Birth Of The Crafts-God

After taking the hit from the Delta Transporter, the group on board the Little Star weren't of the mind to sit back and turn into a target board. They immediately returned fire at the vessel before them.

Compared to the Little Star, the Delta Transporter was a transport shuttle —even though it had weapons mounted to it. As such, its defence wasn't exemplary. Even if the shuttle had been modified, it still wouldn't be able to resist the Little Star's firepower for long.

The Delta Transporter responded by dodging the attacks, before retreating to the distance. However,

*Boom*

*Crack*

A laser beam struck the shield of the shuttle following which a crack formed on it. The canons on the Little Star weren't on par with the Black Mountain canon, so it could be seen how flimsy the Delta Transporter's defence was after cracking under one hit.

Nonetheless, this didn't stop the crew of the Delta Transporter as the shuttle sped off into the distance.

"Do we chase?" One of the men onboard the Little Star asked the commander.

"Go." The commander ordered.

To ensure that William successfully retrieves the Aión source safely, he didn't mind pursuing the other side even with the possibility of encountering a powerful desolate beast along the way.

On board the command shuttle, William watched what happened with a contemplative look on his face. The matter seemed fishy and it made him a bit nervous.

"Notify the Trojan War Fox to follow for backup. This might be a trap. Apart from those in charge of flight and communication, the rest of you, with me to the lode. Keep the shuttle in the air and secure the area for us."

After that, William left the shuttle with seven other men. The last man was to control the shuttle and facilitate communications between all three teams.

At the same time, in a different direction from the pursuit of the Delta Transporter, another group of individuals in black outfits made their way towards 92B-Delta lode. They were Canza, the sexy woman and their teammates, numbering ten. The other two members of the group were on board the Delta Transporter to draw away attention.

"Let's go." Canza said.

Far out, moving parallel with them towards the same location was Lucas. Thanks to the stealth mode of the Stellar Circuit Battle-Armour, which effectively wiped out any trace of stellar energy and messed with radar detection, Lucas was able to navigate his way carefully towards the same place without getting spotted.

Compared to what was made of the area, there weren't as many monsters ever since he came into the Millennia Mountains, and that worked in Lucas' favour even until now.

Lucas proceeded steadily, with his guard still up, ensuring that he would not get caught off guard by either man or beast.

'It's already the fourteenth day. The Heart of Silver should be close to maturity.' Lucas thought after recalling the moment the system sent him the new mission.

It was roughly two hours from now.

If going by the system's description on the mission, after those two hours, the Heart of Silver would be complete.

As a product of Eretre's world source, who knows what kind of phenomenon would erupt then? Hence why both William and Canza were in a rush to reach it before that time. On the other hand, Lucas was calm. It didn't matter whether he got to it first or not, because escaping was the most important aspect of this mission instead.

After a few minutes, Lucas arrived before an unremarkable mountain. Similar to the other mountains, it was also short; actually, it was a bit shorter than the rest. There was an opening at the base of the mountain which seemed to lead downwards.

Lucas approached the opening then squatted for a second. Following that, he stroked the walls with his hands as he felt their surface.

'Hand made. Quite recent in fact.'

Lucas raised an eyebrow but didn't say a word. He stood up and immediately made his way into the cave.

The interior of the cave was dark as expected, but this wasn't a problem for Lucas who had donned the SCB. There was a night vision feature built into the helmet, so Lucas could see just fine. The space wasn't big and could barely fit two people walking side by side. The worst part was that the terrain was a downwards slope, and someone of Lucas' height needed to crouch slightly to make it in. This made the cave a horrible place for battles, with the advantage of numbers being eliminated as well. For Lucas, this was a good thing.

Canza's team totalled ten while William had seven men with him, making up an eight-man unit. Even though Lucas didn't know these exact values, he was aware that the other side's numbers were well ahead of him. Even if the SCB boosted his strength, by Lucas' estimates, taking on at least five fourth-level stellar practitioners wasn't an easy task. But in this terrain, it might be just doable. This was because the passage was narrow, and with him being on the upper side of the slope, his attacks would be easier to aim.

Lucas went downwards but maintained a progression rate that was pretty slow. This was because he wanted to avoid catching up to the others. At the same time, he was looking through the region for traps that they might have set up.

This continued for at least thirty minutes, and just when Lucas was wondering when he would reach the end, he caught a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel, literally. There was a speck of illumination a few metres ahead, and from what he could see, there was solid flat ground.

'Finally.'

Although he was glad, Lucas didn't rush forward but became even more cautious. There was a significant chance that he would find one or more from the two parties down there. Hence, he has to be careful.

For fear of triggering a possibly existing alarm, Lucas didn't even dare to scan the area with his battle-suit. Instead, he worked over slowly and just when he was three metres away, Lucas took off his gauntlets. He then crouched and placed both hands on the floor before utilising a unique skill of his. This was the same technique he used when searching for the Violent Sun ores during his first ever outing mission; the wave-style spiritual searching technique.

The advantage of this technique was that it relied on spiritual energy rather than stellar energy. Even though this was still a form of mystical energy, hyumans were less sensitive to it compared to stellar energy, so there was essentially no possibility of him getting spotted.

Upon activating the technique, Lucas was able to get a 'drawing' of the open area ahead of him. It was quite big and spacious, at least when compared to the tunnel he was in. With a width of about seven metres, it was quite wide. The height of the ceiling from the ground was also good enough for Lucas to move around with comfort. As for the length and size of the cavern, Lucas was unable to estimate it.

This meant that this naturally-occurring cavern was quite large as Lucas' wave-style spiritual searching technique could cover a significant range compared to the first time he used it. But it was still enough; Lucas had ascertained that the ten metres area close to the entrance was safe.

Without hesitation, Lucas proceeded into the open space in the area and was stunned.

The wave-style spiritual searching technique might have given him an idea of how the place looked, but it still couldn't beat seeing the place with one's pair of eyes.

Looking around him, Lucas finally understood why the cavern was lit up. There were ores scattered all over the place, visibly to the naked eye. Some of them were loosely embedded on the ground and the walls such that even a ten year old could pull them out. All these ores were of the same element and name, Mystic Silver ore. The metals that gleamed within the darkness, providing light in the cavern were all Mystic Silver. There were enough ores to arm an entire unit with Grade 3 vestiges at the very least; and this was with only just the ones here. If the entire lode was dug out, it might be enough to build an entire starship.

'Well, I can't exactly say so since I'm not good at mining geography and all that.' Lucas thought.

As he walked around the place, he couldn't resist picking up some of the loose Mystic Silver ores. These were ores on par with the Purple Iridium the system gave him long ago. Whether it was to make money off selling them or to craft vestiges, these ores held immense value for Lucas.

After walking some distance ahead, while making sure to not leave any stone untouched, Lucas finally heard a commotion up ahead.