Everyone was sitting near the fire and enjoying a stew of herbs and raptor meat. It was gamey, but I liked the taste. Potent mana too, and I wanted to consume the monster core while eating, but truth be told I was a little rattled. After eating I paced around restlessly at the mouth of the cave a few feet away from others as I contemplated. I didn’t want to show it, but having Letok almost get killed because of me suddenly put a potentially very high price tag on the expedition. I didn’t like that idea. 

I wanted power, and I wanted it unapologetically. I wouldn’t shy away from who I was and what I wanted. But if this was me, what would it cost me to pursue this path?

Or better yet, what would it cost to people around me?

Letok was just doing his job. This wasn’t the first time in the jungle. He knew what line of work he was in. Whether he had volunteered or held an oath or obligation to the governor, did it matter?

Cultivators were said to live a long time. Assuming they didn’t get killed. If luck was with me, I could live for centuries. I would set out to countless expeditions, seek treasure and danger. And I would need people to assist me.

And sometimes those people might die.

Fortunately it wasn’t Letok this time. But sometime in the future, inevitably, someone would, and I would have to ask myself if it was my fault.

I felt lucky that I didn’t have to face that today. But there would come a time I wasn’t looking forward to.

So I made a decision. I would find men who fully knew the risks, and I would find men who understood that if they died, their families would be sorted out. I would not accept a situation like this anymore, where I was just given men to use without fully knowing their situation.

I walked over to Letok. He was lying against a log the warriors dragged in to sit on. One of his mates was feeding him stew. I took my first good look at him. At the actual person. He was tall and had a broken nose and carefully braided long red hair.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Tired, but grateful,” Letok said.

“Do you blame me?” I asked.

Letok gave me an incredulous look. Everyone stopped eating and chatting and turned to listen. Veena scowled as if not understanding the question. Mother smiled at me approvingly.

“Young master, we serve,” Letok said.

“I’m not your master,” I said. “And this is not what I asked.”

Letok laughed, which turned into a cough and he pushed his soup away. He winced and got up to sit against the log. “I am a Warrior, young master. I have been wounded before and I will be wounded again.”

“Wife?” I asked. “Kids?”

“Yes. Wife,” then he smiled and added. “She is pregnant.”

His mate slapped him on the back and the warriors let out a little cheer.

“Would they hate me if you had died here?” I asked.

Letok shook his head. “My wife knows what manner of fool I am. House Salakin would take care of her if I were to die on the governor’s business.”

So it was like I hoped. When I came to proper power and wielded men, I would give them the same. 

“I’m sorry you almost died,” I said quietly.

Letok snorted. “I know why I am here. I know why you are here. You think young miss Veena has not told us a thousand times how important this is? What do you think happens to my beautiful wife if House Belator wins? This expedition? It is not only about you.”

“Thanks…” I muttered quietly and nodded.

That eased something in my throat. I sighed and sat down. Mother scooped me into her arms and kissed my head.

One of the warriors handed me a bowl. “Eat young master. Eat and be strong. You are much better at being strong than this crying business. Play your part.”

Everyone laughed and I joined in.

Veena scooted closer and flicked me on the forehead.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“Hmph! You’re too soft.”

Everyone laughed again and I relaxed into enjoying the company.

After we ate, everyone settled to rest. I was in an inquisitive mood and found something very interesting. The cave sloped downwards into a rocky cavern. When I activated my Mana Sight I noticed that the deeper you went into the cave, the thicker the mana was. What would explain that? The jungle had a fairly thick mana, which allowed for awesome spellcasting. But this cave had an even thicker one. Why? How? 

Was that why the monsters seemed to favor caves as lairs. I had noticed that the bigger monsters had been in these caves. That couldn’t be a coincidence. So I ventured deeper into the cave. It was smelly and there was rotting meat and discarded animal remains scattered around. Fortunately my Heightened Senses had enough levels in it to give me some dark vision.

“Luka?” mother called. “What are you doing?”

“Just exploring,” I called back. “There’s thick mana here.”

“Be careful, little gem!”

“I will!”

I really was going to. I didn’t need my overbearing mother babying me.

…

Okay, I totally needed and wanted that, but that was beside the point I was trying to make.

The point was there was something odd in the cave. In my Mana Sight, I saw a magical structure shining under a pile of bones.

“What is that?”

I took a few tentative steps closer. But something felt off about this. Was that an artifact? Why would it be here?

Just to be safe I cast the biggest baddest barrier I could. Because why not? Even if there was nothing fishy, I wanted to see how good I had gotten.

After a few minutes I had to pat myself on the back. Pretty damn good. The barrier was now thick. I would have loved to test it on something, but I didn’t want to spar with Veena. Instead, I used Kinetic Pull to snatch the artifact from under the bones. It flew into my hand in a smooth motion. It was just a small flute. I looked at it in the flicker of open fire. It was beautifully crafted from white bone. I traced my finger over some runic markings that looked vaguely familiar. This was an artifact. Nothing major, and on par with the preservation box from Salakin trophy room. But why? What was such a thing doing here?

Immediately the cave rumbled. 

There was a crack followed by a hot fiery flash. Only good instincts and Heightened Senses saved me from injury here. The shift was so subtle, that without an awareness Skill and a few points in Reflex. I would have been hurt. Immediately, I poured all of my cultivation to augment my structured Barrier.

A sudden bright light expanded and a massive blastwave struck my barrier and threw me against the cave wall. I drew on the beast core in my satchel to refill my cultivation and reinforce barrier as the cavern rumbled around me.

“Luka!?”

“You cannot go, lady!”

“LET ME GO!” mother screamed. “MY BABY!”

I was about to blast myself back towards the cave’s entrance with a kinetic spell, but the ceiling collapsed. More explosions followed and I felt the floor beneath me give.

Oh crap.

Suddenly I fell. I reinforced my barrier after a few stray rocks flew at it, and started casting a kinetic spell to push against the void below me to slow the fall. I have to admit, I screamed a little when I fell.

The drop must have been at least sixty feet. The good news was that the kinetic spells had worked enough so that I survived the fall.

The bad news was that I was alone in total darkness.

I took in my situation. This had been a trap. Someone had set up a device to make the cave explode. The artifact I was still clutching had been bait. I didn’t need a multiple choice question to guess who it had been.

“So what my mom sensed following us were Belator people,” I muttered to myself. “She didn’t sense any hostile intent though… And what was that fuzziness?”

They had also known about my interest in artifacts. That added to how fast Ranok had known I had sided with the Salakin meant there was a spy, or maybe a Spy in the governor’s house. They were pretty cavalier about it. Maybe because after they won the tournament, it wouldn’t matter. Eh, I’d leave political logic to someone else.

“Luka!” I heard faintly from above. It was my mother. “Luka! Please! Please answer!”

“I’m okay mom!” I yelled.

“Oh…” she burst into tears. “Thank the spirits!”

“What is the situation?” Veena yelled. “You sound like you’re far!”

“I fell! Not hurt!”

I used my Mana Sight and to my delight saw that the mana here was really thick. There was another added bonus. Because the mana particles could only exist in empty space, I noticed that there was a path leading me downwards somewhere. The mana was even thicker there. I felt a certain wanderlust and curiosity. I doubted it was explosive traps of my enemies that would get me killed — it was my curiosity. I just had to find out where that tunnel led.

“Keep mom safe!” I yelled. “I will find a way up!”

“We will remove rocks! Make rope!”

That was all I needed to hear.

“I will move out of the way! Safe to push rocks down! I come back later!”

I checked the cave ceiling to make sure. Yeah, even if they pushed a ton of rock down, there was enough space for me to climb up.

I looked around, and well, didn’t really see much.

Now, this was a bit of a setback, but I was actually rather excited. There was some kind of a mystery down here, I just knew it. The mana was unnaturally thick here.

Was this something unexplored? Why was there even a cave system down here? Was this a one off, or the reason the cave dwelling monsters were stronger? 

If there were monsters down here the narrow corridors would work to my advantage. Although I would really need to powerlevel my Heightened Senses while I was down here. Either way I was trapped in this mana rich deep cave with nowhere to go but deeper. It was time to make lemonade.

I took out the monster core from my satchel. I had drained a chunk of it to survive the explosion and the fall. But there was still plenty to extract. I would drain it to increase my cultivation and then I would explore the secrets of these tunnels.