Because his parents passed away when he was very young, he didn't have any memories of them. He grew up alone without any proper teaching.

Because of that, the third layer and beyond of the underground mine which others considered a dreadful dead zone, was nothing more than an unexplored place in his world.

‘Looks like everyone is pretty busy today, I will definitely be able to sneak out and explore the region behind the mist,’ Thought the boy in excitement as he sneaked past the crowded areas and headed towards the underground mine’s third layer.

Even though many of the adults noticed him, and his perfect plan of sneaking around was quite pathetically an awful failure, no one stopped him. No one really wanted to lecture a kid in the early morning of the festival day.

Perhaps they thought he was just running around to find his parents, or maybe they were aware that something was amiss, but regardless they didn't take any action and so the boy safely reached the third layer of the underground mine.

‘Would you look at that, maybe I am the first man in history who had reached the third layer without getting caught,’ the boy was undoubtedly very happy and excited after his act of doing something taboo.

Despite his young age, he was very proud and aloof because he thought that he was much more intelligent than the kids around him. Although he was arrogant, the facts proved that he was rightfully so, for better or worse.

He had powers that others did not, but naturally he would not tell anyone about them, not even his sister. Despite his young age, he knew how to survive; it was ingrained in his blood.

Three years ago when he was hungry, it was then when he discovered his powers. They awoke when he felt starved and wanted nothing more than to head towards the kitchen.

As he didn't like the taste of dinner that night, he thought it would be fine if he ate breakfast early in the next morning. Quite a foolish decision.

As no one was supposed to walk the corridors at night, not even the adults, there was no way in which he could get some food.

No-one would even care about it as a night of starving would not harm anyone that much. Perhaps it was the instinct of his body, or maybe his delusional threat of death that awakened his potential.

‘Anyway, now that I have safely reached the third layer, if I use my powers now I can easily get past everyone,’ thought the kid. People may ignore him on his way here, but there is no way they would let a kid wander around in the third layer.

He found a nearby corner and remembered how he felt countless times when he practiced his power. His blood started boiling and a dark blue light, the same as the color of his eyes started seeping out from his skin and in a few moments, he was surrounded by a blue halo.

Although he initially had no idea what this blue halo did, what he managed to discover was that when he was in this state, it gave him an invisibility-like effect.

If he didn't want to be discovered, he would definitely go unnoticed even if he were to walk beside someone.

Of course if they were to touch him, or if he made any sound, others would obviously notice that someone was there.

In order for him to be in this state he needed to concentrate completely. The duration of halo was also very short; otherwise he would've used his powers from the first layer.

“Nothing can stop me from going deeper now,” whispered the kid in a gleeful tone as he headed below the third layer.

What he didn't notice was that when he was so absorbed in trying to successfully sneak out, a person saw him release the blue halo and disappear. No matter how careful he thought he was, he was barely ten years old at the end of the day.

Surrounded by the blue halo, the boy then ran across the boundary third layer. Despite it being the least explored region in the underground mine, countless slaves still worked here.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The reason for that was because there are more Vidre stones in the area between the second and third layers compared to the rest.

Following the traces of workers, the boy then reached the third level.

'Hmm, where to go now?' thought the boy as he looked around with curiosity. He found a remote corner and stopped using his power as it had exhausted him greatly.

As he looked around him, all he could see were stones around him. As he headed deeper, he finally found an opening to go below.

However, unlike the case from the first and second layers, the entrance here wasn’t carved properly into stairs and only roughly shaped rocks lay here.

Thankfully it was from the inside of the cliff. If it was a path leading from the outwards, he would have fallen in all this mist.

As he stood at the edge of the biggest stone, the boy was scared after seeing the misty region in front of him.

There are stones the size of 3-4 feet below him but he could only see about five of them. The rest was enshrouded by a thick white mist.

However his excitement and curiosity came over his fears, and he jumped down into the unknown.

As he stumbled his way across the next few boulders, a chilly wind came across his face and he was really spooked this time. As there was no direct airflow in the third layer, this wind meant only one thing. He was heading to the outer side of the cliff.

He once again looked around him and moved forward with determination. He was going down on all fours just in case he stumbled. It was better to use both his hands and feet to stabilize myself.

As his hands became when he gripped one moist stone after another, he made sure to dry them with his clothes. If his hands were wet, there was a very high chance that he’d slip off and fall on rocks below.

From the number of stones the boy counted, he thought that he should be around 100 feet inside the third layer. So far, he hadn’t discovered anything interesting.

‘I wonder why no one comes here,’ thought the boy as he went downwards. He was slightly disappointed as well. He thought that he would find something amazing that no one else could before him, but all he saw were more and more rocks.

Plagued with boredom, he decided that he would go for a few feet more and then head back to the upper layer.

However, just after he hopped down from a dozen more stones, the temperature suddenly became much colder and all the fog disappeared.

As he looked around him, he could clearly see the path where he came from. The third layer was clearly visible from here. When he counted the number of stones above him, there were about fifty of them. If all of them were around three-four feet in height, then he was around 150 feet below the third layer.

However what surprised him the most was that when all of the mist disappeared, he discovered that the mist wasn't natural at all!

He was very pumped up by the thought of having discovered something no-one knew about.

“If only those cowardly people came down here they would’ve realized that the area around here is not bad at all,” the boy shouted with a smug face.

Now that no one could possibly hear or see him, he wasn’t scared and instead he felt a weird sense of freedom. He wanted to go back and tell sister about it, but in the end he restrained himself and looked around the area.

He walked a dozen more steps and finally, he reached the outside of the cliff. When he looked down from above, he was in awe of the scene below him.

That was because when someone looked down from the top of the cliffs, they did not look to be very deep. Everyone thought that they were at most 500 meters deep. Of course that was only with respect to the first and second layers. No one had seen what was beyond the mist after second layer, no-one living.

But now that the boy was standing there when the mist had disappeared, he could finally see how deep the cliffs truly were.

‘If I am guessing correctly, I am only at the middle part of the cliff and the overall cliff should be more than 1 km tall, and this isn’t even the central cliff!’ the boy thought when he saw that there were stairs carved downwards.

“Looks like this exploration was definitely a success, from the stairs I can tell that people used to come here before.” He whispered and decided to go down.

‘If I go up now and tell everyone, they'll definitely praise me. However it would be better if I head downwards and find out what is actually there,’

‘If the adults were to come here, I would not be able to keep anything I find to myself,’ the boy thought and headed downstairs. He didn’t realize that his mind had been affected since coming here.

After about half an hour, he reached the bottom of the stairway. All along the way, there was no wind and the stones were also very clean, it was almost as if someone cleaned this place regularly.

However, this couldn’t be true as there were no people around here so the only logical explanation would be that this place was sealed up, and the kid had somehow broken the seal which led him here.

After the stairs ended, there was a cave entrance a bit further ahead. The cave was five meters tall and about three meters wide. Unlike those carved in the cliffs, this cave led straight downwards and a golden red light was shining from the entrance of the cave.

As the sunlight couldn’t reach here, the glow from the cave was even more apparent.

‘From the stories I’ve heard from the elders, there must be some sort of treasure there,’ he looked forward with greedy eyes and walked towards the entrance of the cave…