122 Flaw in Skill, A Pleasant Sigh

While Kirou(?) was currently making his way back to the surface, Mistaken Fox's Stone Axe Minotaur and Bandit Warrior Jackson's squad have made quite a dent into the rock before them. Right now, the entire group has managed to clear roughly twelve meters of space within just a few hours of work. In fact, the group would have gotten much further in their excavation if they didn't have to clear out the excess rock and sand in their way.

It was around this time that the squad members on the surface finally manage to put together a simple pully and lever system to aid with the removal of the excess rock and sand. Because of this, a few of the diggers put down their pickaxes and grabbed shovels as they started clearing away the debris. With the debris being cleared away from the area, even with the reduced number of diggers, the excavation sped up once more, this time in a much more efficient manner.

This is what Kirou(?) came to witness when he returned to the surface, or rather, passed by the first floor being excavated. He only raised an eyebrow at this and nodded slightly before continuing to the surface. When he got to the surface, he could see various persons moving around like an army of soldier ants, transporting the debris that was retrieved from the first floor to an open area close to the cliff.

While he was surveying the area, someone walked over to him. When he turned around, he noticed that it was Reya who came over. Reya looked him over for a minute with a hesitant expression on her face before speaking up, "Is that you, Mr. Wolf?"

Kirou(?) just looked at Reya with a raised eyebrow before speaking, "What's got you so unsure, Ms. Elf? Is there something on your mind?"

Hearing the usual address caused Reya to relax. She now had a smile on her face as she led Kirou(?) over to her work area as she spoke up, "I'm sorry about that, Mr. Wolf. When I originally saw you appearing from the path you made, I originally thought you were a shadow clone based on your appearance, or rather, the lack of your usual mannerisms."

Kirou(?) looked at Reya with an intrigued expression on his face as he said, "Oh? This is news to me. Care to elaborate on the subject?"

Reya tilted her head to the side for a moment, gathering her thoughts before she spoke up, "During combat, without the usual signs that highlight who's the original and who's the clone, you and your clones are usually indistinguishable as you normally emit the same kind of feeling. As for when you and your clones are out of combat, it's usually only you that maintains this vibe, albeit at a much lower level, while your clones seemed to be in rest-mode or something. Or at least, that's the vibe I usually get while staring at you and your clones."

Kirou(?) thought it over for a moment before nodding his head at Reya's words. Looking over his various memories of himself and his clones both in and outside of combat, besides the times when he was busy crafting, the situations truly played out just as Reya had described. His clones were usually playing around with their guards down while he was always surveying the area for danger when outside of combat while they were all of the same breath and mind while in combat. Kirou(?) chuckled at the fact that someone was able to spot such a detail about himself and his skills when even he never noticed.

With all this now brought to light, Kirou(?) gave Reya a light pat on the head before speaking, "Thanks for pointing this out, Reya. This could have lead to problems for me, later on, had this bit of info not been brought to my attention as soon as it did." As Kirou(?) spoke, his voice

A small blush formed on her face as Reya felt the pat on her head. She enjoyed the feeling of comfort that it brought. This feeling, unfortunately, could only go on for so long as a few seconds later, Kirou(?) removed his hand from her head.

A tinge of disappointment had appeared in Reya's eyes, but it left as quickly as it appeared, too fast for Kirou(?) to have seen at least. That said, someone did see it and that person was off to the side, chuckling at Reya's expense. Reya saw Navi chuckling and figured out the reason almost instantly, prompting a blush of embarrassment to form on her face.

As the person responsible for all this happening, Kirou(?) had no clue as to why the two elves before him were acting like this and could only scratch the back of his head in response. The group stayed like this for a few moments before they were joined by Moon Lily, now returning from her second trip around the nearby forests.

As soon as Moon Lily appeared, she gave Kirou(?) a puzzling glance before shrugging it off and trading the plants she just obtained to Navi. Seeing that all three ladies were now present, Kirou(?) decided that it was time to take care of what he was there for.

"Now that the three of you are here, I'd like for you to know that the path connecting the surface to the underground cavern has already been made. You guys can inform the former bandits about it when they are taking their break. In the meantime, I'm going offline for a bit to check on something. I should be back within an hour or so." Following those words, Kirou's(?) figure suddenly sank into the shadows before vanishing completely, leaving the three women with confused expressions on their faces.

The trio looked at each other for a few moments before they decided to drop what they were doing and head down the path that Kirou had created. For now, they wanted to see how the path looked while Moon Lily was interested in seeing the underground cavern.

*******

Wang Xu was now staring at the door to his apartment's bedroom. After dissolving the shadow clone that he was using early and having his mind return to his in-game character, he immediately logged out, promptly causing both the shadow clone guarding the door and Asura to vanish from the underground cavern as well.

Now that Wang Xu was conscious, he took a quick trip to the bathroom to wash his face before heading to the living room where he kept his laptop. As soon as the laptop was ready, Kirou began looking up some information on Immortal Era's forums before switching over to searching for some real-world construction designs.

Wang Xu was naturally aware that his in-game design for the \u003cPhantom Palace\u003e wasted quite a bit of the space he has access to so he planned on incorporating a few real-world designs to make up for it. Besides that, he also planned on adding a few things here and there to make his property even more secure than it already was (and for the record, the place was already damn secure).

After spending roughly forty minutes on his research, Wang Xu found a few designs that jumped out at him and ones that he could immediately incorporate into the Phantom Palace the moment the first floor was done. Besides that, Wang Xu also decided to s commit the blueprint for a lighthouse to his memory. While he was sure that he would be able to obtain one in-game, the design for this lighthouse jumped out at him during his research so Wang Xu wanted to make use of this design for when he's ready to construct his lighthouse.

With his research now complete, Wang Xu checked the time and noticed that he still had a third of the time remaining before he needed to log back in. Wang Xu looked outside and noticed that the moon was out. Seeing this, he decided to head to the balcony and allow his body to bath in the lunar light being provided by the moon.

Wang Xu allowed his body to bath in the moonlight while he stared at the various stars in the sky. Like the previous night, he was enjoying their company while getting to know the stars that shone faintly in the night sky. When the twenty-minute time limit was almost up, Wang Xu released a sad sigh as he didn't want to leave the embrace of the night sky so soon. Sadly, he had already given the girls a time limit and he wasn't one to break his words so easily.

Taking one final look at the stars above, Wang Xu returned to the apartment and entered his room before logging back into the game. For now, he had a lot of work to do and little time to do it in.

*******

While Kirou was busy reaching and enjoying the starlight, the three women entered the path and took their time to enjoy the path that was created by both Kirou and Asura. Although the three women weren't architects, they could tell that Kirou had put quite a bit of work into creating the path that led to the underground cavern.

Although the steps seemed a bit rough and they weren't as smooth as steps found in modern cities, all three could see that Kirou had spent some time carefully shaping the steps, or at the very least made sure that they were evenly placed. This wasn't work that just anyone could do, especially in just a few hours but they were experiencing the result for themselves so they had no choice but to believe it.

After traveling for a full fifteen minutes, making sure to stop at the areas Kirou had designated to be the start of the other underground floors, the three women were finally in the underground cavern. Although Navi and Reya had already seen this area just a few hours back, they too joined Moon Lily in being amazed by the mesmerizing sight of the underground cavern.

This continued for a few moments before all three awoke from their stupors and were now glancing at each other. The trio then went over to the area where the land ended and water began and took a look into the deep waters. With the help of the natural light already present in this underground cavern, they were able to see various forms of aquatic lifeforms freely swimming in the waters below.

Moon Lily looked at this for a moment before taking out an old fishing rod from her inventory. After attaching a piece of bait to the hook, Moon Lily cast her line into the water, hoping for something to bite.

Both Navi and Reya kept quiet as they looked on at Moon Lily's actions. They were curious to see if she would be able to fish something up and what that something would end up being.

While the trio was lost in their own world like that, someone appeared from the path that led to the surface. It was a man in a mage's robe that was currently covered in dirt at various spots. Naturally, this mage was Mistaken Fox.

He was currently taking a break from the digging while leaving his Stone Axe Minotaur to help out Bandit Warrior Jackson and the others. He had noticed that Kirou and the others weren't on the surface when he had originally taken his break so he decided to travel down the path he had seen Kirou making earlier. It was only after a ten-minute walk down this path that he was now gifted with the sight of the three women sitting by the underground lake, with one of them fishing.

Mistaken Fox didn't want to disturb the scene so he just quietly moved over to the hut created by Kirou's shadow clones and sat by the door. He quietly removed a snack from his inventory and munched on it while taking in the curious sight.