There seemed to be nothing present in the den until….”

“Until what Baba?....” asked Indra as he cocked his head slightly to the side.

The question snapped Bhala out of his reverie and pulled him back from the river of memories. He took a deep breath as he shifted around in bed, turning to face Indra.

His dull hair seemed to regain their luster and his eyes shimmered grey under the moonlight that streamed in through the window. Indra straightened his back when Bhala’s eyes held his own eyes shimmering like grey orbs.

“Until your mother found this Indra” said Bhala as he held out his hand towards Indra and on his palm the earthly metal bead reappeared.

“Go on, take it.” said Bhala while motioning his hand towards him.

Indra held out both his hands to hold the bead having just experienced the pressure the bead exuded. But the bead seemed to weigh nothing, there was no pressure to it or better Said the bead felt immaterial. it felt as if he was holding a fistful of air in his hands.

He held it up to his eye level as he rotated the bead in his hands, The area around the bead had gotten slightly darker as the bead swallowed the light in surroundings, with its surface glimmering in a metallic sheen, while twinkling with moonlight; it was like holding a dark brown moon in his hands.

He tried to peer inside the bead wanting to glean what mysteries it could be hiding but alas no matter how he prodded it, whether trying to press it, squeeze, pull or rotate, nothing out of ordinary happened to this extraordinary bead. He returned the bead to Bhala when he couldn’t elicit any reaction from the bead.

“What does it do, baba?.” questioned Indra while the bead once again vanished from Bhala’s palm.

“I will answer that question at the end of the trip, now go to sleep.” said Bhala as he pretended to stand up.

“What trip Baba? You never told me about it.” asked Indra while holding Bhala’s hand; who just smiled and sat back down.

“Before you can join the training camp, me and you are going to go on a trip. Don’t ask where we are going, it's a little secret that you will know tomorrow and we will depart after you have met your aunts, uncles and friends; they were quite worried about you.” replied Bhala while his hand once again moved to ruffle Indra’s hair.

“Baba at least finish the story.” Implored Indra while making an innocent face towards Bhala and slightly dodged his hand.

“Ha… but you straight go to sleep after this, you will need all the rest; believe me.” replied Bhala with a slight smirk on his face.

“I will Baba, don’t worry. Now please tell me the remaining story.”

“Alright so where was I?”

“You and mum were exploring the ferocious mole’s den baba” answered Indra as he leaned back on the pillow, still feeling slightly weak from the fainting.

Bhala once again turned to face the full moon which by now has covered quite the distance in the sky. His dull hair was ruffled by the winds that flew in through the window while he once again sank in the river of memories. He waved his hand as brown Qi streamed out of his hand and slowly took the form of various criss-cross pipes.

There was a big pipe heading down wards while multiple pipes had their opening in this tunnel and these pipes seemed to lead somewhere in the brown mist produced by Qi. Bhala has recreated the map of the den from his memories with his Qi.

“We were floating downwards on my cloud artifact and I held a glowing pearl in my hand which I put in the illumination lamp. Since the pearl would be consumed by the lamp while it glowed with five times the intensity and illuminated the den.” a blue dot representing both of them appeared on the map as it slid down the big tunnel.

“Very cautious master Bhala you have the illumination lamp that suppresses the dark creatures, it's rare for a loose cultivator to have it.” said Vayu while she looked around the maze of a den we had entered.

The entrance was 5 meters wide and went deep downwards in the earth while there were multiple tunnels dug in different directions and different heights with their entrances ending up in the downwards tunnel we had found.

“I am no lord and caution has never led me down. Now if you can take the lead since I can't make heads or tails of these tunnels and you are clearly the expert here.” I replied while going downwards slowly and keeping an eye out for any relative of the moles that might have not been dealt with.

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The illumination lamp illuminated a ten meter spherical area around them and the slight astonishment on her face was clear under the flickering glow of the light.

“Why do you seem surprised?” I questioned her while stopping the cloud mid-descent fearing she had found something. The dot too came to a halt as it stayed around the upper section of the den.

“I need to use some of the fur I collected of the beasts to cast the spell, can you keep the cloud stationary?” She said while shaking her hand and bypassed the topic.

“Hmm, it’s not hard. You can prepare the spell without worry. I will keep us safe” I said and closed my eyes and spread my spiritual sense so that even the slightest movement within our vicinity alerts us.

She nodded and took out the metallic looking fur with blood still on it from her spatial bag. She sat down cross-legged and put the patch of fur in front of her. She clasped both of her hands and started to make rapid hand signs.

Qi in her vicinity flared as she started to shimmer blue with most of it concentrating on her finger tips, Despite this the Qi remained a lighter shade of blue. She slightly opened her lips and blew on the qi which then transformed into an orb of smoke in her hand .

She pointed her fingers at the fur and the blue orb enveloped the fur as she closed her eyes. The fur enveloped by the blue smoke slowly rose to her face level and various tendrils of smoke streamed out of the orb.

They flew around the den and went into the various tunnels. The fog that entered various tunnels were of different color scheme, with some tunnels having only faint blue colored smoke and others having darker ones.

The smoke also moved downwards and upwards in a dark tone signifying the hefty use of this seemingly main tunnel.

“The patch of fur is from the strongest of the mole who was on the verge of advancement. If there is going to be a treasure that these moles guarded it surely was for its use. The tracking smoke spell traces the places this mole ventured the most into” She explained perhaps sensing my confusion.

“So that means the fainter trace the less it was visited and the darker the smoke the more the mole spent time there?” I questioned but I felt quite certain like I was pointing out the obvious.

Vayu nodded as she stood up and opened her eyes. She pointed at the tunnels that held the darkest of the smoke tendrils And said “these three should be the tunnels most probably holding the secrets to what held the moles here despite the danger.”

“Then where shall we start?” I asked and withdrew my spiritual sense since it was taxing to maintain it over long periods of time.

“I want half”

“Hmm?”

“I said I want half of whatever we find,” said Vayu with a strong tone as she held my eyes without flinching. She withstood my spiritual pressure unphased. At least in spirit since my spiritual sense still caught the slight tremor in her hands.

“You have a deal but if it is useful to me; I will compensate you. Deal?” I asked while withdrawing my pressure.

We were standing on a floating cloud that stood in the middle of a dark den deep beneath the surface. The oppressive feeling of the unknown and the slight confrontation made us slightly tense.

“Alright” she said as she backed down.

“So where to, my lady?.” I asked while giving her a slight bow and motioned her to choose the tunnel to go in.

She pointed at the tunnel that was around seven meters downwards toward our east. I made a hand sign with my right hand and the cloud resumed its flight as it floated to that tunnel.

“Why this tunnel specifically?” I asked while scanning the tunnel for any danger that might be present. When I found none we both went down in the tunnel as I withdrew the cloud since it wasn't conducive to fighting or exploring the tunnel.

“Trade secrets, but you could say that it's my intuition.” Said Vayu while smiling faintly as if she had somehow gained an upper hand in a battle I didn't know about.

The tense atmosphere between them eased considerably when she did this knowingly or unknowingly.

“Lady luck must be smiling upon me then” I said as I let her take the lead in the investigation while I held up the rear and kept my eye out for any danger or movement that might happen in this cave.

But there was no movement with the only sound being the crunching sound of the stone and pebbles beneath our feet as we went silent after that conversation.

They had just walked a few meters in when the tunnel branched out in three directions with the blue smoke lingering in three quite equally with no visible difference in the darkness of the colour.

“What now?” I asked her while she squatted down at the entrance of the branches and took out an intricate artifact. It was a piece of polished glass cut in circular shape and its border was covered in silver-gold metal that encased it.

She held the small artifact with a finger and thumb in front of her right eye. The pattern etched on the border of the artifact glowed and they looked like blue flowers blooming on silver-gold.

“It's a divine tracer. It doesn't really hold to its name but it's still quite capable. I can peer into things more precisely and also understand some things that aren't comprehensible but they give me an intuition of where to go.” said Vayu while trying to catch the fleeting feeling of the correct path.

She would crouch down and look at faint claw marks or stand next to the wall and press her hands on it. I couldn't understand any underlying principle of what she was doing but as long as she knew what she was doing.

Her dark hair rested on her shoulder while she had pulled her sleeves back slightly. There was a certain charm to her focused state as she looked around for clues in the tunnel looking to gather enough to catch the fleeting intuition introduced by the artifact.

“It's here” she said and stood up and moved to the entrance of the third tunnel from the right. She stood about two feet away from the entrance and stomped down with a Qi filled kick. A new tunnel was revealed that went diagonally downwards.

“Crafty creatures, I might have missed it If it weren't for the artifact” Vayu had just said when they heard a squeaking voice from the end of the tunnel.

I rushed up and jumped down the tunnel and started running downwards with my spiritual sense stretching downwards looking for the creature that made the voice.

Vayu was running just behind me as we ran towards the first creature we found since entering this desolate den where even insects weren't present and even moss wasn't there.

The tunnel opened up in a large cave with around fifty meters of space and the moment I stepped in my spiritual sense I caught a rat-like creature standing next to a stone pillar that was in the middle of the cave.

My intrusion startled the beast as it jumped at the fist sized stone that sat on the pillar. It was an unassuming stone and if it wasn't present in the situation it was found in, nobody would spare it a single glance.

I summoned my spear and had just thrown it at the beast when it was shredded down the moment it touched the stone and moved it. My spear landed in the bloody soup that was the creature and was embedded in the earth.

Vayu had just entered the cave behind me while I went towards the pillar to check up on the situation.

But “Crack thud grhh thud’ were the sounds that suddenly started being emitted all around the cave. Faint cracks appeared in the walls and the entrance was blocked with rubble.

The chamber was now sealed shut and the den was caving in.