Shane's premonition saved his life as he noticed the wild stage purple furred wolf attack him from behind with a rather exhausted pounce.
By jumping above the dying elite stage wolf, Shane arrived straight in front of the second elite stage wolf. He wasn't able to evade the second purple-furred wolf's claws completely. But he narrowly avoided the claws from piercing into his flesh by deflecting them with his dagger.
The only problem was that Shane was now in a bad situation or rather at a disadvantage. The elite stage purple furred wolf was still physically stronger than him, even though the [Berserk] skill had enhanced his strength by 10%
Fortunately, Umbra came to his help as he shot multiple shadow needles in a row straight at the wolf's eyes. Two of the needles pierced through its eyes before it could even close them to deflect the remaining shadow needles.
With that, faint dizziness overcame the elite stage wolf while its eyeball had been pierced and it stumbled to the ground.
Right then, Shane used the moment of distraction to adjust his dagger's angle in order to deflect the claw and push it away. He pierced his shiolite dagger straight into the elite stage purple furred wolf's chest.
Now, Shane didn't dare to ignore the existence of the wild stage wild purple furred wolf behind him as he predicted another pounce on his back.
Pulling the dagger out of the dead elite stage beast corpse hurriedly, Shane leaned backward. He held his dagger straight in the direction that the wolf would come pouncing at him.
Shane's prediction was on point and the wolf pounced straight towards his dagger, causing his arm to bend due to the wolf's heavyweight falling straight on it.
Shane pushed it away with all his might and noticed that he was even more exhausted than the time when he had mined for dozens of hours.
The concentration, observance, and tension that he had to utilize and go through in this short battle were released in an instance and Shane's head ached painfully as if a heavy hammer weighing tons was hitting his head.
Shane retrieved a few aqueous scales and gulped down their content, which was only partially useful for him anymore. He had consumed the liquid in large quantities within the last few hours without giving his body time to regenerate energy on its own.
Shane had only stimulated himself without caring about anything except solving his [Mythic] mission.
Only now with the exhaustion overwhelming him, Shane noticed that it was naive and stupid to venture into the lion's den only to observe two awakened beasts fighting for the ownership of the elemental crystal cave.
As such, Shane decided to change his plans, and looking around, he began to notice how vast the cave was.
The second layer was already a few times larger than the first layer that Shane had not cleared yet.
If he had to make an estimate, Shane thought that he had most likely mined less than 10% elemental crystals of the first layer.
Shane wanted to have all of it for himself but it was hardly possible. Soon enough, humans would begin to venture through the Radiant Mountain-ring dimension.
It would most likely only take a week before more inns were built within the shelter to accommodate more hunters and adventurers.
He wanted to create a plan to obtain even more wealth from the elemental crystal cave which was a godsend for him, but Shane couldn't think straight anymore.
The only thing he could think of right now was a soft bed that was still more than four hours away from his current location. He longed to fall asleep on the comfortable bed but the elemental crystal cave was rather secluded and difficult to reach without knowing where exactly to go.
As such, Shane decided to do two things, while he disregarded his previous idea of observing the fight between two awakened stage beings.
First, Shane wanted to gather all the corpses within the cave's second floor. The second point was that he wanted to figure out the fastest way back to the shelter because he was facing difficulty in keeping his eyes open due to fatigue.
Fortunately for the exhausted Shane not a single wolf or lizard ventured into the second layer while he was picking up the corpses.
There were more beast corpses than he had expected and in the end, Shane's spatial storage had received an increase of more than 300 corpses, which had shocked him a little bit.
Unfortunately, it took him more than an hour to collect all the corpses. Meanwhile, three notifications popped up on his system, indicating that the last three parcels had been bought by the Elus merchant.
But oddly enough the [Mythic] mission was still not done.
Even though Shane was extremely tired, he took a glance at the mission progress only to see a number that annoyed him extremely.
[999/1000]
There were still 17 hours left, but Shane didn't want to wait even for a second longer, as he would just collapse on his bed once he entered the shelter.
As such, he placed a bunch of mana crystals within his shop at a lower price compared to other shops. The price, however, was still higher compared to the price Shane would receive from the system because it would have given him a handful of silver at the most.
After he finished placing some mana crystals within his shop, he immediately closed it, not minding the system anymore.
Shane was barely able to take a step after another when he reached the cave entrance once again and Umbra looked at him worriedly.
Though Shane had worked hard to mine mana and elemental crystals while Umbra only observed the surroundings while shooting a few shadow needles, he was exhausted as well.
Shane's mind was almost blank and he could barely hold himself together, as he staggered back to the shelter.
Fortunately, he was on the right path. Shane still had to feed himself with an aqueous scale in order to prevent himself from collapsing on the ground within the lush forest that was filled with all kinds of beasts.
Weirdly enough, Shane, who was drenched in scaled lizard and purple furred wolf blood, did not meet a single beast at the outskirts of the forest. Had his mind not been blank and working at its finest, he would have probably asked himself as to why that was the case.
How could Shane know that the purple furred wolves and the scaled lizards were two overlords of the outer part of the forest he ventured through, while they fought each other for the cave's control?
Had Shane known that the territorial fight for the elemental crystal cave was just a small playground of these two beast races, he would definitely have been scared. He wasn't aware of the more devastating battles that took place in other caves and even on the surface. Had he known all of that, he wouldn't have been able to walk around without caring about anything like he did right now.
Once a purple furred wolf or scaled lizard smelled their own brethren's blood in addition to the disgusting stench of their arch-enemies, they would immediately search for his location and attack him, without caring about anything else.
It was as if the two races were playing a kingdom-building game and Shane had entered their board game as the third player without any troops, only to kill all lower staged comrades.
And it was not only he who had joined this game, but it was also mankind that would most likely surprise these beasts in their small war between purple furred wolves against the scaled lizards, creating a three-sided battlefield.
Finally, after hours, Shane could see the outline of the shelter walls. A weak smile blossomed on his face that was smeared with dirt and blood.
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