The Genius Evolution Store

Once they recovered a lot of their energy, Auric led the team back to the cave.

He first checked everyone’s expressions. It looked like they were ready to fight another rank 4 beast.

Then, Auric raised two fingers. "Because of the location and the size of the tunnel, we will have to be careful when attacking the beasts. We will have Eva take the lead. The rest will support you from behind. Secondly, we will need someone to map out the entire area. We’re going to be fools if we end up getting lost after all."

They firmly nodded, knowing the danger in front of them.

"In that case, let’s begin." Auric channeled his power, opening the barrier.

Eva was the first to go in, putting her shield in front. Once she passed the barrier, she made the light balls again and spread them forward.

As expected, the tunnel continued. It would be quite hard to fight in such a small space, but the beasts would have a hard time moving as well.

Auric entered the ruins last, before scanning the area.

To everyone’s surprise, the exploration was rather smooth and peaceful.

The only thing they did was walk forward because they found no beasts in their path.

"Hmmm? Where are the beasts? Would there even be beasts living in a place like this?" Vera asked while furrowing her eyebrows.

"I’m not entirely sure. If we’re talking about animals living in such a place, it should be them, right? Those guys with transparent bodies." Katarina could only think of one possibility.

"Ah, the blind animals." Vera remembered their information. "I guess that’s true. We may end up facing those guys. However, no other beasts came here?"

"Who knows?" Katarina shrugged. "This place is hard to reach, not to mention that the energy has been sealed. They probably won’t even know this kind of place exists."

"Doesn’t that mean if we just take care of the beasts in this place, there won’t be any more beasts in the future?" Vera asked.

"Now that you mention it..." Katarina nodded in agreement. "When you put it that way, I guess that’s possible. In other words, once this place is cleared, this will be a safe place. The ruins’ value is much higher than normal. In fact, it might be on par with the Alps ruins."

"That much?" Vera was astounded.

"Yes. Just think about this, the ruins have two elements: a dark element with a rating of 4.6 and an earth element with a rating of 5.0. In addition, there won’t be any beasts in this place, so it’s going to be safe for researchers. Two extreme elements and a safe place, do you need to ask for more?"

"Oh!" Vera couldn’t help but agree with the argument. The main selling point would be the fact that no beasts could reach here. In addition, it also had the absolute earth element.

For those who wanted to deepen their research on ruins, this place would be a treasure trove.

However, the fact that there were no beasts in the area meant that even normal people could enter this place to search for artifacts.

The only problem would be that this place didn’t have much air, but as long as they proceeded quite carefully, they could stay for quite a long time.

That was why the value of the ruins was extremely high.

"Are you going to report this, Aur—?" Katarina wondered if Auric wanted to report it so that he could get bonus points, but Auric was already doing his own thing. "What are you doing?"

Auric raised his finger, gesturing for her to give him a moment.

He pointed to the wall and asked Ellia, "Can you destroy this part?"

"Which part?"

Auric drew the pattern. "It should be quite brittle."

Ellia tried to stab the rock. Because it had been enhanced by the energy from the ruins, the already hard rock became harder to crack.

However, when she hit the correct part, it cracked easily.

"Hmm?" Ellia was surprised at first, but she immediately followed the pattern Auric drew earlier and took out a piece of mineral. "This is... an artifact?"

"Yes. An absolute earth element artifact." Auric confirmed before handing it to Katarina. "The energy doesn’t seem to be enough, but we should be able to find more inside."

"It’s a rank 3 artifact. It’s small, but..." Katarina was speechless. She never thought that evolving would be so easy. "Since when has evolution become this easy?"

"Don’t ask, you will lose your sanity." Eric shrugged, already not surprised by everything Auric did.

"Didn’t you want to ask whether he would report this finding to the military?" Vera chuckled.

"Oh." Auric nodded. "I will report it. I’m not exactly interested in the ruins, but they need to give me bonus points for it, or even if they know about it, it might take months, if not years, for them to find it. Besides, it will allow me to find out whether they’re cheapskates."

"You look like you are planning to leave the country." Vera chuckled.

Auric just shrugged, while Eva quietly listened to their conversation.

Auric asked, "Anyway, let’s continue. A cave system like this should have quite rough terrain, right?"

"It should be similar to the path we took to this place. There will be small crevices where we will have a hard time going through." Vera sighed. "It’s going to be demanding physically, so I wonder if there’s going to be a big opening inside."

"Maybe? For now, let’s continue."

"Yeah."

The group continued venturing deeper. Even though they had yet to encounter a single beast, they remained vigilant.

Auric kept scanning the area, finding one artifact after another.

If it were in the past, exploring a cave system like this would take days. However, Auric and his team were strong.

They had a good balance, and even if there was a problem with the terrain, they could use their elemental manipulation or even flying to cross it.

There was no need for rope or other tools to help them cross the atrocious paths.

However, it was true that Space Storage was extremely useful. There were times they needed to store their weapons or armor away because the opening was simply too small.

In addition, the air became thinner, so they needed to watch out for their physical condition.

Still, because this place was practically untouched, the number of artifacts was extremely high. In addition, they were not hidden like in most places.

Most of the artifacts they found were just minerals that were embedded in or were buried inside.

With a single glance, Auric could find them and dig them out. Still, it took quite a bit of effort to get the minerals buried inside the wall.

After all, the minerals themselves were quite brittle, but the wall was extremely hard. If they destroyed it too much, there was also a chance for elemental turbulence to occur.

...

Outside, Jackson took another look at the rankings.

Silver Wing - 1,658 points Guardian Angel - 1,323 points Zeroth - 1,299 points

"Ha... Ha..." Jackson panted heavily after finishing a brutal fight. "We’ve got this..."

Jackson checked the Night and Day group to see their current condition.

Night and Day - 838 points

"Hahaha. As expected, they must have experienced a huge battle. Some of them might have died because of that battle. Even though they managed to overcome that battle, they might be unable to continue anymore." Jackson clenched his fists. "Serve you right."

"..." His other teammates didn’t dare to say anything. They were completely exhausted because Jackson had forced them to fight in this condition. At this rate, they might collapse.

So, Jackson’s happiness was their happiness, for a different reason. At least, if he were satisfied, Jackson might not order them to go around anymore. They could finally take a break.

Little did they know, Auric had even forgotten about their rivalry. In the first place, there was no rivalry. After all, Auric could simply find more artifacts to win the race.

The only thing on his mind was to maintain first place, not the rivalry itself. And since he had already fulfilled that on the first day, he didn’t care about the hunting event anymore.

And with the finding of new ruins, there was no way people could win against his group anymore.

Auric and his team continued deeper and deeper. Without them realizing it, almost a day had passed.

"This is quite hard even at our level." Vera frowned. "We can pass the terrain in one way or another, but it’s time-consuming and physically demanding. We probably need to set up a camp here."

"Yeah." Auric agreed.

"Still, the ground is hard. Do we have extra bedding?" Vera asked.

"You don’t have to worry about that. In a place like this, we will rely on Auric." Ellia crossed her arms with a smug smile.

"Why are you the one looking so smug?" Vera rolled her eyes.

Auric explained, "I can use my element to create a rather soft wooden floor. It should be soft enough for us to sleep on with our sleeping bags."

He didn’t intend to create another hotel, since it exposed too much. The water, light, and even unique elements were still hidden, so he didn’t intend to reveal them unless they were necessary, like what happened with the fire and dark elements.

However, they certainly didn’t expect that Auric would find new ruins.

"Is this good enough?" Auric asked while pressing the wooden floor.

"You sure you can maintain this power?" Vera asked.

"Yeah. I’ve got plenty of energy, so it’s not that big of a deal." Auric smiled, reassuring her.

"Well, if there’s no problem, then we can probably get a good night’s sleep." Vera felt relieved. "I guess the exploration will be much safer. Still, how deep are we?"

"I don’t know. It’s hard to keep track of everything in this darkness."

"Fair enough. We should set up camp here. At least, this is big enough for us to sleep..." Vera pointed at the tunnel.

"Ehm, guys..." Eva’s voice suddenly came from the other side of the tunnel. "You may want to check this."

They looked at each other before rushing to the front. To their surprise, they finally found a very big open space. It was so big that it felt like there was a massive dome inside the ruins.

"I think we should just sleep here. No anomaly?"

"Nothing."

"Yeah."

"In that case, we should search the area first."

"Instead of that, if it’s just an area this big, I can handle it." Eva raised her hand. A small ball of light formed and flew to the ceiling before it exploded, producing a shining light that illuminated the entire room.

And it was there. They found a creature that looked similar to a cockroach, but its body was transparent, allowing them to see the organs inside.

The amount of energy coming from its body signified one thing.

"Get ready to fight! It’s a rank 4!"