As he analyzed the patterns, knowledge flowed into his consciousness.
Lesser Worms bred like this only when a significant change had occurred in the mana flow.
Something was disturbing the natural flow in these depths.
One side tunnel caught his eye. It was exceedingly narrow, just wide enough for a small person to squeeze through while crouching, and the darkness there seemed far thicker and denser than elsewhere.
The mushrooms in his hair pulsed more intensely as they sensed something.
‘Perfect.’
He examined the wall closely and smiled with satisfaction. The Bronze Grade crystal vein was far richer than usual, and curiously enough it was tangled together with a vein of pure, uncontaminated ‘deep earth.’
Everything fit together with strange perfection.
Ren took out his tools with extreme care. Even the smallest echo could summon unwanted visitors.
The mushrooms sent a warning signal. A Lesser Worm had passed through a nearby tunnel recently.
‘Be patient.’
he told himself as he positioned the pickaxe carefully.
‘One mistake in the wrong place and I'll have unwanted company at once.’
The first impact was quieter than a whisper against the rock.
Ren worked systematically, calculating every motion in fine detail to keep the noise to a minimum.
The vein was astonishingly generous. Once he found the exact pressure points, the Bronze Grade crystals seemed to leap into his hands of their own accord.
After two hours of systematic work, Ren's bag was full with a satisfying quantity of crystals and deep earth.
‘Taro would be horrified if he knew that ‘deep earth’ is actually worm excrement, and that I'm sealing his crystals with worm excrement, wouldn't he?
It's better for both of us if he only knows it as ‘deep earth.’’
The mushrooms' pulse slowed further. The thickening mana was making it harder and harder to sense his surroundings.
‘This is almost too perfect.’
he thought as he carefully stored another crystal.
The increasing crystal veins, the abnormal proliferation of tunnels.......
Everything pointed strongly to some major change having taken place in the depths.
A sound from far off stopped his movements.
It was the sound of something dragging itself along. Another echo rang out. Much closer this time.
The mushrooms in his hair pulsed still more slowly, adapting to sense the nearby movement more accurately.
‘This vein is too rich to have been left this intact. The marks on the walls, the crystallized mana patterns...... this isn't the work of a Lesser Worm.
It was the parting gift a ‘Common Worm,’ the higher specimen, left behind when it drove these bastards out of its territory!’
The dragging sound came closer and closer. Ren stopped breathing entirely and went as still as a statue. A Lesser Worm emerged from the side tunnel.
Its pale body glowed faintly from the mana it had absorbed.
***
Ren held his breath. Pressed flat against the cold stone wall, he melted into the suffocating silence of the deep tunnel. Every heartbeat sounded unnaturally loud.
‘It must have been a month or two ago.’
His mental analysis continued as he observed the worm.
‘The higher specimen, the Common Worm, either died or went back deeper. But its last excrement turned this area into a kind of barrier.’
The knowledge flowing through his head drew the tunnel's recent history clearly.
The Lesser Worm approached the deposit. Its olfactory sensors trembled, drawn by the rich mana concentration in the vein. Ren watched, entranced, as the blind creature advanced toward the area where he had been working.
‘The mana is pulling them in. But that residue.......’
His knowledge showed him exactly what would happen next. As expected, the worm recoiled almost at once.
Its sensors writhed as if in revulsion, and then the creature retreated swiftly through another tunnel.
‘The higher specimen's excrement must taste dreadful. A sort of natural repellent?’
Ren's smile widened.
Ren waited a few minutes more before resuming work. He calculated every hour carefully against the mounting pressure of the mana poisoning in his body.
‘So that's why this vein has preserved so much mana. The Lesser Worms detect this place because the mana is abundant, but the higher specimen's residue keeps those bastards at a distance.’
Each new discovery deepened his understanding of the mine's ecosystem.
‘Nobody else will come looking in a cramped hole like this, and the Lesser Worms won't eat this pile of excrement unless by accident.’
The irony of once again finding treasure in a place others would avoid brought a smile to his face.
Ren went on working. Every movement precise and quiet.
He had found a unique treasure here, and he had no intention of wasting it.
‘I had better hope Taro never asks why his special crystal is that color.’
He smiled as he sealed the bag.
His knowledge had shown him many secrets of the depths, and this was the most useful of them all. However unpleasant it looked.
Ren leaned against the tunnel wall. His legs trembled faintly, testifying to the struggle of the past few hours. The bag at his waist was pleasantly heavy.
‘Nearly 40 Bronze crystals. Plus the fifty-odd Iron crystals that were around the vein. And enough well-ripened deep earth for several complete sealings. I could get more, but.......’
A touch of dizziness pushed him back against the wall.
After more than three hours of exposure, the dense mana was slowly beginning to affect Ren's body.
‘Time to get out. Forty minutes before the mana poisoning turns serious.’
He pushed himself up with difficulty. He took out his canteen and drank deeply, but it was only a stopgap.
Following the pattern of mana residue on the walls, Ren moved systematically toward the upper zone. After a few minutes of searching, he found what he needed.
‘Right there!’
One of the side tunnels climbed at a relatively gentle slope.
The marks on its walls showed the characteristic traces of a Lesser Worm that had abandoned the area long ago. The tunnel appeared to end abruptly a few meters up.
‘Perfect. Now it's time to make an exit of my own.’
Ren took out his tools and began working in the abandoned tunnel. Despite the mounting dizziness, every movement was precise.
‘The guards check the exit records meticulously. I'll need a convincing alibi for this quantity of crystals. Something that won't draw suspicion toward the forbidden zone.’
Especially if he wanted double on the Academy's end-of-month settlement.
‘Twenty-five minutes.’
he estimated as he felt another wave of dizziness.
‘I have to finish the work within the next ten minutes and start climbing.
Otherwise I won't reach the surface with my mind intact.’
First he used the lens's residual energy to overcharge five Bronze crystals, then sealed them with deep earth.
Slowly the crystals began to glow in brown tones. Ren laid them on the ground in a particular pattern.
‘It stings to use Bronze crystals as bait, but the worm has to be able to sense them from a distance.
Iron crystals wouldn't be enough of a lure at this depth of 115 meters.’
The fresh marks on the walls confirmed what he needed to carry out his plan.
‘This one is close to promotion. The traces are deep and regular. It has been accumulating mana steadily.’
With systematic precision, Ren began striking the tunnel wall.
His blows were not random. They were vibrations following a specific rhythm, imitating the Lesser Worms' ‘joint evolution’ signal.
Each tap resonated through the ancient stone, carrying subtle wavelengths that only those creatures could fully understand.
TAP-TAP...... TAP...... TAP-TAP-TAP.
‘Less a mating call than...... an invitation to be reborn together as a stronger being.’
Knowledge flowed into his head as he kept the rhythm. Lesser Worms began this ritual once they reached a certain level of maturity.
It was their own instinctive communication, a search for a suitable partner so that they could merge and evolve into a larger, more powerful Common Worm.
Ren set out more crystals, forming a path toward the ascending tunnel he had prepared.
Each crystal was placed strategically, at a distance calculated so the worm would detect them in sequence. The placement had to be perfect.
‘The mana concentrated in a Bronze crystal imitates the signal of a mature worm offering part of its own mana in exchange for fusion.’
TAP-TAP...... TAP...... TAP-TAP-TAP.
A distant echo answered his tapping. The mushrooms in his hair pulsed faintly, sensing an approaching movement.
Something had heard his call and judged it interesting enough to investigate.
‘Perfect. Now I only have to keep the rhythm.’
Ren continued the rhythmic call at precise intervals.
His knowledge showed him exactly how to modulate the vibrations so as to hold the worm's interest without letting it notice that anything was wrong.
Each vibration had to be perfect. Too fast was an aggressive signal, and too slow was a signal of weakness.
The crystals shone faintly in the darkness, serving as beacons for the approaching creature.
The path he had made led directly to the ascending tunnel, where more crystals waited.
‘A Lesser Worm close to adulthood cannot resist a signal like this. The promise of evolution...... it is like showing a banquet table to a starving creature.’
The sound of something dragging itself closer grew louder. Ren kept the rhythm. Every blow was harder with his arms numbed by mana poisoning, but he could not stop now.
TAP-TAP...... TAP...... TAP-TAP-TAP.
‘Come on!’
he urged inwardly as he felt the worm drawing near.
‘Just follow the path upward. You get a few Bronze crystals, and I get an escape route.’
Even if his partner in this dance did not know about the final exchange, the bargain seemed fair enough.
The plan was in motion, and the worm was approaching exactly as he had predicted.
The moment he judged it sufficiently lured, Ren slipped quietly into a bend in the tunnel.
In his hand was the brown crystal he had prepared specially. With the lens's light and the Common Worm's excrement added to it, it had been transformed into a Bronze Grade earth-attribute crystal.
‘Now only the most important and most delicate work remains.’
he thought, listening to the sound of the approaching worm.
***
The Lesser Worm emerged from below. Its sensors were vibrating with excitement at the mana concentration.
Without hesitation, the creature lunged at the first pile of crystals and absorbed them.
‘It must have been hungry.’
Ren observed the worm following the trail of crystals he had laid.
‘Good, perfect.’
With soundless steps, he began following the creature at a safe distance.
The worm kept climbing through the tunnel, each crystal drawing it higher and further from the zone of high mana concentration.
‘Just a little more.’
Ren regulated his breathing as he climbed. The dizziness from the poisoning made keeping his balance difficult.
‘Just a little higher.’
The worm reached the last crystal at the tunnel's dead end.
Its sensors writhed in confusion when they could no longer detect any mana signal or trace of an evolution partner.
‘Before it turns back.......’
Ren struck the wall in a particular pattern. This time it was different. Not the mating rhythm, but a more aggressive, threatening sound. The sound of a higher specimen defending its territory.
The reaction was immediate and grotesque. The Lesser Worm's body contorted in unnatural peristalsis. Its rear end transformed into a new head while the original head contracted.
‘Now!’
Without missing a single instant, Ren threw the processed crystal straight at the worm's new mouth.
In the same motion he ducked and slid down the slope of the tunnel.
His hand struck the wall in the rhythm that mimicked a Common Worm's threat.
The Lesser Worm froze for a moment, caught between the confusion of contradictory signals and the sudden change brought on by the special crystal.
Struggling to get away from the imagined threat, its body contorted again.
As it pushed forward, it began digging the tunnel upward. Exactly as Ren had wanted.
By the time it realized the mana here was too low and tried to turn back, it noticed the problem in its internal mana flow. But it was too late.
‘Three...... two...... one.......’
The mana imbalance inside the worm reached its critical point. The creature thrashed violently, its body shining with unstable light.
Dizziness surged over him, but he gritted his teeth and held on. Ren clapped three times, as hard and as fast as he possibly could.
His hands were firm but not too rigid, forming a perfectly concave curve to amplify the sound.
With a shrill scream echoing through the tunnel, the worm was shot upward, its body tearing madly into the rock.
CRASH—!
A small explosion shook the tunnel and poured down a rain of rock fragments and crystal.
Ren shielded himself. As the dust settled, a satisfied smile spread across his face.
‘That is how you make an escape route.
It hurts to have spent precious Bronze crystals...... but at least now I have a perfect alibi for my ‘discovery.’’
The dizziness worsened.
He had to get out of here quickly.
But his plan had succeeded perfectly.
All that was left was to climb up and tell the story of ‘how he had ‘happened’ to find all these materials after a mad worm dug a new tunnel, exploded near it, and buried itself in the hole.’