Chapter 136 - The Guardian

Cecil and his party made their way into the mines in a hurried manner. Although Jena and everyone else felt a little uneasy at the speed they were traveling through the mines, Cecil thought otherwise.

'We're making good progress, good thing I agreed to them guiding me.'

Each and every monster that they encountered was swiftly dispatched by Cecil. He only used his legs to attack. He kept pushing his mana pathways and had Mana Burst constantly active. Other than the time he had slept, he hadn't stopped using Mana Burst since the time he had departed from Angla City.

Of course this was only possible because he was limiting the activation to only the mana inside his legs. If he had Mana Burst activated in full the entire time then he would have already fallen into the red.

He used his family's martial arts throughout the whole trip through the dungeon. He didn't let up and made sure to limit his attack to only his legs, even when he was put through some difficult situations.

The party behind him could only sigh in constant amazement at Cecil's absurd combat prowess. This was the Silent Sword! He was already so strong AND he hadn't even taken out his sword yet!

The monsters that Jena's party had some degree of difficulty in taking out were being treated as ordinary small fry by the young boy.

As they continued progressing through the dungeon, they had soon arrived at the 7th floor. Just a little more and they would reach the 10th and final floor of this field dungeon. Cecil had the group stop to take a rest when he saw that his party members were a little winded.

Cecil asked them to rest while he would go and roam around the floor a bit and continue training. He departed from the small room Jena's party stopped and began exploring the floor a bit.

'It's indeed just a normal mine.'

Cecil took a look around the floor and saw abandoned mining carts and mining equipment everywhere. They were all rusty, but he found some to be in good condition when he searched deeper inside what he thought to be storage rooms.

Many have already found these rooms, but they didn't deem it necessary to loot the equipment. Cecil scratched his head at this. The pickaxes and other equipment had runes engraved on it so they should have some value when sold.

He didn't think about looting them however since there was no need for it. Cecil continued roaming around, dispatching any monster he saw. He also searched for any valuable ore veins. Maybe he could get lucky and find some mithril or orichalc.u.m.

He kept searching for a while longer, but only found black steel and magic iron. Then he remembered the info that Jena's party had told him about the mines and shook his head depreciatingly.

'I forgot... these mines are only here to mine intermediary level magic ores...'

The ores in Alterna were divided into 2 different categories, normal ore and magic ore. Normal ores were just like the ones from back on Earth with some differences. Then there was the Magic Ore. Magic Ore was divided into 4 grades, namely, Basic, Intermediary, Advanced, and Top grade.

Basic magic ores didn't have much use in refining or forging. They would only be used when creating basic rune engravings for weapons or as supplementary ores when forging. Intermediary magic ores would be used as the core component when forging some mid-grade level weapons, armors, or artifacts.

Advanced grade magic ores are mainly used by the Kingdom or government of a settlement. These ores are what's mainly used to craft the army's weapons and armors as well as any artillery or war weapons.

Top-grade ores, now that's something like the adamantium that Cecil and Lucia found the other time. These ores are used as the core components to forge high-level or maybe even legendary-level equipment.

Lucia's kodachi and Cecil's spear fall into the legendary category, while their sword and katana fall into the high-level category. Of course, the two people didn't know this and only treated these national-level treasures as normal weapons, not caring whether or not they would break when used.

Cecil returned back to Jena's party and they went further into the mines. It didn't take long for them to reach the 10th floor. Cecil was able to quickly find the Earth-source magic stones. He pulled out his adamantium pickaxe and quickly mined the stones out of the walls.

He mined more than enough and then when he was just about to stop, Cecil suddenly he felt a strange mana pulse coming from the wall where he was mining.

"?"

The pulse came again before he was finally sure there was something unusual about the wall he was mining.

'What's this?'

Cecil continued mining the walls until finally he hit something hard.

CLANG CLANG CLANG THUNK

"Oh?!"

Cecil saw a large ruby colored crystal once he cleared away the surrounding debris. It was large 1 meter sized round crystal.

'This'll be the perfect gem to use to create mother's necklace!'

Cecil happily began mining and chipping away at the surrounding walls. The ruby itself was pretty hard. There wasn't even a scratch on it after taking a hit from Cecil's full-powered pickaxe strike.

'I've never seen this kinda gem before! It's emitting an absurd amount of mana. It'd make the perfect vessel for carving the runes I have in mind!'

When the earth that was surrounding the large crystal was finally cleared away, Jena and her party approached Cecil from behind and were dumbfounded when they saw the lad mining away. The moment they saw the crystal Jena's party immediately paled in fright.

Jena quickly shouted at Cecil, fear clearly tingeing her voice, "Silent Sword!!! S-stop! Stop mining that crystal!!"

"?"

Cecil turned around and looked questioningly at Jena. He saw that they didn't have any greed in their eyes, but...fear?

'What're you guys so afraid of?'

Behind him, the large red crystal 'blinked'. Jena's party paled even further when they saw this. The dungeon floor immediately began to rumble and the wall behind Cecil immediately began to crumble.

"?"

Cecil looked back at the wall and finally saw the large red crystal 'blink' once more.

'...I don't think crystals are supposed to do that...'

"Silent! Run!! That's the dungeon's guardian! It's the crystal-eyed Orobos!" Jena warned. Then she and her party immediately began retreating.

Cecil followed suit, but he felt a 'gaze' constantly following him. He turned back and noticed that a 'pupil' had formed in the crystal and it was following his body.

'...'

Cecil flashed next to Jena and asked in a small voice.

"The Orobos... is it strong?"

"Huh??" Jena and her party were genuinely surprised when they heard Cecil talk for the first time. Honestly, every adventurer that knew of him, thought that Cecil was a mute. Jena lagged for a moment before she quickly responded to Cecil's question.

"Yes unbelievably! It's the guardian of the dungeon for a reason! The Orobos is a large golem type nightmare eye! Unlike a normal nightmare eye that uses illusions and beams to hunt, the Orobos uses petrifying beams and earth-elemental magic. Also since it's a golem you have to destroy its core to defeat it, otherwise it'll just keep on regenerating endlessly!"

Cecil nodded hearing this. It was a unique monster that also had a name given to it by the guild. He then asked another question, "Core?"

"You've seen it already! The red crystal is its core or more precisely, the small black pupil!" She said as they kept on dashing towards the ninth floor.

Cecil contemplated for a moment. The red crystal that he had struck earlier was indeed hard. His strike with the adamantium pickaxe that was backed with at least 80 percent of his power didn't even leave a scratch on its surface.

Of course he didn't have Mana Burst active, but Cecil was currently weighing his odds of defeating that monster by just relying on his legs alone. He had no plans of using anything else other than his legs.

'Hmmmm... I won't know unless I try. Let's just do it.'

Cecil came to an abrupt stop and he quickly turned around.

"Silent?!" Jena exclaimed seeing his turn around.

Cecil looked back at the party who had also stopped. He gestured that he would go back to fight with the Orobos.

"T-that's reckless!! The Orobos is a SS- ranked monster! Another half-grade and it'll be considered a natural disaster! You'd need a large party to take that thing down!"

Cecil only nodded and said, "Don't worry. I'm strong."

Then he disappeared from his spot leaving behind only the whistling wind of his departure.

"WAIT!" Jena had her arm stretched out at the empty space. She was at a loss, not knowing what to do.

"...Jen... I think we should head out."

"Huh?"

"Yeah... we should go back."

"And leave him here?!" Jena exclaimed incredulously. She couldn't believe what her party was saying to her. The person that left was one of their saviors. How could they be so heartless as to just leave him by himself to face off with the Orobos?

The Orobos has been constantly claiming the lives of multiple adventurers and people that have braved their way into the mines. The Orobos was never stationery. There were times when even on the first floor it would abruptly show up and claim the lives of the adventurers and people quietly mining.

It was the Mine's guardian monster and the bane of all adventurers that came to the mines.

"He'll get killed you know!"

"And that's exactly why we should quickly head back!"

"Huh?"

"We have to head back! Get some reinforcements, hurry back and support Silent Sword! With just us 5 here, what can we do?!"

"...you're right... sorry I wasn't thinking straight. Let's go! We have to hurry and put together a team and hurry back! We can't waste a single second! Milla! You go ahead first. You're the fastest one here, so go back as quickly as you can and inform everyone in the guild!"

"A-alright!"

"There are many who know Silent Sword's name so make sure you tell them!"

The catkin Milla quickly activated a wind elemental combat skill and dashed away towards the exit of the dungeon. The party also followed suit and chased after.

*******

Back at the large cavern where Cecil first mined the red-eye Orobos' eye, he and the monster finally met each other face to face.

"Yo~ sorry about your eye, but I kinda like it. Too bad that I'll have to destroy now," Cecil greeted with a flippant attitude.

"GROOOOAAAARRRHHHH"

The monster issued a loud roar of anger, like it had somehow understood him. Cecil took a look at the Orobos. It had a black iron like body. It was spherical in shape with a large diameter of roughly 5-6 meters. The large red crystal was surrounded by a black iron-like shell. Its shape was reminiscent of an eyeball, except that the 'eyelids' had sharp spikes growing out of it and the exterior also had similar protruding spikes.

Cecil smirked seeing this.

'I'll have to push my limits when using only my legs. But this shouldn't pose a problem for me.'

Cecil kicked off from the ground and sent his body into rotation as he soared through the air. He quickly arrived in front of the Orobos.

Cecil channeled the mana from his mana point into his legs and powerfully slammed the Orobos. His rotation along with the Mana that empowered his kick caused the Orobos' iron shell to crack apart as it was sent flying across the room.

The monster roared in anger at the sudden surprise attack. Cecil scoffed sensing that the monster was 'saying' it was a cheap shot.

"I was right in front of you, what the heck to you mean by chea—woah!" Cecil's words were abruptly cut off when a red beam suddenly flew straight at him.

He quickly dodged out of the way. Cecil was surprised to see the aftermath of the deadly red beam.

The area that the beam had passed had transformed into a strange white color and then the affected area immediately started crumbling.

Cecil strained a smile seeing this.

'I have to be careful... that looks dangerous.'

Cecil kicked off the ground and immediately resumed his assault. The fight ensued once again with increasing ferocity as Cecil and the monster began unloading attack after attack on each other.