Chapter 112
Chapter 112
Inside the Mental Realm, there was a crystal cave.
The cave was decorated with faint, colorful lights, creating a dreamlike atmosphere.
Crystals of various sizes shone everywhere.
A stream of water flowed along the cave floor, emitting an emerald glow.
As I looked inside, I saw some fish swimming in the water, emitting strange lights.
‘This is no joke.’
I lifted my head and walked carefully inside the cave.
The air felt pleasant on my skin, unlike what I had expected from a damp place. The air seemed clearer than when I was in the city just a while ago.
‘The glowing crystals are one thing, but the minerals that I see everywhere… They look like they’re worth a lot of money.’
It wasn’t just minerals.
‘The water is clean. The mysterious light it emits, is it because of the unique power of this cave? There must be quite a variety of creatures living here. And the plants that I see everywhere are not easy to find either. Is that a water lily herb? It’s pretty expensive.’
I didn’t have to force myself to find things that could make money, they were in plain sight.
I had only lightly scanned the entrance area, but my eyes were already dazzled.
‘It’s like a giant treasure trove.’
The crystal cave seemed to be naturally formed.
It wasn’t just filled with amazing minerals, but also overflowing with herbs.
The mushrooms that grew everywhere were also valuable ones that could be used as medicine.
‘Judging by the height of the ceiling, the cave is quite large. And if the entrance alone has this much stuff that could make money, there might be even more inside.’
Indeed.
At this point, I could understand why the Twilight Veil guys couldn’t easily get their hands on this place.
I understood why they kept this place secret from the government.
If there was a place where you could get such diverse products, anyone would be greedy for it.
The Twilight Veil would never give up this place.
If there was anyone who knew about this place, they would kill them or shut them up.
‘They must be itching to find me, who stole their vault.’
But I was hiding my identity, so the Twilight Veil wouldn’t suspect that I was the one who took their vault.
Especially now that my reputation as a Teller has spread.
A Teller was a being who lived in a different world from them.
Who would think that a Teller would break into their office and rob their vault?
It would be more realistic to say that a spoiled chaebol third generation was actually a hero who punished evil.
‘Baek-hyo.’
I ‘reverse summoned’ Baek-hyo, who was watching the situation outside, and called him back to me.
It was convenient to have a divine beast as an ally.
As long as we had a contract, he could appear wherever I was.
Hoot.
The bird, who had been flying in the sky, was captivated by the splendid scenery inside the cave.
He opened his round eyes even wider and marveled at it.
I found his expression cute and stroked his head.
“Baek-hyo, can you check what’s inside there for me?”
Hoot.
He seemed curious too, so he flapped his wings and flew into the cave without a word.
The cave was wide and tall, almost 20m high.
Baek-hyo had no trouble flying in it.
I immediately entered the vision sharing mode.
‘The entrance was impressive enough, but it’s even more amazing inside.’
‘As expected?’
The inside of the cave had more abundant products than I had thought.
Everywhere I looked, there were herbs and mysterious minerals.
The inside seemed untouched by the Twilight Veil.
Splash!
At some point, as we went deeper, the cave became wider.
There was a waterfall of emerald water that carved out the rock.
Above the waterfall, there was an island with various plants growing on it, forming a forest.
Something moved inside the forest.
‘Are these the phantasms of this place?’
I was curious about what kind of creatures lived in the cave.
They were Divine Spirits.
There were phantasms made of water, creatures made of rocks, and creatures made of roots and stems.
‘Are they Divine Spirits of earth, water, and plants?’
It made sense that there were Divine Spirits in such a lively place.
Baek-hyo flew around the island and examined everything more closely.
Then suddenly something suspicious caught my eye in Baek-hyo’s vision.
‘Baek-hyo, wait. Can you check out the center of that island?’
Hoot.
In the center of the island, which was big or small depending on how you looked at it, there was something sparkling.
As I zoomed in and focused on it, I saw stone pieces that shone in white, blue, and green colors.
At first glance, they looked no different from the crystals that were scattered all over the ground, but I didn’t miss their true value.
‘Natural stones!’
Natural stones were stones that were formed by the accumulation of natural energy in places where it was abundant over a long period of time.
It took 500 years for a piece of natural stone the size of a human’s finger joint to be formed in a place where natural energy was plentiful.
But the natural stones I saw were at least the size of a child’s fist.
And there were three types of them.
It made sense considering the environment of this place.
The phantasms here were the rare Divine Spirits.
‘There’s something valuable here?’
My eyes were fixed on the three natural stones.
Baek-hyo’s eyes didn’t leave them either.
Even though he was a chick, he was a divine beast who could feel the power of those stones.
Baek-hyo unknowingly lowered his altitude to get closer to the natural stones, but at that moment an unwelcome guest appeared.
‘Baek-hyo, watch out!’
As soon as I shouted, Baek-hyo twisted his body to the side.
It was the right move.
If Baek-hyo had been a little slower, his slender body would have crashed to the ground and turned into a bloody mess.
Aaah!
As Baek-hyo quickly dodged, he saw something huge wriggling and moving in his sight.
Only after he regained a safe altitude, he could see the creature’s full appearance.
‘A giant snake?’
It was not just a snake.
Its body was made of tree trunks, its scales were white rocks, and from its head to its tail, there were fin-like things that contained the power of water.
The creature glared at Baek-hyo for a moment, then realized it couldn’t catch him and curled up near the natural stones.
It blended in with the forest so well that he didn’t notice it until he got closer.
‘Is that the boss-level phantasm of this Mental Realm?’
A giant snake that had the energy of three natural stones.
No, at that point, it was almost a dragon before becoming one.
He confirmed that it was not a story of Earth.
It must have been a story of another dimension, or more precisely, a fantasy world that was implemented as a Mental Realm.
‘Baek-hyo, let’s retreat for now.’
Hoot.
He answered and shot the tri-colored snake once hard.
He seemed quite angry at being threatened earlier.
Through Baek-hyo’s shared vision, I was able to grasp the structure of the cave from the entrance to the deepest part.
Not just the structure.
Where there were herbs, where there were crystals, and where there were ores.
As soon as I finished grasping it, something else unfolded in my sight.
[You have met the conditions to use Laplace’s fragment.]
[You have acquired the basic information needed for analysis.]
[Showing you the information of this Mental Realm.]
Laplace’s demon.
It had been with me, but I was not sure how to use it.
It didn’t activate by itself.
I didn’t know if it was because it was a fragment or if it was originally like that.
To activate this skill, I needed some basic conditions.
I had to know something about the target I wanted to check.
In other words, if I wanted to know about this crystal cave Mental Realm, I had to acquire some basic information about it first.
It was very dangerous and difficult to gather such basic information without exploring it myself. But what if I met those basic conditions?
The result was the world I saw.
[Aloran’s Crystal Cave.]
-It is a natural crystal cave that exists deep in the Sateran world. It is a place where a giant snake lives as a guardian, and it is a paradise untouched by human hands.
Later, the snake ascended to become a dragon by raising its existence level, and the interior collapsed due to an earthquake caused by its aftermath, making it impossible to find its remains anymore.
But its beautiful scenery and abundance remained as legends through word of mouth, and it was implemented as another world.
World of thought members: Spirits (plant, earth, water)
World of thought clear condition: Defeat the boss-level phantasm.
Laplace’s fragment told me everything from what this place used to be to what kind of phantasms there were and what the clear condition of the Mental Realm was.
Not only that, but it also showed me various kinds of by-products that I could obtain here. I felt my eyes widen at the massive amount of information.
‘It’s like a complete guidebook.’
Baek-hyo came up to me and perched on my shoulder.
I tickled his chin under his beak and thanked him for his hard work.
‘Amazing.’
Through this incident, I got a complete grasp of Laplace’s fragment.
‘If I pick up some basic information, will it analyze it and show me more advanced information?’
And even better, the information would show up if I wanted it and disappear if I didn’t.
It meant that I could adjust it depending on my mood.
The best part was that it only showed to me and no one else.
‘It seems like this has something in common with my ability to read books.’
I thought about it and realized that I accepted it naturally even though it was supposed to be an impossible story.
Did that mean that my book-reading ability and Laplace’s fragment had some kind of connection?
‘Can I find out with Laplace’s power?’
But either there was not enough basic information or even such a great ability would not dig into its own origin.
There was no information on that.
I felt sorry for my appetite, but I couldn’t help but be happy with what I gained today.
‘I didn’t know Twilight Curtain had such a good Mental Realm.’
Even if I just took the by-products that grew inside and brought them out, they would have a tremendous value when they hit the market.
Especially, what kept stimulating my interest was the natural stones guarded by the boss-level phantasm and guardian, the tri-colored snake.
‘The value of those three is incomparable to all the by-products in here.’
I couldn’t easily guess their value on Earth, but it was different in the dimensional store.
The moment they were put up in the dimensional store, they were something that even the Divine Spirits would covet.
They were worth more than points.
‘Twilight Curtain guys still don’t seem to know what’s inside.’
I found the situation quite amusing.
They were already in a hostile relationship with the clan, but they secretly used the Mental Realm and I knew everything about it.
Then what should I do with this?
‘Should I report it to the association or the government?’
I shook my head.
Surely, if I reported it, it would deal a huge blow to the Twilight Curtain clan.
It would have been nice if they closed this place reluctantly, or if they were caught and fined and had a tax audit.
‘But then I wouldn’t have anything to eat.’
It’s a low-level strategy to just take away the enemy’s profits.
It’s a middle-level strategy to sneak in and take advantage of their profits.
The best strategy is to make them lose and suffer without getting anything, and take everything important from them.
That’s what you call a top-level strategy.
In my head, I already had a plan for how to do it.
‘It’s time to decide who will be on stage. The stage is set, so I just need one killer scenario.’
Hmm. I could name this play something like this.
“Twilight Curtain. World of Thought Seized Forever.”