Shane, who stood in the middle of the whole group that was surrounded by the Valkyries in order to ensure the students' safety, couldn't help but smile when he noticed everyone's expressions, as even the Valkyries were extremely shocked.

It was only Aisha who didn't have a dazed look, as she shot him a knowing smile, which he could only return.

Apparently, Aisha knew about the number of elemental crystals inside the cave, and Shane began to wonder about how she had acquired that piece of information. While trying to figure out a solution, he could only think about his mortal grade platinum quality mana gathering technique.

With this mana gathering technique, he was able to see purer mana particles than with [Mortal (Gold)] mana gathering technique.

Even the [Tier-2 (Gold)] mana gathering technique was worse in this aspect which clearly indicated the superiority of a platinum quality technique. Shane concluded that Aisha could have made a guess based on her mana gathering technique that was most likely better than his.

Other than that solution, there were still skills and unique techniques Shane didn't know of and it was not impossible for Aisha to have a unique skill or something similar.

Seeing Aisha's unruffled expression, he couldn't help but feel challenged and without him knowing he wanted to find a way to see her astonished expression.

It took everyone between several dozen moments to a few minutes to get back to their senses, with the Valkyries and the three students with a higher mana purity being the fastest.

The expressions of shock and astonishment mirrored everyone's face as they looked at Shane with disbelieving eyes. He had been the one to tell them about the elemental crystal cave, which they estimated to be worth several tens of thousand gold coins.

Shane just continued to smile, and he could already imagine what they thought about him.

'Why does he not take everything by himself?'

However, even if they thought that way, the students and Valkyries were still forgetting something important.

Right now, he was way too weak to even come close to the third floor, because the centipedes they had defeated on their way required a single person to be at least on the peak of the Expert stage with a mana purity of 60% to have killed them single-handedly.

In the end, Shane could have just waited to reach this point, but he was neither sure of the time required to reach nor if the elemental crystal cave would still be there by that time.

Another important fact for him to share the location of the hidden elemental crystal cave was that he was in a dire need of gold coins.

It might have sounded weird to the others who knew how many gold coins he had accumulated throughout the prior month, thinking that he had enough to enter the expert stage for good, but his financial situation was extremely frustrating and dire!

Umbra would most likely reach a horrifying length after evolving and Shane wanted to acquire a miniature world which he could bind to himself.

Being able to enlarge this miniature world, it would be as if there was a complete world inside him that could be adjusted to his needs.

Without wanting to waste more gold coins for beast sealing cards of extraordinary quality, Shane figured out that a miniature world would be much better and there would be no harm done if he would be able to procure one by sharing the location of the elemental crystal cave, which he ultimately did.

He was not sure how many gold coins he had to accumulate for a large miniature world, but a small miniature world should be more than enough to start with.

Enlarging it could be done with time, even if he couldn't enter a shelter, forcing him to roam through the dimension with Umbra.

Once everyone gathered their senses, a few of them were about to rush towards the first elemental crystal occurrence close to them, when Aisha stopped them.

While the first two floors had been dangerous, they didn't have the tiniest speck of elemental transmuted mana left, which was the biggest contradiction from the second to the third floor.

Without knowing what dangers there might be, it was foolish to just lunge at the crystals. It was better to be safe than sorry, which even the greediest students noticed, as they saw Aisha and the Valkyries' serious expressions.

They unsheathed their weapons while surrounding the small group of students in order to assure their safety, as Aisha led them carefully through the third layer.

Before mining the crystals it would be best to ensure that there were no dangers lurking around in the form of the centipedes or other beasts, negating the possibility of a surprise attack, which everyone clearly understood after trying to comprehend why Aisha acted this way.

The students remained silent, as tension built up slowly in their minds, while Leon suddenly walked next to Shane.

Both of them seemed to be relaxed which was eyed apprehensively by the other students, with Aimy wondering who exactly the blond-haired youth that was suddenly standing next to them was.

In the end, she couldn't understand how exactly Leon had gotten close to Shane in such a short time and neither the reason behind Shane's calm.

She knew that he was mature and a sensible person, but him being so calm, and almost nonchalant, while Aisha and the Valkyries were so tensed up and serious was still weird to her.

Never would she have imagined that Shane was calm only because he decided to trust Aisha and the Valkyries.

If something were to happen, he would inevidently die, and it was not something to flatter.

In the end, it was quite simple. If Aisha and the Valkyries were to die, he would also perish with them, and it was highly likely that nobody in their expedition team would survive.

As such, he remained calm and let Aisha do whatever she found reasonable.

Right now, they were still at the outskirts of the mountain ring and the existence of the bloodlust thunder wolf was more than enough to tell Shane that the whole dimension was weird, however, the cave they were inside shouldn't have an excessively powerful being inside, and the reasoning for this assumption was fairly simple.

Before the centipedes claimed the elemental crystal cave, the scaled lizards used to reside within, which told Shane that the most powerful scaled lizard was stronger than the strongest centipede.

To further conclude, the strongest scaled lizard was very weak compared to the bloodlust thunder wolf's combat prowess, and thus, the strongest centipede residing within the elemental crystal cave should be much weaker than Aisha and the Valkyries who could fight at par with the bloodlust thunder wolf.

In the end, it was a simple calculation that clearly demonstrated the Valkyries combat prowess compared to the beasts inside the entire elemental crystal cave.

Only two minutes after they started to walk through the third floor, the first centipedes emerged out of the large mountain of crystals that protruded out of the ground.

It was extremely difficult to distinguish the centipedes' carapace from the elemental crystals, but once the centipedes began to move, everyone halted their steps, waiting for the first attack.

Looking at the dozen centipedes that revealed themselves, Shane immediately noticed that their carapace's color was richer and more vibrant than the centipede's they fought before.

Enveloping themselves in their innate elemental transmuted mana, the students were astonished to see burning-, high velocity-, water- and earth armored centipedes in front of them.

They were definitely at the peak awakened stage which made Shane wonder as it was weird to have such a sharp increase in their enemy's combat prowess when a long silver spear manifested in Aisha's hand.

As she released her mana, she was immediately enveloped in a thick mana membrane that glowed in a white, holy light, as the Valkyries did the same.

Seeing this, everyone gulped, as Aisha and the Valkyries exerted their movement technique, only to split up and appear in front of their designated centipede.

Without saying a single word, the 100 Valkyries equally split up, only to slash, pierce and shoot at the centipedes, killing them in less than half a minute.

They came back to Aisha who remained at the same place as before after storing away the corpses as Aisha nonchalantly announced

"The next one will be yours!"

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