Kyle looked around the closer peaks for a bit.
In a way, this was the safest place in the entire World Peak.
Just after looking around for a bit, Kyle found over 30 people with ranged weapons.
If the enemy managed to get to this place and kill everyone, they would be able to harvest the Ether Essence, and that wouldn't happen.
Everything here was so fortified.
The only way to completely demolish this side would be to send several people in the Early, Mid, or even Late Third Realm, which would provoke the World Wyrm.
Speaking of, as Kyle looked to his right, he could finally see the actual World Peak.
One had to remember that the entire mountain range was called World Peak while the tallest mountain was also called World Peak.
It was kind of like how the capital of Luxembourg was Luxembourg.
The actual World Peak was absolutely gigantic.
It took up a gigantic part of the horizon and just looked like an endlessly high wall of stone.
This was where the World Wyrm lived, one of the three Nature Gods in the Skysand Kingdom.
Well, technically, it was only partially in the Skysand Kingdom since this was contested territory, but the Skysand Kingdom still counted it as part of their kingdom.
Sadly, Kyle couldn't see it.
The mountain was gigantic, and Kyle couldn't even see 10% of its surface.
A moment later, Kyle carefully moved his head around one of the peaks to look into the crater.
For the first time in his life, he could take a look at an Ether Essence, the thing coveted by every person in the world.
The only thing Kyle saw was a small crystallized corner, which poked out of the ground like a pyramid.
"Ether Essences have the shape of rhombohedra. What you can see is just its peak. The actual thing is about three meters tall," Theodor explained.
The little corner Kyle saw didn't look impressive, but the things it was doing were impressive.
Kyle could feel how the Ether Essence pulled in a ton of Ether from the surroundings.
'It's almost like there's a whirlpool there,' Kyle thought. 'It's crazy how much Ether is flowing in there.'
While Kyle hadn't known what an Ether Essence looked like until now, he knew what they did and why everyone wanted them.
Ether Essences pulled in any kind of willless Ether. Willless referred to Ether that was not under the control of a living being with a will.
Metal, earth, wind, sand, fire, water, neutral, and so on.
All kinds of Ether were pulled into the Ether Essence.
After consuming the Ether, the Ether Essence converted it into Neutral Ether before releasing it into the surroundings in a stable form.
The biggest of these stabilized forms of Neutral Ether was an Ether Crystal.
In a way, an Ether Essence worked similarly to how planets worked when it came to growing.
A planet had such a strong gravitational field that it attracted a lot of matter. Over many years, more meteorites, asteroids, or bigger things would crash into the planet, adding to its mass.
An Ether Essence was so densely packed with Ether that it pulled in all the other kinds of Ether.
One could also liken it to how really rich people made money.
They made more money because they already had money.
The Ether Essence was gathering more Ether because it had so much Ether already.
After Kyle heard about the concept of a Core Spark, he could also see why every Peak Third Realm person needed an Ether Essence to become a Transcendent.
As far as Kyle knew, the Ether Essence would turn into the Core Spark without really losing its most useful properties.
Transcendents would pull in all the Ether around them like they were Ether Essences.
After looking around for a bit, Kyle tried to find a way to get to the Ether Essence.
Naturally, retrieving such a dense mass of Ether needed many powerful people and plenty of complex Spells, but that wasn't Kyle's job.
He just needed to get some of the Ether Crystals.
Ether Crystals were only created around Ether Essences, which was why they were so insanely rare and valuable.
Every Ether Crystal retrieved represented a new person in the Third Realm.
If Kyle managed to retrieve one, the Skysand Kingdom would gain a new person in the Third Realm.
"You got any ideas?" Kyle asked his team.
"We have to dig a hole," Falk said.
"Thank you for your valuable contribution," Kyle answered flatly. "Take the day off. Must've taken a lot of effort to come up with that."
Falk snort-laughed. "I mean, that's what we have to do, right?" he asked.
Kyle rolled his eyes.
"He's right," Lily said, her agreement eliciting a couple of shocked glances from everyone. "What else is there to do?"
Kyle sighed.
"Sven," he said, "you know a lot about mining. Could we use some kind of way to scout for Earth and Metal Elementals?"
Selene knew what Kyle was actually asking her. "It would be very difficult to impossible," she said. "The World Peak is the densest gathering of Metal Ether in the entire world. While Earth Elementals will still exist, the Metal Elementals are a much bigger concern."
"Anything that comes close to the Metal Elementals will be killed."
Kyle sighed. 'Means that her funny worm can't scout for us. Speaking of, is that thing even here?'
"Do you think there are underground beasts with an Earth Affinity below us?" Kyle asked.
"Most likely not," Selene answered. "The dense Metal Ether doesn't make this an attractive place for Earth Affinity beasts. To top it off, there should be a lot of Elementals here, and these are just as dangerous to beasts as they are to us."
'No worm, okay,' Kyle thought.
"You know, it kinda sucks but…"
"I think Falk was right," Kyle said with a sigh.
"We literally just have to dig a fucking hole."
"Alright!" Kyle shouted before looking at everyone.
"Grab your shovels. It's time to dig!"
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