Kyle and Selene continued down the tunnel.
Sadly, getting the Earth Elemental Heart was not really an option.
These things were quite big, and they would need to carry them all the way out.
On top of that, it would be very hard to explain to anyone else how a Mid Fighter and Mid Knight could kill an Earth Elemental without damaging the heart while not having improved Souls.
As they were traveling further down, Kyle re-melted some of the ore on the ground to make the tunnel smoother.
To Selene, it looked weird and unbelievable how the ore below Kyle just melted as he walked.
"Ah, we got another one," Kyle said. "You wanna have a go?"
"We're not here to enjoy ourselves," Selene answered.
"Sure," Kyle said.
BOOOOOOOM!
A moment later, Kyle killed the next Earth Elemental with another apocalyptic strike.
It looked so effortless to Selene.
Theodor wasn't making any comments while Selene and Kyle descended.
He had seen many powerful people in his life, and he knew how Kyle managed to unleash such powerful attacks.
Theodor was no longer looking at beings in the Second Realm as a threat to Kyle.
There were no Ferocious Beasts or Elementals in the Second Realm that could kill Kyle.
Maybe there was the odd super genius that could kill Kyle, but those were rare.
Kyle rarely compared himself to other humans, which was why he had also misjudged Selene's power.
In his mind, he was still a one-in-a-thousand genius.
Yet, without noticing it…
He had actually already become a one-in-a-million genius.
In Theodor's opinion, there were a maximum of two people in the Second Realm that could possibly fight Kyle while at the same level, and that was assuming they also had Aristocrat's Bodies.
Even more, Kyle had a unique power that nobody else with an Aristocrat's Body had.
Ether Strike.
The technique Bonk had taught Kyle.
This was something only a dwarf could learn, and dwarves didn't have Aristocrat's Bodies.
Just Ether Strike by itself increased Kyle's physical offensive power by about 50%.
That was nothing to scoff at.
"Oh, there are two, this time," Kyle said.
Selene narrowed her eyes and readied her bow.
A moment later, she felt the approaching Earth Elementals, and she noticed that one of them was surprisingly in the Late Second Realm.
The two Elementals arrived, and Kyle immediately destroyed one of them.
Selene shot an arrow that turned into sand.
Yet, the sand didn't cover the approaching spears but cut through their base like a blade. The Earth Elemental had been cut off from the ground and quickly left the floating spears, revealing its actual body.
Its actual body was just a bunch of chaotic Earth Ether.
Selene launched another arrow, and the Earth Elemental died.
While not possessing earth, Earth Elementals were fragile.
Yet, one still needed an improved Soul to hit their ethereal form.
"There you go," Kyle said. "You also got to kill one."
Selene didn't comment.
She knew exactly that, if this Earth Elemental were in the Peak Second Realm, her Sand Arrow wouldn't have been powerful enough to cut through all of the spears.
Even more, she had used over 50% of her Ether in that first attack.
It had seemed casual and effortless, but Selene had actually gone all out.
She just wanted to prove to herself that she could also kill one.
Maybe, she could even kill a Peak Second Realm Earth Elemental, but it would be a bitter and drawn-out battle.
The two of them continued traveling down, and the lower they got, the more Earth Elementals they found.
After almost 30 minutes, they had killed almost 20.
'No surprise that there are not many people digging holes to the Ether Essence,' Selene thought. 'One Earth Elemental is already a huge threat.'
At some point, there were no more Earth Elementals.
Yet, the tunnel continued further down.
"Oh boy," Kyle said. "No Earth Elementals for several minutes. That probably means we've entered the territory of the Metal Elementals. I don't know about you, but I really don't want to fight any of those."
"Me neither," Selene said.
Ironically, Kyle also sensed less and less ore the lower they got.
Usually, the abundance of ore increased the further one dug down.
And sure enough, the number of ore veins Kyle had found earlier had been quite high.
But now, there was almost nothing.
This could only mean that the ore at this level had become so abundant that Metal Elementals had been formed, and Metal Elementals absorbed all the ore in their surroundings.
Metal Elementals were some of the most powerful beings in the world.
If one were lucky, one would only meet a Mid Third Realm Metal Elemental.
Mid Thid Realm.
This was not something Kyle could even hope to fight.
This would not be a true battle. This would just be an execution.
"This is about as far as we can go," Kyle said.
The tunnel still went further down, but Kyle decided to stop.
"We have to use Lily."
Selene nodded.
The next moment, they turned around and carefully measured the distance of the tunnel. As they reached the top, they concluded that they had stopped at about sea level, which meant they needed to travel about two more kilometers into the ground and another five kilometers or so sideways.
"How did it go?" Michael asked when he saw Selene and Kyle again.
"Bunch of Earth Elementals. Wasn't easy, but with some trickery, we managed to basically get rid of them," Kyle said.
"How?" Lily asked with skepticism.
"Trade secret," Selene said. "It's related to my family."
The others wanted to know more about it, but they knew that they were not supposed to ask.
"Alright, Lily, it's your turn now," Kyle said.
Lily snorted and sent one golem inside.
Then, everyone waited.
Several minutes later, the golem returned.
While Lily could roughly sense the locations of her golems over such a distance, her golems needed to be closer if she actually wanted detailed information from them.
"There are only three kilometers between the end of the tunnel and the Ether Essence," she said.
Kyle nodded. "Then, start digging."
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