The person mining had no idea what was happening in front of him. It all happened fast.

In a moment, everything was fine, but then the pirate watching the miner started convulsing, rolling his eyes, and shaking on the ground.

Damian gestured to the miner not to say a word. He used his pointing finger to do it.

"Shh."

The miner obeyed. He just stood there, watching the scene unfold before his eyes. Damian entered the pirate’s mind and looked for any information about his friends.

It wasn’t that easy to get the information. There were lots of memories inside the pirate’s mind, and even when Damian tried to channel and only think about what he wanted to know, it didn’t work much.

All he could do was wait.

Wait.

Wait. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

After ten minutes of searching through the pirate’s memories, he saw it. He saw the day when his friends arrived at the mines.

Cassia, Nessia, Frida, Elena, and...that’s it. The other mercenaries from Frida’s group weren’t there, and Elrandir was not there either.

It was strange. Damian saw the memories of what happened. He saw Elena working in the mines, day after day, tired, getting whipped by those pirates.

It enraged him. He clenched his fists and was certain of one thing: those pirates had to die, no matter what.

The memories kept going, until he saw something else. They actually moved Elena and the others deep into the mines, into a secret section of it!

This pirate Damian was searching the memories from actually overheard a conversation about it, as he didn’t have the authority to know about the mine’s secrets.

"Are you sure we should move them there? I mean, isn’t that where the lair is?"

"Yes, but if we want to reach the lair, then we must dig. And honestly, I don’t want to be the one doing this dangerous work. It is risky."

Those were the only things the pirate heard. Damian stopped looking through his memories. The pirate fell on the ground, unconscious.

The miner stood there, scared that he might be the next one.

"There might be a chance of escaping in the next few days. Hold tight. The pirate will wake up in one hour, but he won’t remember what happened. Please, don’t tell him."

The miner, who was an elderly man, smiled at it. "Of course I won’t tell. Fuck these bastards."

He then sat on the ground.

"I’ll enjoy this one hour where I don’t have to work."

Damian left, returning to where Cait was. She was still mining, or rather, pretending to be doing it. But even when not trying hard, she was still quite tired. Her body was just too weak for it.

"So?" she said, "found your friends?"

He shook his head, then he kicked a nearby rock to let go of his anger.

"Not exactly, but I know where they are here in the mines. The only problem is that it’s supposedly a hidden part of it."

"A hidden area of the mines? Well, while you were there searching for information, I saw something interesting."

Damian got instantly curious about it. He didn’t say a word, letting Cait share what she knew without getting in the way of her thinking.

"Remember the guy we talked to when we arrived? The one who looked to be the leader in the camp outside."

"Yeah, what about him?"

"Well, I saw him move toward that direction. And he appeared to be in a hurry, I don’t know why... Maybe he’s going to the secret area you talked about?"

That’s when things finally clicked for Damian. When he saw the memories of that pirate, overhearing that conversation, well, among the people talking about that lair, he saw the officer Cait had just talked about!

He had been so focused on other things that he didn’t even recognize his face when he saw it.

"I think you might be up to something here," Damian said, "nice job, Cait."

She smiled, and her heart warmed with Damian’s kind words. It wasn’t not common for her to get compliments like that, so it meant a lot for Cait.

"But what do we do now then? I can’t be here forever. My body is failing me."

Cait wouldn’t last long in the mines. If the other pirates saw her resting for too long, they would get angry and maybe even kill her after seeing she wasn’t capable of working as a miner.

The safest place for her to be was with Damian. That’s the conclusion he had after analyzing Cait’s body, seeing she was almost passing out.

"You can come with me to investigate. But if I say hide, you hide."

"Understood."

Cait placed the pickaxe on the ground and left with Damian. They walked through the mine’s tunnels. These tunnels got narrower as they went deeper toward the location where the officer went.

The number of miners working diminished so much that Damian didn’t see a single soul anymore.

"This area is prohibited," he whispered, "I think we might find pirates here. Don’t scream when I kill them."

Cait’s heart was beating fast. Not long after Damian said that, they spotted two pirates standing still in the middle of the tunnels, acting like guards.

Damian had the sword he grabbed from the pirate, which wasn’t powerful, and it was made of weak materials.

However, he had his blood magic to work on. He cut the palm of his hand with the sword, and instantly, a reddish energy flew around the sword.

That increased the power a lot.

[Sword Power Increased by 300%]

[Added venomous attribute to it]

His blood was so strong it got venomous. But Damian wasn’t counting on that to kill those guards.

He wanted a clean hit capable of killing them instantly.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Cait whispered to him, "If we kill them now, then where are we going to hide their bodies? This will make everyone come after us."

She was right about it. But that didn’t matter if Damian managed to find his friends and get the hell out of those mines.

In the end, if he wanted to get enough energy to perform the spell, which he didn’t know how to do because Elrandir was missing, he would need the mana stones from the mines.

So, killing the pirates and taking over was the only thing he could do.

"Relax," he said, "fighting against the pirates is inevitable. At least this way, we have two fewer pirates to fight against."

Damian made his move. He used his tremendously high strength to throw the sword. It pierced like a spear, going straight into the chest of one of the guards.

The second guard looked to the side and moved to check on his friend. It was the standard move in that type of situation.

That gave Damian more than enough time to dash toward him and reach him almost instantly. He grabbed the man by the neck and twisted it, a cracking sound echoing in those tunnels.

It was the first time Cait was seeing how powerful Damian truly was, and she was scared. If he could do that to two pirates who knew how to fight, then how was she supposed to feel safe around him?

If Damian wanted, he could kill her without moving a finger.

"Come," Damian said, turning around to look at Cait, "the path is clear."

She did what he asked. The two continued going through the tunnels.

The tunnels were clearly not used often. There were no lights to help them navigate, and they even saw water dripping from the ceiling.

Not to mention how narrow the tunnels were. Only Damian and Cait were there, yet it was hard for them to move around. They were constantly bumping into each other.

Things changed only after they walked for around ten minutes. They were moving deeper into the mines. Not on a straight line, but going further down.

Then, at the end of it, they saw a massive light. It was blue, but there was also a hint of yellow in it.

Damian anxiously reached the end, and that’s when he saw something extraordinary.

A massive open cave with LOTS of mana stones veins. Way more than the whole mine combined. All the walls were basically pure mana stones.

Not only that, but they spotted many treasures lying around, as if something or someone had gathered them and stored them there for some reason.

At a distance, they spotted a few houses, certainly built by the pirates that were exploring the area.

"Look at that pond of water," Cait said, pointing at a distance.

Damian searched everywhere for clues about his friends, but although the cabins looked used, no one was there.

"Where is that officer we saw coming here?" Damian asked.

"No idea."

They walked over to the pond. Damian couldn’t see if it was deep or not. The water had a greenish color, different from what he was used to.

The only way to find out was by jumping, and so he did.

There was a passage down there, a place where they could swim and go.

Damian returned to share what he saw with Cait. He didn’t want to leave her behind.

"There’s a path down there, but this is problematic."

"What do you mean?"

Something occurred to him.

"Considering how many mana stones are here, and all these treasures, yet the officer and my friends aren’t here gathering, this can only mean there’s something way more valuable down there. And this often means..."

"Danger."