Lin Mu took the lead, activating the Longgui Bulwark Armor. Molten cracks appeared along the rock-like plates that ford on his skin, glowing with flowing magma patterns. His footsteps sank slightly into the super-heated ground, but he moved unhindered.
He checked every promising crack or crevice Little Shrubby pointed out. So openings were filled entirely with lava and led nowhere.
Others contained pockets of empty space but collapsed imdiately or were too narrow for anyone to enter.
And so were simply the result of strange lava flows.
But Lin Mu continued to check them one by one. He walked into lava as if it were warm water. His armor hissed and glowed brighter, but it remained firm. Occasionally he would disappear entirely beneath the molten surface before resurfacing monts later and shaking off fiery droplets like they were harmless raindrops.
"Every ti I see him do that," ng Bai muttered, "I question the world." Cattaleya nodded. "I question many things, but that one is consistent." Daoist Chu raised a brow. "Consistency does not make it less absurd."
Lin Mu ignored them and kept examining the cracks.
Hours passed.
The deeper they went, the stronger the Fla Qi beca.
Lava falls grew thicker.
The heat beca dense enough to distort vision and dull sound. At one point the ground trembled so violently that large chunks of volcanic stone broke off the ravine walls and tumbled into a churning lava pool below.
ng Bai nearly jumped. "This mountain wants to kill us!"
Lin Mu glanced up. "This is mild."
"That is the problem," ng Bai said. "You say that is mild."
Almost three hours passed before Lin Mu paused at a particularly massive lava fall.
It was easily one hundred ters wide and ten ters thick. Lava cascaded down in furious waves, shielding whatever lay behind it completely.
Little Shrubby sniffed the air. "It is hollow beyond this one. Very hollow. Deeper than anything we have seen so far."
Elyon nodded. "The old records said the main mining tunnels went downward. If the surface entrance collapsed, the inner chambers might still connect to the ravine."
Lin Mu stepped closer and placed his hand against the falling lava. Even with his protection the temperature was enough to evaporate moisture instantly.
"There is sothing behind it," Lin Mu confird.
Without hesitating, he jumped straight through the lava curtain.
The others waited, tense and ready.
A few seconds later Lin Mu's voice echoed from behind the molten wall. "I found sothing. A tunnel. And mining rails."
ng Bai blinked. "Mining rails? That ans this is the old entrance."
"Correct," Lin Mu said. "There is a deep passageway extending downward. It is intact."
Daoist Chu let out a sigh of relief. "Then we finally found it."
Little Shrubby expanded his flas to form a protective shell around the others. The shield warped the falling lava aside, creating a small, safe corridor just large enough for them to pass through.
One by one, they stepped through the molten waterfall.
The heat vanished instantly.
They stood inside a wide tunnel, carved from ancient basalt stone, reinforced by rusted tal beams. Old mining tracks extended into the darkness like the spine of a tal serpent. Faint traces of tal, and Earth Qi lingered in the stone mixed with Fire energy, suggesting the mine was once full of valuable
ores.
Elyon took in the sight with a deep breath. "This is it. We are inside the abandoned mine."
Cattaleya cracked her knuckles. "Good. If dwarves are here, we will find them."
Lin Mu took the lead again, raising his palm as a small orb of Fire qi illuminated the dark corridor.
"Then let us go," he said.
"The Rune Dwarves are sowhere inside this volcano."
"And they are not going to hide forever."
The group began walking into the depths of the ancient mine.
A new adventure awaited them in the volcanic heart of the Granite Crown Kingdom.
They continued deeper into the ancient mine without hesitation. The old mining rails that snaked across the tunnel floor made navigating the winding paths significantly easier. Even in places where the tal had rusted or where the rails had warped from the volcanic heat, they still served as a clear indicator of the mine's original layout.
ng Bai jogged ahead a little and crouched near a section of the rail that caught his attention. The group slowed down as he leaned closer, squinting at the faint glow etched into the tal.
"These rails have runes on them," ng Bai said. His voice held both curiosity and surprise. "So parts still have formations active. This one is a Qi channeling formation. And that one is a Montum formation. There are even Braking formations and Acceleration segnts."
Daoist Chu approached and narrowed his eyes, his expression growing serious. "These are parts of a full automated transport system. Very old, but very well made. This type of array is used in mines where manual labor is inefficient or dangerous. A handful of cultivators would have been enough to handle the whole mine using these."
"That makes sense," Elyon said while examining another rail piece. "Even if cultivators can store tons of material in spatial tools, there are always risks. Lava, toxic fus, unstable tunnels. Using arrays instead of sending workers deeper is far safer."
Lin Mu nodded. "But the dwarfs obviously do not use these tracks. If they did, these arrays would still show active cycling patterns. They look dormant or
damaged."
ng Bai thumped the rail lightly. "Looks like they have not used these for centuries if not longer!"
Elyon shrugged. "That might be because they do not collect anything from the
mine anymore. It is not an active mine. Perhaps they only co here to use the
deeper chambers for forging or rune crafting."
"That would explain why so many of these rails have dust and corrosion,"
Cattaleya added.
With that thought in mind, they continued moving deeper.
The mine's structure shifted dramatically as they progressed. What began as straight tunnels soon grew into complex networks of branching paths.
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