Inside the mine

Illuminated by a faint blue light of qi lit lantern, Ryu stepped on the mines in search of the slaves. In just a few steps into the cave, the darkness was already so dense that it seemed to suppress all objects inside, like an abyss swallowing all existence.

To make things more complicated, the recent power acquired by Ryu, body expansion, changed the way he used qi. And he wasn't used to this new method of applying qi, which meant that he couldn't trigger the lantern in his hand the way it should.

So the green light from the flashlight, which was already very strong from the start, was also flashing, greatly increasing the difficulty of exploring the cave. But this inconvenience wasn't enough to make Ryu retreat, though it started giving him a light headache and nausea.

As Ryu went further, his attention was entirely directed to the ground so that he could avoid the holes and rocks scattered on the path. But, as he moved, the kept turning on and off, and in one of these moments, it turned on again, and Ryu's heart jumped to his throat.

"AAHHHH." Ryu yelled as a ghost appeared out of nowhere, just a step in front of him. In that eerie environment, Ryu came face to face with a pale white skeletal human form with beady black eyes.

But as he calmed down, Ryu realized his mistake. It wasn't an actual ghost but one of the slaves, standing still in the middle of the path.

"What are you doing standing like a statue? And where is your lantern?" asked Ryu while recovering from the scare jump.

"I'm going to take this stone to the cart, and my lantern is there, Sir." said the slave, showing the large stone in his hands and nodding his head at the lantern near a cart beside it.

"Okay. Can you tell me where Ian is?" Ryu tried to ask the slave.

"He should be at the end of the cave, Sir." the slave said after thinking for a while.

"Thank you." Ryu said, naturally, but the slave tilted his head in confusion as the words of thank from Ryu were absolutely out of context for him.

Going deeper into the dark cave, Ryu passed by several slaves on the way, most of them illuminated by their own lantern. By each slave Ryu crossed, he paused for a little while to evaluate their physical condition and assess if they had a chance to fight back against the highvale if they had a chance.

If the matter were about numbers, Ryu would get totally confident in defeating all the soldiers in no time, but the problem was that most of those slaves couldn't beat even a chicken in a fair fight. But some of the slaves were in a slightly better condition than the rest, perhaps because they were slaves for less time, or perhaps because they had a higher level and were better able to withstand extreme living conditions.

Whatever it was, Ryu was satisfied with what he saw, though their physical strength was only half of the equation, the rest being their will to fight. It didn't matter if Ryu provided food or medicine for them if they didn't try to fight anyway.

After a long walk in the darkness of the cave, Ryu still hadn't reached the end, but a pungent and unpleasant odor filled the cave, just as Cory had said. Along with the foul stink, shrill noises of pickaxes hitting rocks began to echo through the cave.

So Ryu discovered that he was finally reaching the right place, and in just a few more meters, a faint green light broke the darkness of the cave. Then Ryu accelerated to the light source, eager to get into a place illuminated by something better than his flashing lantern.

Once Ryu reached the light, a large gallery unexpectedly appeared before his eyes. With over fifty people walking with large stones or pickaxes on their hands, this was the very core of the mines.

But, before Ryu could make any move towards one of those persons, a murmur of conversation broke the silence of the mine, and only a few seconds later, Ryu noticed some people sneaking out of sight to enter inside the tunnels, scattered along the rocky walls.

Then Ryu saw all the sneaky movement thanks to his eyes and pretended not to notice anything, and, instead, he approached a closer man, who had positioned himself in order to distract Ryu, and started talking.

"Hi! I'm looking for Ian. Can you point me out who he is?" straightly asked Ryu as he knew that only the leader of the slaves would talk to him.

"Ian, Sir?" The man acted dumbly, probably to stall for time.

"Yes, Ian. Where is he?" Ryu asked again.

"I believe he is in one of the tunnels, Sir. But I am not entirely sure which one." the man talked slowly to get more time, but Ryu didn't care at all and entered the game.

"Can you discover which one for me, please?" Ryu asked politely, causing the man to widen his eyes in surprise with the unexpected politeness of a supposed highvale soldier.

"Sure, Shawn should know. Let's ask him." even Ryu asking with courtesy wasn't enough to make that man throw the acting away. So the man walked to one side of the gallery, towing Ryu, and asked, "Hi, Shawn. This gentleman is searching for Ian?"

"Did you say, Ian?" Shawn stupidly replied.

"Yes, do you know where he is?" the first man asked again.

"I think he is in one of the tunnels, but I don't know which one." Shawn said regretfully.

"That's unfortunate." the first man said.

"But you know, steve should know. Why don't we ask him?" Shawn commented.

So, the first man and Shawn walked to the other side of the gallery and found another man. "Hey, Steve. Do you know where Ian is?" Shawn asked, continuing the enactment.

"Did you say, Ian." Steve played dumb.

Although Ryu was patient after being taken to the sixth guy who supposedly knew which tunnel Ian was in, he ended up getting tired. So he said, "You know what? I'll find him myself." Ryu said, heading to one of the tunnels a person had entered sneakily earlier.

"Ian is not there." the sixth man said suddenly, then he added, "I know where he is, in that one." pointing to another tunnel.

At first, Ryu thought they were deceiving him again, but after thinking more carefully, he decided to follow the indication. For he realized that the man would not try to lie directly to him because, as a slave, it would get him a severe beating, both in him and in his friends.

Then, Ryu went to the tunnel, and Shawn followed him. Even after Ryu tried to dismiss the man saying that his company wasn't necessary, the man insisted on following him, saying that he could get lost inside and that was dangerous.

So, after another nice walk, Ryu reached the end of the tunnel, where three men pickaxed the rock with vigor. But before Ryu could say something, Shawn spoke faster, "Ian! This Sir is looking for you.".

Under the faint green light of Shawn's lantern, the three men stopped and turned to Ryu. One was young and tall, the second was short and broad-shouldered, and the third was older and more serious.