Treasures in the Mines

 Looking at the powerful beast, Ryker let out a sigh of relief. Despite the beast only being able to hit him with what could be considered a glancing blow, each one is powerful enough to destroy a Genesis Core expert with a single hit. 

 If not for his superior skill and evasion, he would be hit by the 'true' blow, killing him in an instant unless he prepares his strongest defense first. With that said, he is the winner and he was able to estimate his current strength.

 While the lizard beast is strong, it has one major weakness and that is its inability to fly. If the beast could fly, the entire fight could potentially have a different outcome. So, while he could defeat best with strength around the 7th Stage Genesis Source, the same might not hold true for a human expert.

 In the end, only experience and training would allow him to survive the dangerous world. Right now, he is the winner but who could tell in the future? He could only focus on increasing his mastery of different Paths and comprehension of different Cultivation Art.

 But first, he should lie down and heal his injury, less even a Genesis Rank 5 Beast could kill him in his current state. As he took out several healing potions and drank, his mind turned towards the thing the beast took out.

 It clearly is valuable because of how it even dared to remain in a relatively poor area. Unfortunately, he couldn't ask anyone so he is on his own about this. He took out the thing, revealing it to be a multicolored gem. It was likely the most beautiful gem he had ever laid his eyes upon them.

 He decided to absorb the energy emitted from the gem, wondering if it would react. As he closed his eyes, some of the energy entered his body. As he dived into his Inner Realm to take a closer route, he quickly spotted the embryonic forming of a new Path.

 Looking at the gem, he quickly thought of a possible Law it related to, "Law of Crystals," he said to himself. 

 Law of Crystals, despite being called that, combined all the gems and jewels, plus crystals, as it is in the name. Law of Crystals was once considered a subtype of Law of Earth before it was later been affirmed to be a separate Path.

 Law of Crystals is considered one of the more unique Paths, and one of the Paths correlated to one of the Cultivation Art in his possession. Unfortunately, he had not begun to learn the Cultivation Art, so the object in front of him likely remained in his storage for some time.

 "Looks like I know which Cultivation Art I should focus on for the future," he said to himself. As he let his body recover from the intense fight with the lizard beast, he couldn't help but look into the hole in the ground.

 "I wonder if there are any more treasures inside," Deep down, Ryker didn't believe there to be any more treasures, as it had likely already been eaten by the lizard beast first. If there is any, it's likely deeper underground where the lizard beast hadn't penetrated yet.

 Then again, exploring the mine could give sufficient rewards. He would just have to do it tomorrow morning when his body no longer felt like it had just been trampled by a group of rhino beasts.

-x-

 He had decided to sleep outside the mine. When the first morning light hit him, he quickly woke up before he headed towards the entrance. He quickly reached the humongous hole and began to make his descent.

 As he got deeper and deeper, he couldn't help but feel his entire skin crawl, his surroundings had been eerie and dark. Thankfully, he has a mastery of the Law of Fire and he had get a lot of torches for the trip.

 As he put a couple of torches on the wall, he felt the wall seem to give away. Using his strength, breaks the part of the earth open, revealing a large chunk of Genesis Crystal. The discovery shocked him as he didn't think there would be any resources in the hole.

 Wondering if he could detect it, he released his divine sense, only to feel a slight disappointment. It seemed there was no more Genesis Crystal in the near vicinity. He was about to descend deeper when he stopped and gave it more thought.

 "Genesis Crystals usually appear in large clusters. So, either this one that formed near a large group in this exact spot before the lizard beast excavated it or the earth blocked divine sense,"

 He then proceeds to punch another part of the wall, this one also possessing a Genesis Crystal, albeit a smaller one than the previous one. Realizing he had hit a gold mine, or more accurately, a crystal mine, he began to use his mastery of the Law of Earth and began to excavate the entire thing in masse.

He wonders how much Genesis Crystal he would garner from the trip.

-x-

 The answer to it was uncountable. The number is so large that it is hard for him to count all of it for now. So he kept it inside his storage ring first before he began his descent once more. While he could gain more if he excavated the entire thing, he decided against it, as there was a possibility of a more precious treasure inside the hole and he didn't really have time to mine all of it.

 As he headed deeper into the hole, he could feel some sort of oppressiveness from his surroundings. Wondering what the source of the feeling was, he released his divine sense before finding a disturbing fact.

 "Looks like divine sense is suppressed here," he said to himself though his cultivation remain the same. He wondered what could cause it and decided to find out. As he headed towards a certain direction, he could feel it began to get more and more oppressive.

 Despite that, he let out a mad grin as he could see the cause of the feeling. Fortunately for him, it was not a powerful beast, so he would not likely get killed if he got closer. Instead, it was some kind of tablet.

 He wondered what it was and what expert would put it there but he grabbed it. As his hand touched it, his mind was assaulted with some images before it was gone.

 'What was that?' he thought to himself, his heart racing as even though he only saw a small portion of it, it still painted a terrifying picture.

 "Who are they and who did they go to war against?"