Chapter 72: Not What It Seems

Ever since Arthur had learned about the thing called the Primal Core, he had great curiosity about its appearance, and although this core he had found was nearly shattered, he felt no dissatisfaction.

He was not very greedy after all, quite the opposite, this was the first time in a long while he felt lucky.

Or that was what he thought at first at least, for because of the many bad experiences he had gone through, a sudden realization struck him.

’Wait, is this not too easy? There are many valuable elements, yet no monsters are present? Something is not right, do great treasures not usually come with great dangers?’

Involuntarily, a shiver ran through his body, he thought about the possibility that what he was seeing was merely an illusion, or most likely a trap.

There were several strange scents emanating from the cave despite it containing few elements, and also for some reason a faint feeling of unease came over him.

His expression became serious again, and all that excitement he had felt at first disappeared.

He examined the spacious cave again, and this time he noticed the presence of several bones scattered here and there, some of which were inside a kind of strange crystalline deposits.

’Some of these bones are very recent. As I expected, there is some kind of monster living in this place.’ A regretful expression appeared on his face.

"In the first place, why must a powerful monster always guard treasures? Can things not be easy even once? And the bigger problem is that I do not even know where it is, all I see here are rocks." He murmured in disappointment.

His inability to find this mysterious enemy most likely meant one of two things. The first was that it was not currently present, and that was unlikely, for he was not that lucky, while the second and more probable possibility was that it was very skilled at concealing itself.

’It’s clearly lurking somewhere, waiting for me.’

Every type of predator had different characteristics and different skills, and for this reason each of them followed different strategies in hunting, some focused on direct attack, and others relied on setting traps.

There was no need to think too much about the matter, and he also did not try to convince himself he was safe, being positive would not reduce the danger of the situation even a little.

A slight frown appeared on his face, and although he did not have the slightest idea how to use mana stones or what benefits they offered, he felt that leaving them buried here gathering dust was a great waste. At the very least he had to take some samples to study.

He took a deep breath, pushed away all his hesitation, and murmured sarcastically: "As the saying goes, no pain no gain, and fortunately I am accustomed to pain."

He kept the "Evaluation" skill activated, then without any hesitation, he rushed inside, heading directly toward the skeleton. As soon as he reached it, he touched it with his paw.

At that moment, he felt a strange coldness prickling throughout his leg before spreading upward through the rest of his body. Without giving it any attention, he placed the skeleton inside the "Dimensional Storage", and after that stored the Primal Core as well.

Due to the working mechanism of the "Dimensional Storage" skill, it was better for him to touch the item he wished to store, because remote storage exhausted his mental energy.

He was able to store any item within a two meter range of him, simply by looking at it, and directing his focus toward it, but this method was not very practical, especially at the current time, for the larger and more powerful the item he wanted to store was, the greater the amount of mental energy it consumed.

When the skeleton and the Primal Core disappeared, he caught a glimpse of something sparkling from the corner of his eye, he looked at it quickly, and found it was a small glass-like object approximately the size of a thumbnail, rounded at one end and pointed at the other. He had not seen it before because it had been concealed by the skull.

[???]

’What exactly is this thing?’ Arthur walked toward the strange object, but the moment he took his third step, he felt an imminent danger.

Instinctively, he jumped sideways, and in the next moment, the ground where he had been standing was struck by something. A small crater formed, and fragments flew in all directions.

His eyes widened from the intensity of the shock, in panic he examined his surroundings carefully, and again found nothing.

At first he doubted his sanity, but he quickly noticed something strange, something he had not paid much attention to because of his ignorance.

[???????]

The many question marks he had thought were merely high quality ore, had moved from their places, they had drawn close to him, and one of them was before him at a distance of eight meters.

He could not understand what was happening, for all he saw was a wall full of sparkling ore, or so it appeared to him.

Suddenly his senses screamed a second time and alerted him to an imminent danger. Before him, a sharp, rocky projectile suddenly formed out of nowhere and shot toward him like a bullet.

Describing the matter as shocking did not do it justice, and despite the difficulty of grasping it, Arthur moved at his maximum speed, narrowly dodging the rock as it grazed his cheek.

When he had put enough distance between himself and the enemy, and found the opportunity to organize his thoughts, he finally realized the type of enemy he was facing,

’Damn, it’s an invisible monster, and it is not alone, the cave is full of its kind.’

He gritted his fangs, and pushed his mind to its limits, trying to come up with a solution that would save him from this trap he had led himself into.

He felt no regret, for he had known the danger was present, so he accepted the reality and bore responsibility for his choice.

He did not have many options before him, so, he did something he had not done for a long time, or to be more precise since the spider woman had captured him, he activated his bloodline at its full power.

In that moment, that overwhelming feeling of coldness and detachment from reality came over him, his feelings became dormant, and the chaos in his head fell silent, and all that remained was intense calm, and a faint killing intent.

Fortunately, he was not completely blind, for the "Evaluation" skill enabled him to determine the location of his enemies, and that alone was enough.

His eyes swept across the ceiling and walls, and he saw that the other question marks were approaching him very slowly, then, without prior warning, they launched at him a barrage of rocky projectiles.

It was impossible to avoid their attack entirely, so he did everything in his power to minimize the damage. He jumped right and left, avoiding only the attacks heading toward his vital organs, while letting the rest hit him.

Within a few seconds his body was filled with scratches and surface wounds, and a great deal of debris left behind by the attacks surrounded him.

His blood dripped on the ground, and with an indifferent expression, he counted the number of invisible monsters in his path.

’There are four in total, it seems these monsters are slow-moving for some reason. All I need to do is avoid the attacks, and perhaps I will get out of here in one piece, perhaps.’

He let out a short sigh, and without wasting any second of his precious time, he stored the debris filled with mana stone ore in the Dimensional Storage.

After that he directed his full focus toward the small glass-like object, he wanted to store it without touching it, but for some reason he could not, so he was forced to go to it and touch it.

He froze in his place for a moment, then suddenly ran forward at his maximum speed. A dense barrage of rocky projectiles flew toward him, and with great agility he dodged them all.

He passed the first question mark with ease, then the second, and when he drew close to the exit, he felt the air before him ripple, his senses screamed alerting him to danger, but he saw nothing.

He immediately realized that something was heading toward him, and it was unfortunately very fast.

Before he could do anything, something sharp and thick pierced the upper part of his foreleg and emerged from the other side, covered in his blood and shreds of flesh and bone. Had he not tilted a little it would have severed his leg entirely.

He stumbled, and because of that three rocky projectiles struck him in scattered spots of his body, two in his abdomen, and one in the thigh of his hind leg.