixing it is only a matter of seconds."

Walking halfway to him Kristine bowed her head. "I will be helping you with whatever it is you need, feel free to give me orders as I am not very knowledgeable about the outside world." She smiled nervously, her hand twisting a strand of her hair.

"Very well, I will try my best to help you get accustomed to it while working towards my own goal." Alan returned a smile as he set Crystal down. "For now, let's return. We can go over the details along the way."