'Someone has fought here and then proceeded deeper into the lair.'
Daniel concluded in his mind after inspecting the underground room.
He did a quick inspection with his mental energy but he didn't find any trace of life.
'Was this the work of the lone cultivator? Or did one of my group clear this area as he continued in the exploration?'
He couldn't be sure of either possibility, the only method to find an answer was to explore the lair.
'I should gather this blood first, it will be useful after a few rounds of purification.'
Daniel went over each puddle and gathered the blood that made them into one big bowl.
After the puddles were emptied, he performed a technique and stretched his hands over the dark-red liquid inside the bowl.
His hands shone and emitted a specific radiation that heated all the impurities inside the blood of the magical beasts.
Gray smoke came out from the bowl and the blood slowly lost its dark shades, turning vivid red.
'Now this can be used.'
Daniel thought, stopping the technique and putting the bowl inside his space-ring.
The technique he had just used wasn't difficult but it required a long time to completely purify a material, a few hours had to pass for Daniel to complete the process.
His eyes then swept the various tunnels leading downward.
There were many of them, some bigger than others, yet they all had some sort of glowing halo at their ends.
'That light should come from the Obsidian Credits that have already formed, I can't estimate their actual value from here. Well, even if the Elbas family doesn't openly say it, they are their proprieties.'
Daniel not only had a wide knowledge about most of the cultivation topic, but he was also adept at politics and social behaviors.
The Udye family was a large-size noble family, Daniel had received the best teachings since he became able to speak.
Also, when his aptitude was discovered, his family didn't hesitate to invest most of its wealth to invite private teachers to further enhance his knowledge.
An heir born with one of the rarest aptitudes was a joyful event, any noble family wouldn't mind contracting heavy debts to nurture such a promising cultivator.
After all, how many humans could enter the cultivation world?
Only soldiers and nobles were given access to methods that enabled them to cultivate, the others could just dream about becoming cultivators.
However, the soldiers weren't trusted, a cultivator with a rare element but without noble blood was seen as a threat that had to be controlled.
When the coincidences piled up and a noble with a rare element was born, the family to whom he belonged would invest a large amount of wealth to ensure his future success.
That's why Daniel managed to link the pale halo to the fully formed Credits when Noah didn't.
Their life had simply been too different.
Daniel was blessed with wealth and a rare aptitude, his family had imposed its strict teaching on him, which had given him a great amount of knowledge on every aspect of the world.
Noah, on the opposite, had a low status and his rare aptitude had always been seen as a threat.
Also, his personality was quite extreme, which made him disregard even the common knowledge of that world to focus completely on the topics he was interested on.
Aside from fighting and cultivating, his studies only concerned the magical beasts, it was no wonder that he couldn't link that halo to the fully formed Credits.
'The larger tunnels won't restrict my movements and will allow me to detect any threat before it's too late. I should also take it slowly, this is a danger zone after all.'
Daniel decided in his mind and carefully walked toward the largest cave, not knowing that, inside one of the other narrow passages, Noah was silently doing his best to refill his centers of powers.
Noah's reasoning had been different in the selection of the tunnel.
'A larger area will just facilitate the ambushes of the worms. The leader of the pack has a Bloodline inheritance, it knows how the humans act, there is a high chance that the large passages are watched.'
Those had been his thoughts when he decided to hide in that narrow cavity.
And, because of that, Noah and Daniel didn't meet at that moment.
Time passed slowly.
The three cultivators in the Bare Dungeon did their best to reach the deepest part of the lair, yet they moved slowly, wary of the attacks of the worms.
Only Noah stood completely still in that period.
His potions were slowly showing their effects and he was steadily returning to his peak form.
It had to pass a day and a half for Noah to interrupt his cultivation and continue in his exploration.
'These walls are a hindrance, I can't understand if there have been new attacks on Daniel's group while I was recovering.'
Noah thought as he stood up and turned toward the pale halo in the distance.
'I don't even know if they have surpassed my position or if they are still behind me. There are three cultivators left and one of them is Daniel, the situation doesn't look good.'
Noah's plan was to slowly kill all the weaker beasts in the pack to have a one versus one against the rank 4 leader.
However, that strategy couldn't be applied anymore since he discovered the presence of Daniel's group.
Not only the magical beasts would be spread inside the lair because of them, but he also didn't know what their reactions would be once he was discovered.
'The best-case scenario is that I find the rank 4 creature, manage to kill it, and run away without being found out; the worst one is that I can't kill the leader, they find me, and they blame me for the deaths of their companions. We might end up cooperating if the situation requires it but I need to link Phoebe and Manuel to the beasts.'
Noah thought for a while before finding a plan that suited him.
'I need to find the leader first.'