Starting from Zero

Book 3, Chapter 4

Ground Cave

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I started my leveling campaign in the early morning. I'm planning to reach 140 today. Wayne said he got other business so I'm on my own.

I worked through the whole morning, only logging off to eat something when I was starved at noon.

When I'm just enjoying myself I saw something glittering on the ground. I quickly ran over and check. It might be some valuable loot.

When I got close, it turned out to be a disappointment, though -- just a silver iron hoop. I tried to pick it up, and found out there are a series of hoops connected to it, forming an iron chain. I pulled, and the chain became longer and longer. Finally I just started to run while pulling the chain. Until I ran for about 30 meters, the chain suddenly tightened, which caused me (still running full speed) to fall on the ground.

I crawled up and gave it another pull. Nope, can't get it any further. Looks like something is on the other end of the chain. I waved at Lucky, who is slaughtering monsters not far from me, and called him over. I tied the chain around Lucky's body and asked him to pull. Lucky began to move using all four claws. The chain began to produce a crackling noise and the dirt around the other end is shifting. I pulled on the chain too. But seems the two of us still can't get it done.

"Lucky, stop for now."

Whatever it is must be buried pretty deep under. I began to lead Lucky around the grassland looking for Steel Beasts. Using what we learned yesterday we easily captured ten beasts and I turned all of them into my Servants. (I spilled a lot of blood for that!)

Then we found five giant trees in the Dark Forest, made them into wood logs, and carried them back to the grassland. They're huge so Lucky could only carry one each time. When we're done it's already getting dark.

I lined the logs on the ground, tied the chain around them, summoned my Steel Beasts and ordered them to pull the logs two-on-one. Lucky stayed at the front.

Now this is a makeshift towing team.

Heeding my signal, eleven monsters began to pull. With a crunching sound a whole stone block whose size is about 3 cube meters came out of the ground, bringing smoke of dust and dirt with it. The stone appeared to be exactly 3 meters in its dimensions, below the stone is a tunnel 45 degree to the ground. The stone shut the entrance entirely, with tons of dirt on it. That's why it was so hard to pull.

I un-summoned Lucky, called Phantom and began to walk in. It's dark, the light outside can only illuminate a small distance, after which no one can see a thing. But that's no problem for me, cause Star Gaze ring can provide me Night Vision ability, I can see my surroundings no matter how dark it is.

After walking for some distance I began to feel the ground getting steeper. After about 10 minutes I'm already crawling on the ground to keep balance. The wall is getting stranger too. It turned from stone wall to metal wall, then crystal wall, now it's ice!

Just as I'm inspecting the ice wall, my hands and feet suddenly slipped and I started to slide down.

Ahhhhhhhhh!

Ahhhhhh

....ahhh....

My screaming died down as I went farther. First I tried to get my hold onto something. But the slope just kept going down, and there's only ice everywhere.

So I gave up. I just lie flat and "go with the slope". Whoever designed this damn pit must have something wrong with their brain. I've slid for 20 minutes now and I'm yet to see the bottom. I was planning to ask my mother to fire that designer when the ice wall around me began to light up. The light grew slowly so it didn't blind me.

But I just kept going down for another 20 minutes. This hole got no fu*king end at all! Ice. Slide. It's getting really boring.

I was preparing to just teleport away when I suddenly heard some sort of voice shouting. It sounded like coming from deeper. Then the voice got louder, and it doesn't sound like someone's shouting but...a lot of people shouting.

Then the ice wall above me cracked open, an object fell down from it, hitting me in the stomach.

"Ahhhhhhh----" Before I can complain, a sharp voice started to pierce my eardrums. I tried to cover its mouth.

"Shh. Shush! Shut it! Shut up I say!!"

Whatever it is, it took me some effort to finally turn it down. Finally it turned out to be a...girl. The girl has long black hair, a pretty face, and a pair of big eyes which are blinking at me, who is still stunned. But those eyes showed a sense of maturity. Ohh, no guys can resist this! And her skin is perfect! Her body is white, with a little pink to the touch. I thought I was immune to women but I'm beginning to doubt that!

As I was about to ask her questions, the wall nearby broke open as well. A pile of people stumbled onto the slope. For various reasons our speed is different, causing someone to fall faster while the others got left behind. I quickly reached back and graped two people slower than us, and shouted to the front: "Hold onto each other and let's not get split up! There may be monsters down there, we're doomed if left alone!"

People soon understood me and began to form up a human-net. We stabilized our formation after some effort.

An Elf Archer in green armor spoke first: "Hello! I'm Spring Bringer, level 93 Elf Archer. Let's introduce each other so we can team up better, in case we run into trouble!"

Then everyone began to announce their level, class and name. Only me and the girl beside me left now.

"Red Moon, level 119 Dark Wizard!" Simple and clear.

"Red Moon?" I stared at the pretty girl in awe. "You are that No.2 player on the rankings?"

The girl obviously received a lot of surprised glances from those people, and some doubtful ones as well. But I mostly believed her. If she wanted to give a fake identity she didn't need to use such a conspicuous name.

"Hello. I'm Ziri, Dark Mage." (*) Well I can use all the Dark spells and I'm wearing a long robe now so I do look like a caster. I don't want to reveal my secret.

"Nice meeting you!"

"Likewise!"

People were greeting each other when a fork suddenly appeared in the slope, the major group went down the left one, while a small number including me, went the other way. I sent a chat to Spring Bringer who went left. "Spring Bringer, this is Ziri. You alright over there?"

"No problem, just a little surprised! Oh wait, something's ahead, the slope is getting horizontal here. I'll talk to you later!"

When I cut the chat our route is becoming flat too, which allowed us to slow down. When we finally stopped I received another chat. "Ziri! This is Spring Bringer! We reached a wall with a 'Die' written on it, then the cave came down and buried all of us. We're at the reviving point now. Looks like your end is the 'Live' one. Go without us. Geez it wasted so much time!"

"Ok!" I just said OK because I don't know what else to say.

We're at the bottom too, as expected, there is a stone gate with the word "Live" on it. I told everyone the situation, people are surprised but also feel relieved for coming this way.

I checked around. We got only 5 people here, including me. They're Red Moon (level 119 Dark Wizard), Am Ugly (level 97 Dark Mage), Nobody Loves Me (level 102 Dark Figher), Mossback (level 99 Divine Chanter, hidden class).

I took the lead to walk to the heavy-looking stone gate and gave it a push. It opened slowly. Well at least that wasn't embarrassing.

When the gate swung open a bright light blinded all of us. Then we all got quiet when we saw what's in there. It's a giant hall, completely empty of anything. The hall is about several thousands square meters in size, with a layer of white mist on the floor so we can't make out if anything is on the ground.

Am Ugly ran into the hall first. "Woah! This place is hug--AAHHHhhhhhh--"

His body fell down and his voice just went distant. I ran forward to check but Red Moon stopped me.

"Wait!"

She tapped the ground using her staff, took one step forward, and tapped again. This time there is no contact--the staff went through the mist and hit nothing.

"There's no floor!" Red Moon tried the floor at other directions and told us the result.

"Seriously?" Mossback took out his staff too. "Man, yeah there's no footing under us."

I looked around and saw three doors at the other side of the hall. But no one's gonna walk there for sure.

Then Red Moon took position.

"[Gale]!"

Why didn't I think about that?!

But nothing happened after Red Moon's call. Not even a small breeze. "No spell allowed?" Red Moon muttered.

Then a light bullet came out nearby. "Not really, I can still use my [Holy Bullet]. Maybe only Wind spells are blocked?" Mossback said and began to try through the mist again.

The rest of us all started to slowly move forward using our weapons. After some trials we somehow made out the situation. There is a semi-circle platform in front of the door, then its empty. But some other platforms are scattered not far from each other, without any patterns though. Maybe it's meant for us to jump through these hidden platforms.

After some discussion we decided to try it anyway. It would be a total waste if we just return. Losing a level is no big deal here.

This time took the lead. He said it won't be proper to let casters charge ahead of warriors. We told him to take care and added friends with him. He seems the generous kind.

Using a wizard staff we estimated the distance to the next platform. took some steps backward and charged, he hit the platform with a good leap. But before we can congratulate him he went down the other end because he didn't stop himself in time.

Then we heard his chat in our team channel. "Shoot. I went too far! You guys be careful from there! Because you three are all casters! I'm dead and back to the city so I'll leave now. Let's play later!"

Then he quit the team. This time I jumped first. I didn't run, but just leaped while standing still. I successfully forced myself to a halt as I touched the ground.

"Wait, I'll make out this platform too!" I touched around for a while. It appears to be a round platform about 1 meter in radius, and I stood in the center.

"Red Moon, you first. I'll catch you!"

She blushed a little but recovered quickly.

"Ready!"

She made it through with a beautiful somersault, and maintained perfect balance when she touched down. Impressive! She's gymnast maybe?

Then me and Red Moon stood on the platform and got ready to stop anyone from going too far.

"Ok, jump! And don't make it too hard or you will bring us down too!"

"I know I know! I'm not stupid!" Mossback stepped back and began to run. That looked good, but when he reached the edge he just disappeared.

"AHHHHhhhhh...."

He ran down the pit before he can jump! Yeah he's not stupid. He's more than stupid.

Red Moon and I glanced at each other, and laughed. That guy was funny! Red Moon tried to hold back her laughter, only for her face to turn red.

Mossback's voice came alive in the team channel: "Sorry about that! I think I 'took off' at the wrong time!"

That only caused us to laugh harder.

We finally calmed ourselves down and began to aim for the next platform. Now we got experience, it went smoothly. We jumped over a dozen more platforms without trouble. They are all close to each other and are pretty big, we only need to be a bit careful. Our first victims died just because we were too confused.

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(*) Don't worry too much about the difference between Dark Mage and Dark Wizard and such stuff in the future. The author used different names anyway. They're not important, I bet Mr. Thunderstorm didn't even know what's the difference either.