Inside the Hill

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Jonas led them towards a safe zone. It was a place where most of the humans are concentrated. Tents were built everywhere and there's a few unused so they decided to borrow one in just for now.

There were some sleeping bags inside, enough for all of them. As soon as Paul and Mark hit those sleeping bags, they started snoring loudly. Raven and the girls could only shake their heads and let them rest since their first live battle's toll was too much for them.

The girls meditated to calm their nerves, Jonas went ahead and did the same thing as well. Meanwhile, Raven was busied himself with grinding some ingredients once more. He spent a good amount of time before finishing his craft. He ended up having at least three sticks of incense when he's done. He took out a stand and placed one incense on it. He lit it up and a smoke started coming out from it.

The smoke was fragrant, it carried an earthy yet sweet scent. When the smoke was inhaled by the occupants of the tent, they unknowingly arrived at a very meditative state where their bodies are very relaxed and focused on recovery alone.

The atmosphere inside the tent became peaceful, four people meditating, two sleeping and Raven who went outside after lighting up the incense. If his calculations were correct, then it will take at least an hour before the smoke runs out, which means that they will be in that state for an hour as well.

"Alright, let's investigate some things shall we?"

As soon as he stepped out of the camp, he sprinkled some powder on himself and he seemingly disappeared out of nowhere. Raven wasn't gone, only became invisible. When he arrived at this place, he already had a gauge of the spectrum of cultivations bases around him. This 'Concealment Powder' is at least B-ranked item. He won't have to be worried about being seen by anyone soon.

When the powder settled in, Raven started to run in a controlled manner. He knew that he's just concealed and there's many ways to leave tracks behind, even for concealed people. He didn't his cover being blown so he had to be careful.

He avoided traveling to places where fights were happening, he also avoided grassy and muddy lands. After traveling for at least five minutes, he was able to reach the hill that had many holes in it. He gently felt the ground beneath him and went inside one of the holes after finding out that nothing was coming.

Raven felt the temperature drop as soon ss he entered. The entrance was actually leading deeper into the colony. He saw traces of battle such as eroded/broken weapons, limbs of either humans or ants, purple and red blood, he even saw some belongings that were left behind by those who fought here.

This wasn't the first time that he saw something like this, in fact he seen worst. He already developed some sort of mental immunity towards these type of scenario.

He followed the entrance and walked soundlessly. He made sure to stay alert at all times, the last thing that he wants it to be mobbed by gigantic ants. It didn't take long before he arrived at a bigger room. There he saw huge eggs along with two worker ants who were guarding the place. Raven activated his ocular technique and saw the energy registered of the ants.

The worker ants, were both Fighter Class Beasts, nothing for him to worry about since these things won't see him even if he stood before them. His eyes then landed on the eggs and he also saw their energy readings. Not all of these eggs will be born, some are already dead before they hatched since he didn't see any energy in them.

Just when he was planning on leaving this place, he then saw a faint red shimmer beyond the eggs. He then figured that since these things can't see him, then might as well take a closer look.

Walking pass by the worker ants, it took him a couple of steps before he was able to see the red shimmer closely. It was coming from a small hole on the wall, big enough to fit humans in. He went on fours and crawled slowly inside that hole, making sure to make as minimal noise as he could.

When he arrived on the other side, a stood up and saw the source of that red shimmer. Boy was he glad that his curiosity got the better of him, the item in front of him was already worth this trip.

The item followed a cone shape that had rough edges. It was tinged by a faint yellowish color and covered with dirt on most places. It was at least 10 meters long and had a very hard surface, similar to a porcelain. There was no mistaking it, this is a tooth. Not just any tooth, this is a Wood Wyvern's Tooth.

Wyverns are late descendants of Dragons, they follow the same body structure as them, four limbs, wings, hard scales and elongated faces with large nostrils. If there are any creatures that are closer to evolving into a real Dragon, then it would them. But that being said, chances of that won't even be higher than 3%.

The hardest part of an evolution for beasts would be the tribulation stages. Dragons are fearsome creatures, if there is a living dragon inside the kingdom and someone managed to piss it off, then even if Raven stake his all in his current state, the kingdom would still fall under it's might. Good thing that there isn't one here, the laws of this place wouldn't allow it anyway and would send it outside.

Wyverns, now there is a small possibility of that existing here. Raven never saw one during his past life but now that he saw one of it's tooth here, then there really might be one.

The whole reason why he was in a celebratory mood when he saw the tooth is because it is an absolute treasure. The red shimmer that he saw earlier is something that cannot be seen by normal means and even if it is seen, it value is useless for the ants here.

The red color that is registering on the tooth is called: 'Vital Essence'. A type of energy that directly responds to one's body. It is the energy type that Body Cultivators need as soon as they got out of the Fighter Realm.

The tooth in front of him must be really old but in his vision, it is still filled with Vital Essence that he didn't want to miss out. Raven licked his lips and tried to lift the entire tooth. The result was him not quite able to do so. It was really heavy, even heavier than their stone house. But instead of being down, Raven felt even more joyful that it is heavy.

He started to imagine the things he could do with this thing after absorbing the Vital Essence left. He could craft some armor with this, he could craft some decorations, turn it into an ingredient, place some on the Virtual Beast Arena so that he could fight with a Wyvern. Raven could only smile foolishly as he imagined these things.

"Good thing I bought an even bigger spatial ring, or else I would really miss out on this." Raven whispered.

With a swipe of his hand, the tooth disappeared and only left a deep gulch on the ground. After placing the tooth inside his spatial ring, he surveyed the area he was in once more and saw nothing worth of notice. After confirming that his Concealment Powder is still active, he went on fours once more and crawled outside of the hole. He then silently left that place to check out other ones.

Raven arrived into a forked path. He relied onto his ocular technique to at least see which one he should take. After a brief survey, he found out that one path leads deeper and one probably head towards the other side of the hill. He decided to take the deeper path.

After a couple of minutes of walking he arrived on a busy location. The scuttling of the ants echoed across the room, he saw at least 1o worker ants and multiple paths leading elsewhere, probably even deeper onto the colony.

There is a pungent smell inside this section, not too far from where Raven was, there were brown balls stacked up. Raven thought that this might be the processed food for the younger ants. Each brown balls that he saw is probably a mixture of every prey they collected. There were no doubts that the pungent smell was coming from these balls.

As Raven was planning to walk further, he stopped in his tracks and decided to retreat a couple of steps. Turns out that this was a wise idea since another ant was coming, and it is much stronger that the previous ones that he earlier.

This was a Soldier Ant.