Nick and YunYun found themselves in a dark and long cave, but it looked as if it was not created artificially. It was just high enough for them to walk through without need to lower their heads and wide enough for two people to be able to barely walk side by side. After twenty or so meters, they arrived in a small room, may be ten square meters and from here three similar tunnels went in different directions.

“So their base is located in a cave system within this mountain.” YunYun looked around, “These pathways look like a mountain river flowed through here a long time ago.”

“Mhm, let’s check all tunnels one by one.” Nick nodded.

The tunnels turned out to not be a maze and had a room or several larger rooms at the end of each one. In their rush, people from Holy Order forgot or didn’t care to turn off the lighting formations and when Nick and YunYun entered the rooms, they were still lit in a dim blue light.

In contrast to the tunnels, these rooms were artificially made and were mostly used as storage for alchemy ingredients, beast cores and other crafting materials, weapons and even some armor. Nick unceremoniously stored most of the useful stuff, but after searching the whole place they were not able to find the most important part – archives.

During his time in the Holy Order, Nick overheard elders mentioning the sect storing the copies of their research all over the world for the future generations in case the current headquarters are attacked and this place should be one of those spots. Otherwise there was no reason for it to be in a secluded location between Styx and Lethe kingdoms, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest human settlement. But no matter how much they looked, they couldn’t find even one book or a scroll.

There was no indication of a second exit as well and both youths found it to be strange. Even more, with this many people residing here, there had to be a ventilation system, otherwise everyone would just die from suffocation.

“Elder Dinnar was a genius in rune formations and most likely even now there are multiple formations active which we can’t see. This might take a while.” Nick sighed.

“Hahaha! It would, but we are not alone!” YunYun laughed and under Nick’s confused gaze ran out.

Soon she returned together with Bambi who was uncomfortably squeezing through the tunnel.

“Bambi, we need your help. You saw how there was a rune formation protecting the entrance, right?” YunYun caressed doe’s neck and said with a smile, “In this cave system there are multiple hidden formations we can’t see, but they shouldn’t be of the same power as the one outside. Can you help us find them? Just be careful.”

“If it helps, every formation will have a beast core fueling it, may be you can smell or sense it somehow.” Nick added.

Bambi nodded and started to look and sniff around with a serious expression. They didn’t have to wait too long when she managed to find a couple of hidden ventilation openings. A half an hour later she pointed at a plain stone wall in one of the rooms.

Nick and YunYun checked everywhere for a hidden switch or lever, but with no results and in the end Nick started to poke the wall with Wakizashi. After another minute he managed to carve out a hole large enough for him to squeeze through.

Unlike the previous rooms, the one he entered now didn’t have any turned on lighting formations, but when Nick lit up a torch he could only gasp in shock. This was not a room, but a large hall, filled with hundreds and hundreds of boxes and each of those were stacked with books and scrolls.

“We … how can we bring all of this away?” YunYun crawled in as well and was left speechless at the sight.

“Actually I don’t intend to bring anything away, I just want to burn this stuff so no one could ever read it.” Nick sternly said, “You can not imagine what experiments those psychos were performing and what tragedies are recorded here.”

“Nick! The Holy Order is invading Lethe kingdom as well and they are probably doing the same with other parts of the world! What if here is some information that will help us to fight them.” YunYun was not as deeply scarred by them and could see the ‘big picture’.

“Sorry, you are right.” Nick came to realize that even if this heap of books was an archive build on countless tragedies and endless suffering, there could be valuable things here as well, “Let’s do it like this – we will only check the overall contents of the box and if there is something about the Holy Order’s contacts, bookkeeping or movements, I’ll store it and we’ll let king Alexander deal with it.”

“Why not my mother?”

“The Sun kingdom has fought these bastards for decades, may be even centuries and has more experience. Of course, we will share the results with our allies and that includes the Lethe kingdom. The Holy Order is making some serious movements here and queen Hu has to be notified. Even more, if it is as we suspect and the Chu family is deeply involved in this, she will have her hands full anyway. In addition, I doubt she has experts like Simon Den or Leon Sanders who have spent most of their lives fighting the Holy Order.”

“Bambi, thank you, but this will take long. You can go outside and wait there.” YunYun relieved her friend from duty, glanced around and sighed, “We probably need few days for this.”

“In that case there is something they could do as well.” Nick grinned and crawled out from the archives. After leaving the cave, he called the other two beasts over and informed them that they will need two or more days and in the meantime, beasts could digest and absorb the rank five beast cores. King Kong’s and Snow’s eyes lit up and they swallowed the cores as soon as they appeared on Nick’s palm.

“Alright, Bambi, you are part of our team as well and worked hard, therefore you have your reward as well.” Nick took out another rank five core from his stash and presented it to the doe. She looked at the core and then at Nick with complicated gaze, “Why are you so shy all of sudden? You are one of us and there are no strangers around.”

In the end Bambi swallowed the beast core and lied near the rocks to digest it, just like the other two rank sixes.

“Why did you give it to her and why did she …” YunYun was confused and even a little bit anxious.

“Why do you think herbivores eat the grass and leaves?” Nick smiled back understanding what she meant, “It’s because their bodies are made to digest such food. They are not hunting and eating other animals not because they feel for them or have some kind of special compassion, but because there is no need or they can’t. The digestive system of a deer or a cow simply can not process meat thus they are at the lower part of the nature’s food chain. But the pure Qi within the beast core is a whole different story. It’s a great treasure for any living being, including Bambi. Of course, she would look at me with a deep scorn if I had offered her rank two or three beast core, but rank five is too enticing, even for her.”

Seeing the complicated look on YunYun’s face, he added, “Don’t worry, she is still the same loving and caring Bambi you know”

“Hmpf!” YunYun snorted, “May be I should eat few of those cores as well. I bet you have a box or a sack of them hidden in your wristbands.”

“Hahaha, let’s go to work.” Nick laughed and winked, “But we do have a bit of good stuff stored.”

After checking few boxes and putting them to the side, Nick had another thought while holding a book in his hands, “Wait, if there is something interesting about the alchemy we should take it as well. After all both of us now are great alchemists who save lives.”

They both giggled and continued the grand audit.

During the next two days both youths relentlessly checked thousands of boxes and Nick’s wristbands were packed full when they finished. He even tossed out all the weapons and most of the crafting materials he stored earlier. Luckily he now had elder Dinnar’s ring and had some space for a ‘regular’ use.

To their big surprise the fourteen Holy Order’s ambushers who were guarding traps previously didn’t follow their two colleagues and both King Kong and Snow were bored out of their minds from sitting and waiting. It took them a little longer than a day to digest the cores and now the only hope for entertainment were these fourteen who let them down in the end.

At least a bit of entertainment beasts got when Nick set the place on fire and the mountain started to emit smoke through several places. After the fire died out, they blocked all the openings they found and left back to meet the ambushers who were probably anxiously waiting for the arrival of their elders.

Nick and YunYun were reluctant to go back to the capital without disarming and filling all those traps with rocks because if left as they were they could kill tens, may be hundreds of animals without any reason and in a brutal fashion at that.

The road back was quicker with Snow leading the way, but it still took over two days. Although part of the last night they spent resting because Nick and YunYun wanted to be at their full strength in case there were some unexpected difficulties.

“These people are much smarter than we thought.” Nick commented while watching the scene in front of them.

What they saw after arrival surprised them greatly – the fourteen members of the Holy Order had made a small camp in the middle of the large trap field that previously was a part of their formation.

“Aren’t they just trapped now themselves?” YunYun was confused.

“Yes and no.” Nick explained, “They know a beast has killed sixteen of their colleagues and that means there is very little chance for them to fight it directly, even more, they probably decided that this formation won’t be able to hold, catch or kill it. Thus they positioned themselves in strategically advantageous position in case the same beast came for them. You might think they have no way out, but their thinking is – the beast has no way in because of the many traps around them. We already know they have used some kind of powder to hide their scent, therefore even if, for example, Snow now attacked, there is a high probability for him to suffer Bambi’s fate and fall in to the trap. These people are anxiously waiting for the elder to come and save them!”

“But in that case, do we have to wait until they run out of food or water for them to leave?”

“Not necessarily. Both of us probably could walk over the traps and keep each other secured with a short rope.”

“Nick, I know we became Qi masters, but taking on fourteen Qi masters is a bit …” YunYun had a reason to worry if that was Nick’s plan.

“Oh no, I’m not suggesting that. I have better idea.” Then he grinned and looked around, “Do you guys want to play a game?”

While Snow and Bambi looked at him in confusion, King Kong had to hold himself back to not start shouting and hammering his chest in excitement.