Diggin' DEEP!

"You've got a lot of explaining to do, my friend." I was seated on the dry ground, Blood next to me, and watched the fake sky.

"Yeah, I know. But before that, could you stick me into the ground or something? This is a very uncomfortable position to be in, believe it or not." Oh, that's right. It makes sense why he wouldn't want to lay on the ground like a stick that could roll down a hill anytime.

I picked him up, and, quite funnily, he didn't feel much heavier than a steel sword to me, thanks to my 2000 strength.

I thrust his pointy neck into the ground.

"Thanks. I'll start with the first question, then. [gravisphere]-[reverse polarity] is a new ability I obtained in the middle of a fight. I didn't get it for free though. I had to spend one of my 5 [evolution cards] to evolve [gravisphere], which reached S+ while we were fighting." That explains a lot.

Blood also told me he had his evolution cards with him as long as he could remember. I think he was given them the moment he appeared. How he appeared is still a mystery, but this could cause me a lot of trouble if other bosses also appear with evolution cards.

The second question was - how does he know those phrases? Apparently, it's just because I use them sometimes.

I have answers to all of the questions now. All but one.

What the hell do I do about my clothes? No, I should phrase that differently. What do I do about my lack of clothes? As of now, I'm naked, and I'm not sure I like that.

The dash at the end of the fight was so fast my clothes tore apart from the air resistance, and they got burnt to the crisp by a lightning bolt. One of the few bolts that missed the boss.

My luck is the worst and the best at the same time.

"Do you mind if I skill you and use wear your fur as a coat? I can heal you with a potion afterward." I offered.

"What? No! That will still hurt like hell, even if you do heal me. Weren't there a bunch of people on floor 5? Just go there and steal something." That's.. smart. They're all dead anyway, so it's not like they can complain.

"Now that you've said that, we were gonna take a break from fighting, right? How about we got to the said floor and just rest there for a week or two?" I can create a bunch of potions in the meantime, and also set up a safe-house there.

We both agreed on it and started looking for the wormhole.

~~~

Who could have known the wormhole disappeared? We looked into every single part of the room, only to find disappointment.

That leaves us with option two.

"So, you wanna dig?" Blood had the same thing on his mind.

"Yep. Shape some blood around your head like a shovel, and I'll start digging." No more was said.

I grabbed the goat head by its' neck and the process started. One swing at a time, heaps of dirt and stone were flung in all directions as I energetically dug a hole. Four digs, and we've already made a hole 8 meters deep.

Each time, the process became harder and the ground, which previously consisted mainly of dirt and rocks, was now pure stone, with some metals mixed in.

1000 meters deep. The air around us had pretty much no oxygen left, so I jumped out and filled my inventory - which was very huge -with fresh air from the outside, and I slowly released it bit by bit, allowing us to breathe without trouble.

"Yo, I don't think we're supposed to be doing this, River. This is cheating." A slightly concerned voice.

"Yeah, I know. There's got to be a reason why the creators of this dungeon made the levels so hard to dig between. Maybe some treasure we're not supposed to have will be hidden here?" I was going wild with my imagination, and that made me realize something.

The wormhole must have had similar properties to a portal since we were able to quickly get up to the next floor, whereas now we're nearly 3000m deep, with no sign of breaking through.

"is it just me, or is our tunnel really hot?" Blood blurted out.

"Is this supposed to be an awful joke, or what? You're right though, it is quite hot in here. It's not just you. I'm hot as well." I replied.

We laughed for a bit.

That aside, the tunnel was getting hotter, - I mean warmer - with each dig.

~~~

We were roughly 10km deep, and I felt like digging straight down was basically suicide at this point. The heat was so high that stone could easily melt here, and the last thing I want is to fall into the lava and lose my gear - Blood-.

The walls were made out of some very heat resistant material, which is the only reason this place wasn't a giant lava lake in the first place.

"Alrighty then, how about we dig in a stair-like pattern instead of directly down? That way we could safely retreat if necessary." I suggested.

"That's actually really smart, but how d'you even come up with that? It's almost as if you have a lot of experience with mining." Blood was a little confused.

Haha, I can't reveal my secret, can I?

"Oh, you know, I've just got a big brain in that head of mine." I came up with a dumb excuse.

"Sure you do, River. I totally believe you. On a different note, we need to get out and come up with a plan, because this heat is definitely gonna get to us sooner or later." Not sore when it all started, but we were now fully committed to digging the hole as deep as possible, even if it means potential death.

We teleported to the surface, and, taking a peek down into our hole, I was now able to grasp the sheer amount of energy we used to dig this thing up.

Energy: 10711/75900