'Why does this have to be so stupid? If I tell anyone that becoming stronger is not the right way to become stronger, they will think I'm crazy.'
'Making money is not the way to make money.'
'And yet, it is actually true. I mean, for the strength part.'
'I am supposed to gather experience in actual danger, and if I become stronger, there won't be danger in this cave anymore… I think.'
'This is so dumb.'
'Is this why there are so few truly powerful people? Is it because the majority of people are not retarded?'
'It's like someone's telling you to play the lottery to become rich. Like, what?'
'I mean, in a way, I can kind of make an argument for that. To become rich, playing the lottery might not be the best idea.'
'But what if you want a hundred million bucks?'
'How hard is it to get that much money via normal means?'
Kyle sighed.
'Just accept the retardation. Be one with the retardation. If all the powerful people are retards, you have to be the biggest retard of them all!'
Kyle shook his head and looked at the ore in the water.
'No point in gathering that yet. Am I supposed to walk around with a bunch of ore? I'll just get it on my way back.'
'If I were in the Third Realm, this would be much easier. As far as I have heard, my Soul will get a Soul Space in which I can store shit.'
'Anyway, gotta go kill myself.'
Then, Kyle walked to the other end of the cave, stepping into another tunnel.
For now, his instincts were not warning him, but that passed quite quickly.
Just a couple of seconds later, his instincts were already warning him of more danger.
Once more, Kyle peeked around a corner.
'Ew,' he thought with a grimace.
There was another room, and this time, there were no Ore Fiends.
This time, Kyle saw a wriggling ball of long white worms.
There had to be over twenty of these worms in the ball, and the worms were not small.
The ball felt quite dangerous.
'Fuck it, we ball!'
Kyle charged around the corner and immediately ran towards the ball.
The worms quickly noticed Kyle, and the next moment, they released some kind of black gas.
He immediately stopped running as his instincts told him that it would be a very bad idea to enter that cloud.
'Probably poison,' he thought as he saw the black cloud around the worms.
'Wait, I got an idea,' Kyle thought as a smirk appeared on his face.
Next, Kyle stomped onto the ground.
His Soul expanded through the ground, reaching the ball of worms.
Boom!
A small explosion of fire appeared below them, but it wasn't enough to injure the ball.
Yet…
BOOOOOOM!
The black cloud caught on fire and exploded, illuminating Kyle's smirk.
The worms released more black gas inside the inferno, but the gas just caught on fire as well, traveling down their bodies.
BANG!
One worm after the other exploded, and their corpses burned violently.
"Problem solved," Kyle said with a smirk.
"And another one is created," Theodor commented.
Kyle blinked a couple of times.
What did Theodor mean?
Then, his instincts warned him of extreme danger.
Suddenly, the entire cave became dark, which was strange since there wasn't any light here anyway.
Well, the fire made a bunch of light, but that was not relevant.
What was relevant was that Kyle couldn't see anything, even though he could usually see in the darkness.
This could mean only one thing.
This was not natural darkness.
Kyle immediately jumped to the side.
CRKSH!
The next moment, he heard the crunching of stone from the place he had just been.
Something was there, and Kyle couldn't sense it!
As soon as Kyle landed, he put his hand to the ground.
He felt six small spots on the ground that exuded Darkness Ether into the ground.
Then, the six spots vanished, and Kyle knew what this meant.
'I have to test its strength!' he thought as he thrust his hammer toward the direction of the spots.
BANG!
Kyle's hammer hit something, and he was pushed back several meters.
The six spots had been the space where the enemy's legs touched the ground, and when the spots had vanished, the enemy jumped towards Kyle.
Kyle's hammer had hit the enemy, but he didn't feel the satisfying crunch that usually accompanied every swing.
'Not surprising,' he thought. 'I just shoved it forward instead of actually swinging.'
Since no other attack immediately followed, Kyle could estimate his enemy's strength.
'Late Ferocious Beast,' he thought. 'My hammer was enough to stop it for a moment, but I didn't manage to injure it in any way.'
'If this were a Peak Ferocious Beast, I would already receive another attack.'
At that moment, Kyle's instincts warned him of more danger, but the six spots hadn't vanished yet.
Nevertheless, Kyle jumped to the side.
BANG!
The spot where he had been had received a strong attack and was destroyed.
'There's a second one!' he thought with worry as he felt another sextet of spots.
The first sextet of legs vanished, which meant the first enemy was attacking again.
Kyle used Time Slow to come up with a plan.
Then, he jumped upward.
BANG!
The ground below him exploded.
Since Kyle no longer had contact with the ground, he couldn't sense the position of his enemy, but he knew that one of them had to be below him.
He readied his hammer.
BANG!
But then, something like a hard wall hit his entire body, and he was flung backwards.
Surprisingly, the shove was not strong enough to injure him, despite the enemy being two levels higher than him.
'This is some kind of defensive ability,' Kyle thought as his body rolled on the ground, reestablishing contact with it and allowing him to sense the enemies again.
Then, all the spots vanished, and Kyle heard the sound of…
'Helicopters?!'
Then, Kyle knew what was in front of him.
'Bugs!'
'Bugs with horns!'
'Beetles?'
'I got hit by the armor above its folded wings!'
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