Chapter 45: The Underground World! (1)
After absorbing Laura's words, Kaiden smiled reassuringly and said:
"I understand. Don't worry — you'll have equipment capable of withstanding your physical strength and Battle Aura soon enough. Two days at most… perhaps sooner."
Laura's face lit up immediately.
"Thank you, my lord!"
After everything she had witnessed the Lord accomplish before, she had not the slightest doubt in his words. If Kaiden said something would happen soon, it would happen without fail.
So the faint frown disappeared from her features, and she nodded with clear ease.
In truth, Kaiden hadn't set that timeframe arbitrarily.
For even though he had the mithril, the bowstring remained the core problem. He needed to wait for the Beginner Protection period to end in two days — only then would the seal on Rare-tier monsters be lifted, allowing him to obtain a suitable string from one of them.
With Champion-rank soldiers by his side, along with his pet Ibla, Kaiden was confident in his ability to handle Rare-tier monsters — as long as they didn't appear suddenly or possess an annoying defense like Ibla's own.
After that brief exchange, the test resumed.
Laura fired three more arrows without using her Battle Aura.
Two of them flew toward the furthest target at 300 meters.
Both arrows struck the wooden and iron targets with perfect accuracy, proving her skill was entirely unaffected by distance. And though the bow was no longer suited to her current strength, it was still capable of supporting this range.
But the results revealed the difference clearly.
While the arrow pierced the wooden target with ease, it left only a faint dent on the iron target within the small circle.
Then Laura began using her Battle Aura.
Kaiden watched as a semi-transparent green aura enveloped the arrow before it was released.
In the next instant the arrow nearly vanished from sight.
Small air rings appeared along its path from breaking the sound barrier, as it crossed 300 meters in the blink of an eye.
The arrow struck the iron target.
BOOM!
The wooden post shattered again — but this time the broken section was launched dozens of meters through the air before crashing to the ground.
Kaiden's eyes went wide.
He had realized that Laura hadn't used a single active skill.
All she had done was activate the Acceleration property — one of the Wind Aura's core properties.
In other words, that had been nothing more than the basic effect of her Battle Aura.
It only deepened his awe of the Champion rank and its terrifying power.
There was no point using active skills before getting the new bow. The current targets wouldn't survive the force, and there was a real possibility the bow itself would shatter in the process.
So she continued firing arrows for another five minutes before finally stopping.
Kaiden was thoroughly satisfied with her performance.
He and the spectators applauded warmly, then he gestured to the powerfully built Josh to step forward and begin his test.
After thanking the Lord, Josh drew his broad sword with obvious enthusiasm.
The sight made Kaiden feel uneasy, so he repeated several times that Josh mustn't use his full strength — fearing the weapon might fail under the load. He still needed this sword as a model for Hook to use in crafting a mithril replica.
"Understood, my lord!"
Josh nodded with gravity, though he couldn't quite conceal his excitement.
He swung the sword several times through the air to get a feel for its weight — and with each swing the wind kicked up dust and debris in a wide radius around him.
After finishing his warm-up, the test officially began.
For the spectators…
It was like having their eyes opened to an entirely new world.
The sounds of explosions, shattering, and destruction did not stop.
The ground shook with every strike Josh delivered.
Even Kaiden himself felt the clear contrast between the two heroes' displays.
If Laura stunned the spectators with her precision and the speed of her arrows, Josh stunned them with raw, unrestrained destructive force.
Watching things being cleaved apart or shattered into fragments provided a visually incredible sensation no less thrilling than watching Laura's superhuman arrows.
After witnessing that destructive power — and Josh hadn't even used his Battle Aura yet — Kaiden felt as though he was running a secret superhuman research facility.
And it seemed this facility had already achieved monumental breakthroughs.
After roughly five minutes, all the training dummies designated for Josh had been reduced to piles of rubble.
And with that, the test was over. Kaiden and the other spectators applauded before everyone returned to their duties, leaving only Casper and the two heroes nearby.
Kaiden sank into thought.
In future battles between Champions… whoever has equipment capable of withstanding the rank's power will be the one who wins.
And the deeper he thought, the more conclusions emerged.
No…
Equipment for Champions has to become the absolute top priority from this point forward.
His mind began working at speed.
From the power he had witnessed today alone, he had concluded that the Champion rank was like a strategic weapon capable of overturning the balance of any battle.
If elite soldiers were infantry, then Nascent Champions were tanks… or perhaps even combat mechs.
A force capable of single-handedly turning the tide of war.
Kaiden didn't believe dozens of elite soldiers would be able to stop a single Nascent Champion — especially one equipped with weapons and armor specifically designed for their class.
Having made his decision, he turned to Casper.
"Casper, escort Josh to Hook the Blacksmith immediately. Tell him to hand his remaining work to his assistants and focus entirely on crafting a sword suited to Josh using the mithril units he has on hand."
He paused for a moment before continuing:
"He'll be provided with more later for crafting armor as well. This matter is of the utmost importance to us. Inform me the moment the work is complete."
"As you command, my lord."
Casper bowed respectfully before departing with Josh.
Kaiden and Laura were left alone.
He reassured her once more about the new bow, then sent her back to her usual duties.
Once he was by himself, he returned to his thoughts.
He didn't believe other Lords would take long before acquiring their own Champions.
All it required was accumulating experience.
And that was something available to everyone.
So he needed to promote more elite soldiers to the Nascent Champion rank as quickly as possible, while providing them with the appropriate weapons and armor.
Then suddenly, something came to him.
"Right… I have my own quest to get to as well."
He had planned to do it earlier, but Laura's arrival had changed his plans.
He looked up at the sky and saw that not much daylight remained.
So he pushed all thoughts related to Champions to the furthest corner of his mind and focused entirely on the task he had been meaning to carry out from the beginning.
The moment he activated the Subterranean Vision skill, an extremely strange sensation swept over him.
It was more complex than one might imagine. He felt as though his vision had transferred from his eyes directly into his mind.
And when his sight pierced through the surface layer of soil, an odd feeling came over him — as though it were he himself sinking into the earth, not merely his vision. He held his breath instinctively.
He felt no suffocation or real danger — but the experience was remarkably similar to wearing a virtual reality headset for the first time and undergoing a freefall or deep dive simulation.
Even knowing you haven't moved from your spot…
Your body reacts to the illusion anyway.
And that was precisely what happened to Kaiden. After activating the skill, his perspective shifted to another location entirely while his body remained perfectly still where it stood.
Fortunately, it took no more than a few seconds to grow accustomed to the sensation.
He recovered his normal breathing with a slight feeling of embarrassment.
His first discovery while using the skill was the need for caution when activating it.
During its use, his awareness and perception concentrated entirely on the location he was monitoring underground, while his awareness of what surrounded his real body nearly vanished.
In other words — he became almost completely defenseless.
So he would need to choose the right time and place to use it.
He found he could control the direction of his vision easily through mental focus, though it was equally easy to lose one's sense of direction inside that dark environment.
After several attempts and exploratory side tests, he decided to descend straight downward.
One meter…
Nothing.
Just soil.
Two meters…
Five meters…
Nothing but soil and a few scattered rocks.
Ten meters…
Oh?
At this depth he didn't find nothing.
He found something new.
There was a semi-transparent barrier extending beneath the territory.
Unlike the curved barrier that covered the sky above his land, this one appeared as a straight horizontal layer — separating the territory's earth from whatever lay below it.
Kaiden paused for a moment.
He had wondered before whether monsters could dig in from the outside and slip through.
But now… the answer appeared to be no.
After this intriguing discovery, his vision continued descending — meter by meter — toward the unknown depths below.
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— End of Chapter Forty-Five —
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