Luckily, the giant crab had been solitary and didn’t come with its family of crabs, allowing the players to dispatch it with relative ease by bombarding it with their magic. Victor observed the fallen creature, now battered and lifeless. He shook his head slightly, thinking, These players are way too excited!

  As usual, he deducted the merit points given to them before resuming the trek toward the north. Victor’s interspatial ring was already chock-full of the Shadow Panther’s corpse, and now there was this magical crab. One thing was for sure: They wouldn’t make it much farther with this extra burden.

  That was why Victor was keen to explore this river while walking upstream toward the ravine before circling back to the academy. Of course, he would take a peek at the previous point of interest to see if anything there could be exploited. Truly, Victor loved the word “exploitation” very much.

  “Hmm… Keep an eye on the river,” he warned. “We don’t know if even more dangerous magical beasts are hidden there.”

  That was the truth.

  Although there were no signs of any creature as strong as the queen spider, he sensed the presence of several magical beasts lurking in the river’s depths. Some possessed power comparable to third-stage Initiate Attunement acolytes. He figured it would be wise to avoid stirring up the hornet nest and leave them alone for now.

  With solemn nods, the players marched on. It wasn’t long before the group reached the ravine that stretched upward with tall rocky walls that might conceal unseen threats.

  “We’ll camp here temporarily for lunch,” Victor announced, halting just outside the ravine where the ground transitioned to sturdy rock. The ground near the riverbank was brown in color and rather squishy, making it a poor place to set up a camp. Fortunately, the location was easily guarded and not far from a cave Victor had discovered weeks prior—making it perfect in case a hasty retreat became necessary.

  “Esteemed Headmaster, are we allowed to roast and eat the giant crab?” inquired Zero while the others gently laid the Azure Mystique Crab’s corpse on the ground.

  Victor thought for a moment and agreed, “Fine, but there will be no points awarded for the creature—”

  “That’s perfectly fine, sir! It’s not every day we get to eat crabs this big, after all.”

  Not every day? If a crab of such magnitude were to appear on Earth just once, forget about having the chance to taste it. It would cause a frenzy in the media.

  Still, as someone who had lived in this world almost as long as on Earth, Victor understood well how much of a delicacy this was for the players.

  “Headmaster!” called Aphrodite96, who could barely contain his thrill as he caressed the nook of a nearby ravine wall like it was a treasured beauty. Yes, he was part of this team and among the ones who had been promoted to a true acolyte.

  “Yes, what is it?” Victor pivoted toward the source of excitement.

  “This place here is laden with riches! Iron, copper, and tin. I can easily find any of those here!” He then pointed at a natural alcove with strangely white-colored soil. “What’s more, the sediment in these rocks is laced with potassium nitrate. If we had some sulfur, we’d have the means to craft gunpowder!”

  Gunpowder, particularly black powder, also existed in this world and had been developed for a very long time. Yet, it had never supplanted traditional weaponry as it did on Earth. The existence of magic and extraordinary living beings made mundane explosives less relevant. Magic armaments such as magic cannons and guns offered better firepower and might, rendering traditional gunpowder a secondary choice in the arsenal of warfare.

  But this didn’t mean that there was no application for it. For example, it could offer an element of surprise against an army of unsuspecting soldiers…

  “Interesting. Gather what you need, but let it not be a burden on our expedition,” Victor instructed.

  “Will do!” He didn’t even look at him as he started scooping up the mineral-rich white crust with his bare hands. Truly, he was the only player that didn’t suck up to him.

  As the players busied themselves preparing the campfire to cook the giant crab, Victor walked toward the ravine’s mouth and told Zero, “I will be exploring ahead. You acolytes should watch out for any danger while I’m gone.”

  “Consider it done, Headmaster!” Zero responded with a salute.

  With Zero in charge here, there was nothing to worry about. He should be able to act according to any situations that might arise.

  Victor traversed the landscape, passing various mineral veins and deposits that he had previously noted. Once there was enough manpower and the players could go back and forth easily, he wanted to make a quarry here so that the academy could be supplied with top-quality materials. Especially those elemental marble… Just imagining the potential profit sent a thrill running through his bones.

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  Finally, he arrived at the mouth of the dark cavern system, which was strangely rich in elemental particles. This very place had acted like a beacon call to him before… Even now, as he stood at the threshold, that palpable sense of peril still existed, albeit a bit less intense.

  Sweat drops built up on Victor’s forehead as he hesitated to go inside… Venturing into the unknown was a gamble; after all, he had but a single life to wager. In the past, he may have sent a player to scout and report back to him. They would leap at the opportunity to sacrifice themselves for the greater good as long as he gave enough compensation in the form of a mission. Luckily, since he now knew {Demonic Eye}, there was no such need.

  Circulating his infused mana, Victor conjured five spectral puppets in the form of flying eyes. As these puppets dispersed into the cavern’s multiple passages, Victor’s vision splintered into five distinct streams. The sudden increase in total vision would have caused intense headaches and dizziness in ordinary people, but Victor was by no means “ordinary.”

  The interior of the cavern system was filled with darkness, save for some luminous stones and bioluminescent flora on the walls. Despite the shadows that sought to cloak the interior, the spectral puppets’ enhanced sight pierced through the gloom, rending the veil of the night as clear as day.

  The cave’s interior grew steadily brighter as cyan crystals began to sprout more frequently from the rocky walls the deeper he ventured inside.

  Victor’s eyes narrowed in recognition. “Could it be? Mana crystals!” There was no mistake; mana fluctuations were coming off of these crystals.

  Of course, there were different grades of mana crystal mines. For example, these crystals adorning the cavern’s interior were probably not even on the same grade as novice-grade mana crystals, and one had to excavate tirelessly to procure even a solitary crystal of such grade.

  But! This was undeniably a gold mine through and through… No, saying it was a gold mine would be an understatement, as it was worth hundreds of times more than that—a true treasure trove. Something that could incite a war of greed and shed blood if news of such a place spread to the Magus forces and academies around the kingdom.

  A typical grand Magus academy like the Arcane Radiance College had its own reservoirs of mana crystals, from sprawling mines to extraordinarily precious magical trees that bear mana crystals in droves by absorbing mana straight from the Primordial Nexus.

  “—Oof!”

  Suddenly, the connection to one of the spectral puppets was cut off by an unknown entity destroying it in a single strike. The attack was so swift and unanticipated that not even a glimpse of the perpetrator was captured. This was probably the source of danger that Victor had previously felt.

  Not willing to miss this opportunity, Victor controlled the remaining four puppets to turn around and converge upon the last known location. The strategy was pretty simple: a simultaneous approach from multiple directions would increase the likelihood of obtaining at least a glimpse of the perpetrator, even if it meant sacrificing one or two.

  As they flew through the dim cavern, two more of the spectral puppets were obliterated in rapid succession, disintegrating into mana wisps before achieving their objective. Nevertheless, the other two were able to safely get there to show Victor what was going on. There it was, a humongous lizard-like abomination (if he must say), grotesquely adorned with crystalline protrusions along its back and a nest of writhing tentacles beneath its head. The sight was chilling enough to send shivers down Victor’s spine.

  While he only saw one, it was definitely not alone. At least Victor was sure of that because the place where the previous two puppets were destroyed was not the same as the first.

  “This is bad.” His eyes narrowed in contemplation as he held his chin.

  Victor had heard about these creatures before from the records in his academy. They were called “Crystalback Tendrilisk,” which was basically a giant lizard-like magical beast that fed on mana-rich minerals and crystals, with mana crystals as their favorite food. Essentially a beast with a voracious appetite.

  Though not as dangerous and cunning as the Lesser Hiveborne Arachnids, their sheer brute force was not something to scoff at. They were also very sensitive to sound and could easily perceive anything from a far distance. At full maturity, these creatures had the strength of third-stage Initiate Attunement rank magical beasts, and a single one of them could effortlessly decimate a company of Ki-Warrior knights. So, what could he do when faced with potentially a family of them?

  A frown etched itself upon Victor’s brows, and he opened the mission tab.

  —— [Headmaster’s Journal] ——

  Mission: Trace Back Your Steps

  Having extensively explored the surrounding territories, you’ve unveiled a myriad of intriguing phenomena and points of interest. Now you must retrace your steps to uncover a hidden treasure of immense value and take it over from anything standing in your way. A treasure that will boost the academy’s development exponentially.

  Type: Main mission

  Special Place Found and Occupied: 0/1

  Reward: 200 academy points

  This mission had two main points: to “uncover a hidden treasure of immense value” and “take it over from anything standing in your way.” The first goal had been met with the discovery of this mana crystal mine, and he knew what “standing in your way” referred to, which was, of course, the family of Crystalback Tendrilisk. Now, the only thing that hadn’t been done would be to take it over, but what did it precisely entail by that?

  For one thing, it wouldn’t be entirely impossible for him to kill them one by one by himself, even if it would take a considerable amount of time. However, the mission objective extended beyond mere conquest—he had to secure the ability to exploit the mine. Considering there were too few players who had promoted, it would be risky to hold this place with such little manpower when there could be other unknown magical beasts hidden deeper. An interim solution would be to mark this cavern system as a prospective “pseudo-dungeon,” but that had to wait until the arachnid’s nest was cleared of any potential danger.

  “Oh well, all I can do is wait.” Maybe once he finally had his breakthrough, all these problems would become easier to solve.

  With these considerations weighing on him, Victor conceded to a tactical retreat. At the very least, he knew that this place held immeasurable treasure, potentially even other magic ore veins. One thing he was certain of was that he had to carefully plan how to swallow this whole trove without anyone knowing.