Sandstone Underground Palace, Sneak Attack

"This is it. The Sandstone Underground Palace."

Right now, Lu Yuan was no longer in the Graystone Forest. He was located in a dry and cracked barren area.

Right in front of him was a hole leading underground.

The hole was about four to five meters in width. Further down, there were stairs extending in. There was also a torch hung on the walls after every short distance.

This was the biggest underground maze in Sandstone City, the Sandstone Underground Palace.

There were a variety of ferocious beasts inside, from weak to strong. Moreover, there were quite a lot of them.

Not only that. But if one was lucky, they might be able to encounter relics and some precious treasures in the underground palace.

Of course, the main reason Lu Yuan had come to this place was because the paths in the Sandstone Underground Palace were very complex.

He had offended a corporation after all. As he was still not strong enough, he'd have more escape routes in such a complex area.

There were several tens of underground passageways heading for the Sandstone Underground Palace. This place was one of them.

The entrance outside the underground palace was very lively, with many gene fighters around.

"Heading to the northern part of the underground palace to kill berserk lizards. Short of one control-type fighter! Gains will be split equally!"

"Detoxification potion! Selling detoxification potions! Everyone knows about the effect of black scorpion's venom. You won't be anxious if you have a detoxification potion with you! There's limited stock! Those who wish to buy should be quick!"

"Common-grade short blade! Hurry if you want it! 180 spirit crystals! No bargaining!"

There were people shouting out for all sorts of reasons, and the place outside the entrance was almost turning into a small-scaled marketplace.

However, Lu Yuan could understand this.

The Sandstone Underground Palace was one of the areas in the Sandstone City with the most number of gene fighters.

Places with people would have all sorts of business opportunities.

Lu Yuan's gaze swept around and he saw that most of the gene fighters who were planning to enter the underground palace formed parties to enter.

He only seemed to have seen three to four people who went alone like he did.

Each of these people who went solo wore armor made of leather or other materials, held weapons, and were fully equipped. They seemed like they had strong dispositions. 

The Sandstone Underground Palace wasn't an area like the Graystone Forest. The danger level of this place far surpassed that of the Graystone Forest.

Those people who could go around the place by themselves were mostly quite strong.

Otherwise, they'd just be giving their lives away.

Lu Yuan was alone and naturally also attracted some people's attention.

Some gene fighters looked at him and quickly averted their gazes.

Lu Yuan paid them no heed and entered the passageway, heading down the steps.

Other than Lu Yuan, there were two other parties, one consisting of four catfolks, while another consisting of two elves and two catfolks.

On the way, the two parties and Lu Yuan were all very quiet.

Lu Yuan's gaze would occasionally sweep at the two parties. He realized that they were also throwing glances toward each other.

Everyone was on their guard.

After heading down for a distance, the shouts outside couldn't be heard anymore.

There were only the sounds of footsteps when armors moved and boots landed on the ground.

The atmosphere was very quiet.

After a while, everyone arrived at the end of the stairs.

It was a small piece of empty land that had a radius of about 50 meters or so, and there were four passageways on one side of the land.

Lu Yuan's gaze swept out. He didn't care what the other two parties thought and headed straight for the one on the extreme right.

After Lu Yuan left, the members of the two parties communicated amongst themselves through their gazes and entered two other passageways.

…

After Lu Yuan entered the passageway on the extreme right, he came into a few more diverted paths not long later. Not knowing his way around, he randomly picked a direction.

The deeper he entered the underground palace, the wider the paths inside were.

After walking for a distance, from the original few meters, the passageways had become over 20 meters wide.

However, after walking for so long, Lu Yuan hadn't encountered a single ferocious beast.

Toward this, Lu Yuan didn't find it surprising either.

After all, this was an area close to an entrance. Even though there were many routes in the underground palace, this place was probably one that other people had taken before.

The road before him was still very long and Lu Yuan wasn't anxious at all.

After taking a few more diverted routes, the passageway that Lu Yuan was in was already around 30 meters wide.

He looked at the surroundings and still didn't discover any traces of ferocious beasts.

Lu Yuan raised his brows and continued advancing forth.

Just as he passed by a pile of crushed stones, a stone that was the size of a human head suddenly flew up toward the back of Lu Yuan's head at extremely high speed.

Lu Yuan sensed the strong wind coming from behind his head and was shocked. As a result, he stomped both of his legs hard to the ground and then moved a distance away to the side.

Instantly, a piece of stone flew by Lu Yuan's head.

Lu Yuan's pupils contracted.

"Where did this stone attack come from?!"

He had checked the surroundings earlier and didn't discover any ferocious beasts' existence.

Hence, he turned and looked in the direction where the stone had come from.

His eyes then opened wide.

In a corner where there was a pile of stones, many pieces of crushed stones were floating up.

Then, all the crushed stones gathered to form a stoneman that was 1.8 meters tall.

"?"

"To think that there's such a lifeform?!"

Lu Yuan was a little stunned.

Just then, another gust of wind blew behind his back again.

He quickly dodged a second time.

A piece of stone that was the size of a human head flew over and eventually landed on the stoneman's right hand.

As the stoneman raised its stone fists that were the size of two sandbags, it started crying out.

Lu Yuan found it hard to understand how this stoneman made sounds.

However, he didn't have the leeway to think too much into it. At this moment, the stoneman was waving its fists and charging toward him.

The stoneman's heavy footsteps landed on the ground, making thudding sounds.

Lu Yuan furrowed his brows. His longsword appeared and he looked at the stoneman with a hint of solemnity.

The stoneman quickly arrived in front of Lu Yuan, swinging its right fist toward him.

Its fists brought about howling strong wind with an astonishing disposition. Its speed wasn't slow but was still a little slower compared to Lu Yuan.

So, Lu Yuan turned and dodged the stoneman's fist. He then slashed out his longsword toward the part where its head was connected to its body.

Keng!

The longsword clashed with the stones, making a clanking sound.

Thereafter, the longsword left behind a deep crack on the stone. The tremendous force caused the stoneman's body to back off a few steps.

Seeing this, Lu Yuan understood how strong his stoneman was.

It was a lot stronger compared to graystone beetles but was weaker than black-rune graystone beetles.

When compared to gene fighters, it was about the strength of a probational fighter who hadn't engraved and recorded any gene and had a refinement degree of about 40%.

Given Lu Yuan's capabilities, it wasn't much of a threat to him.

The only troublesome thing was that this stoneman was a little crafty. It could turn into crushed stone piles and launch sneak attacks.

One wouldn't be able to tell from appearance alone.

Stones shouldn't be underestimated.

After ascertaining its strength, Lu Yuan started to launch a series of fierce attacks with his sword.

It wasn't long before he smashed the stoneman's head.

After crushing the stoneman's head, its body stopped connecting to each other like it had done before.

They turned into crushed stones and scattered all over onto the ground.

After that, white light flashed as three spirit crystals condensed amongst the crushed stones.

There were more of them compared to graystone beetles.

Lu Yuan broke into a hint of a smile and picked them up.

Other than spirit crystals, Lu Yuan also saw a white pebble-like spherical stone.

Lu Yuan raised his eyebrows and picked it up.

The information was sent to Lu Yuan's mind.

Small stoneman's heart: Common-grade material. Can be used to refine genetic armaments and genetic potions.

Small stoneman's heart...

So this thing was a small stoneman?

Lu Yuan took a look at the crushed stones on the ground and broke into a hint of realization.

When he investigated the Sandstone Underground Palace, he had read about the types of ferocious beasts that could be found here. Hence, he knew about small stonemen.

However, the post didn't give a concrete introduction to the ferocious beasts' habits.

Lu Yuan didn't expect that small stonemen would be so crafty.

Thankfully, he wasn't weak. Otherwise, he'd have fallen prey to it.

After this lesson, Lu Yuan decided to constantly activate his Blackiron Body for the rest of his exploration. This would assure his defensive capabilities.

It'd prevent him from falling to ferocious beasts that might appear out of nowhere.

If that happened, he would have nowhere to cry.

If it was someone else, it wouldn't be practical to constantly have their battle technique activated.

After all, such defensive battle techniques required continuous depletion of one's spirit energy, and one wouldn't have enough spirit energy to sustain such continuous activation.

However, things were different for Lu Yuan.

The rate at which he absorbed spirit crystals was fast, and he could constantly replenish his spirit energy. It was effortless for him to constantly activate Blackiron Body.

After activating the Blackiron Body, Lu Yuan continued to head deeper into the underground palace.

This time around, he started to pay attention to the crushed stone piles by the paths.

It wasn't long before he saw two crushed stone piles not far away.

Lu Yuan raised his brows and walked over slowly.

As expected, when he got close, two pieces of stone on top of each pile flew toward Lu Yuan.

"Hmph! You're still thinking of launching a sneak attack on me?"

Lu Yuan dodged the sneak attacks and then killed them.

Each small stoneman dropped three spirit crystals.

However, only one small stoneman dropped a small stoneman's heart.

As expected, a material like this wouldn't be dropped by every small stoneman.

Lu Yuan continued advancing.

He hadn't walked far when he heard the sound of fighting coming from the passageway in front.

Lu Yuan raised his brows and then frowned slightly as he looked at the next passageway.

If possible, Lu Yuan didn't wish to meddle in other people's business. If he were to encounter someone strong that he couldn't afford to offend, things would become troublesome.

However, there were no other passageways but this one here.

He had nowhere to hide.

Left with no choice, Lu Yuan could only advance, planning to go check out the situation.