Get lost

Enraged that his plan didn't go as planned, Ryu chose a tunnel to exit the mine. In just a few hours inside the dark, smelly tunnels of the mines, he couldn't stand it any longer, and to add to his penury, even his flashlight didn't work properly.

So, Ryu picked a wall and followed, but the only thing occupying his head was how to adapt a plan to attack the highvale base. Destroying the highvale base became a must now that he got a quest because that was the only way to get stronger quickly so that he could return to the city.

As Ryu was talking to himself inside his mind, a wall appeared before him. The return to the outside should be simple, just one path with no bifurcation, and in theory, nothing could possibly go wrong.

Still, Ryu faced a dead end, and the only reasonable explanation was that he followed the wrong tunnel to outside. An understandable mistake since there were many tunnels on the gallery, yet a frustrating mistake.

With no other way, Ryu turned back to return to the gallery while thinking forward in the frustration it would be when the slaves saw him returning after picking the wrong path. However, in about a third of the way back, the green light of the lantern illuminated the path ahead, revealing two holes to follow.

"I don't remember something like this." said Ryu, getting a faint sensation of worry that he could actually get lost inside that dark place.

"Okay, there should be no problem here. I will pick one side, and if it's the wrong one, I will return and pick the other one." Ryu said, trying to comfort himself that his situation wasn't as bad as it looked.

Then, after a moment of deliberation, Ryu picked the hole on the right side because he remembered following the wall on the left side earlier.

In this tunnel, Ryu walked under the flickering light of the lantern in his hand, which prevented him from walking fast as he couldn't see the ground. Meanwhile, the doubt of having chosen another tunnel wrong another time hammered in his mind, making him more and more anxious.

As anxiety build-up, the track of time became messed up, forbidding Ryu to assess the distance he walked. Still, he insisted on following the tunnel he picked earlier.

Until another bifurcation appeared before Ryu, then he knew that the situation wasn't good. But at least it was just the second split, therefore a manageable problem.

Again, Ryu chose the right-hand path, although this time, he didn't have confidence in his choice. However, making a choice was inevitable, and the only way out of the tunnels was on foot.

For ten minutes following that route, Ryu reached another dead-end at a small gallery. "At least I got one path discarded." Ryu said, trying to stay optimistic about his situation.

With no path ahead, Ryu returned to the second slipt and picked the path to the left side, hoping to reach the exit this time. Instead, Ryu arrived at another slipt, but this time it had three tunnels.

"No, no. That's too much already. I might have missed one split, but this. There is no way that I have passed by something like this without noticing." Ryu said, rejecting this second route.

At the first slipt, Ryu followed through the right and last remaining path, only to discover another set of splits, which shattered any hope of not being lost he had. To make matters worse, he was sure he had been trapped inside the mine for a long time, which means the slaves must have been out at night by now.

Being nighttime or daytime doesn't have any practical effect on the darkness of the mines, except that at night the slaves were out of the cave, thus, there was no one to find Ryu and guide him out.

As time passed, Ryu found more divisions along the way, increasing his frustration and anger to the maximum level. And in response to his anger, his lantern began to fail even more than before, and so Ryu had to take longer and longer pauses to breathe and regain the composure of his temper to turn the lantern back on.

Since the qi to lit, the lantern did not come from his dantian anymore but directly from the air surrounding it depended heavily on how good Ryu could control it, which was a task especially difficult for someone fuming with rage.

Yet insisting on traveling on the maze, Ryu reached another dead-end at a small gallery. When he clenched his fist in rage, the green light faded, leaving him in the most absolute darkness. It was about the fourth time something like this happened, and each time it took more time for the lantern to turn on again as Ryu's mood became worst by failure.

Expecting for a time until he could calm down, Ryu sited on the ground and tried to do some breathing exercises to help calm down. But as more than five minutes passed and the lantern still did not give a signal of life, all the waiting and breathing go wasted as his anger got another subject of fury.

Lost in his fury mode, Ryu struggled to remain sited while all he wanted to do was to stand and run along the tunnels until he find an exit. Then, his aura emerged unintentionally from his body to exert an effect on the surroundings.

Despite the low stat in this ominous hidden stat, it released a tremendous oppressive force on the confined space of the tunnel. However, there was nothing to be affected by that aura, except for the nature wild qi.

At first, the qi struggled to free itself from Ryu's command, but, over time, it became more forgiving and silent, eventually reaching a peaceful harmony as it slowly swirled around its body. Due to this strange phenomenon, Ryu felt the presence of qi even without being in a meditation state.

This shocking event caught Ryu's attention, but he decided not to turn on the flashlight for the time being, as he didn't know how long he would be able to maintain this state of mastery over qi. So he decided to stay a little longer to calm down.

As long as his fury didn't subside, Ryu remained sitting on the ground staring at nothing, as he couldn't see an inch in front of his face. But at this moment, a small bright spot appeared in front of his eyes.

The possibility that it was someone who might have been coming to look for him was soon erased when the small dot began to expand into a circle, increasing the small bright dot. Then Ryu felt the qi under his command gathering in his eyes.

Soon Ryu's eyes began to itch violently, so he closed them and rubbed them with his palms. But that only made the itch increase until it turned into a mild pain.

"Fuck! Besides the stink, this cavern is also poisonous?" complained Ryu, thinking that his stroke of bad luck had no end.

Just like the pain started, it ended; suddenly with no warning and no apparent reason. Only a pep sound that echoed in Ryu's head, marked the end of the pain.

Confused about why he is receiving a system notice, Ryu opened his eyes to try and see the screen. Although Ryu wasn't sure he could actually see the screen without a light source.