Legendary Traveler: By Earning Progress Points I will Become Supreme!

Mere seconds after crawling into the icy tunnel, Aoni was bathed in complete darkness as he left the reach of the sunlight spilling into the Yeti-Made Cavern.

'It's just darkness, cold, and enclosed space…nothing to panic over Aoni.' The Lad mused to himself in a weak attempt at calming his anxiety.

'The only danger here is being buried under multiple feet of snow…all the monsters and creatures that could have been living in this area were forced out by the Territory Boarder…' Working on his factory default setting of using every bit of information he had on hand, Aoni inched forward, drawing closer to the skittering sound he knew to be Glacia pin-balling around as she widened the tunnel.

Tatatatatata

'Have some faith in your Summon; you already saw how densely packed she makes the walls; there's nothing to fear…you are no coward.' Steeling his resolve and exhaling forcefully through his nose, the Lad pushed on for several minutes until he noticed the distinct LACK of tatatas causing him to speak up.

"Glacia?"

…

Not hearing a response from his adorable fluff ball, Aoni's forward motion halted immediately, and an inkling of worry for her safety crept into the Lad's mind.

"Hey! Glacia, where are you!"

"Where are you…"

"Are you…."

"you…"

'Oh great…an echo, JUST what I wanted to hear when crawling in absolute darkness.' Gulping down a mouth full of saliva, Aoni stretched his arms out and began feeling around because he knew that if an Echo were present, there would no doubt be a vast open space to accompany the traveling sounds.

Soon enough, Aoni got his answer because there was a distinct texture change from packed snow to a rough, gritty substance.

Taking a deep breath, the Lad shifted his body around, placing his feet out first, just in case there was a drop-off, and so the scooting began.

However, contrary to what Aoni was worried about, instead of a cliff or some type of natural drop-off, his feet continued on flat ground, causing him to frown and continue scooting feet first until, eventually, he had the feeling he was no longer inside of an enclosed space.

'What is this? Another cave? Or is it something that Glacia dug out?' Bringing his feet back toward his body and getting up enough to kneel, Aoni gazed out into the darkness, but no matter how hard he focused his eyesight, all he saw was blackness.

Yet, the longer he gazed into the dark, the more his eyes adjusted until he picked up on a faint glow off in the distance, what he estimated to be several hundred feet away.

It was by no means as bright as, say, a fire and definitely not close to a flashlight, but it was a noticeable difference from the absence of light, causing him to scrunch up his face and slowly crouch-walk toward it with his arms out…just in case.

Keeping his wandering mind in check and moving forward at a snail's pace, the Lad's eyes gradually adjusted, and after some time stumbling around, Aoni finally stood up, mouth open and staring around at his surroundings in amazement.

One word came to mind as he entered the wide open space deep within the mountain, and that was…

"Beautiful…" speaking out his mind in a whisper, Aoni was completely focused on the multitude of lights pulsing softly, so much so that he didn't even notice a certain furry missile appearing by his feet thus…

"GAOOOO!" when Glacia spoke out in agreement at the Lad's words…

"AHHHHH!" She scared the ever-living shit out of him.

"oOOOOooOO!" Falling over and rolling away from Aoni, Glacia whooped multiple Oo's before getting to her feet again and pointing up at the Lad in frustration.

"Damn…two times now, TWO times you've done that to me." Patting his chest in fright, Aoni exhaled several times to slow his heart rate while giving Glacia a look over to make sure she was alright.

"HUFF!" Unfortunately, the ball of fluff had none of it. Turning away and shaking her head at her scaredy-cat of a Lord, Glacia looked around at the teal lights scattered everywhere her gem-like eyes could observe.

'Well, miss sassy pants, maybe don't sneak up on me, and I won't freak out,' rolling his eyes, Aoni paid his summon no mind and instead took in the wonderous sights of the naturally formed cavern.

While visibility was low, it was relatively easy for him to see how vast this open space was, and if he didn't know better, he'd believe a small town had once rested here.

Mind you, there was no indication of life or anything resembling ruins as far as he could surmise, but that was simply how large this open space was filled with thousands, tens of thousands, maybe more, of glowing teal gemstones.

'Teal Gemstones…wait NO WAY! NATURALLY FORMED ENERGIA CRYSTALS!' Aoni, screaming in his head, burst into motion toward the nearest wall so he could get a good look at some of these glowing rocks.

Upon getting close enough, his conclusion was proven correct because he could feel the same sensations he remembered from traveling in the flume being emitted by the teal gems.

"This is insane!" Whipping off his pack, the Lad quickly dug out his knife and, after wedging it between the Rockwall and the gem, carefully extracted the valuable resource, a palm-sized crystal.

| ★ Energia Crystal located |

| Would you Like to Convert it into Progress Points? |

….

The moment the notification popped up in his vision, Aoni's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. His eyes flicked from the notification to the crystal and back to the notification.

'One Full Star…this is…holy shit…I can…no…that's insane…ha…haha.hahaha.'

"HAhaHAHAhAha!" At first, laughing in his head, eventually, the Lad's laughter spilled out into the real world, and he couldn't help but feel it was finally time for him to Take Off.

"GLACIA, ALL ABORD THE ROCKET SHIP, TOOOO LUNNNAAA!!!"

"O…ooO.." taking a step away from her Lord, Glacia looked at her lord with a strange expression as if saying… "Have you finally lost it? Did the shiny rocks push you over the edge?"