"I hope they’re okay..."
"Don’t worry, they all have my Healing Medicine on them. They basically can’t die," Qi Xuefei reassured as she glanced into the depths of the mine, a flicker of worry flashing across her eyes.
The two stood quietly at the entrance for tens of seconds.
"...I can’t just sit here waiting! It’s driving me crazy!" Li Wenxi couldn’t take it anymore.
She handed a backpack to Qi Xuefei: "Sister Xuefei, you stay here and keep watch. This backpack is full of salt ore I just collected, plenty of it, so I’ll leave it here. It’s quite heavy so I won’t carry it with me. There are plenty of metal ores around here, I’ll go see if there’s anything worth mining, at least do something I can do."
"Alright, go ahead. I’ll watch over here; if anything dangerous happens, we’ll contact each other," Qi Xuefei said, raising her left hand with the watch. "Are you stocked with pills?"
"I’m good, Sister Xuefei, I’m off then!"
On the other side, inside a strange cave.
"Ying? Ying ying?" Keke circled around Xu Xin, who was sitting on the ground, dizzy, then jumped onto him, pushing him with its little paws, "Ying ying ying!"
"I’m fine, Keke." Xu Xin rubbed his temples to ease the dizziness, and with his other hand, he patted Keke’s little head.
"Ying." Seeing that Xu Xin was okay, Keke wagged its tail in relief and ran to sit beside the Silver King, who was shaking his head on the ground, to inquire.
"Was that just a purple-black vortex? Did you see it clearly?" Ji Chaoyang asked as he sat beside him, holding his forehead with one hand.
"Yes, indeed, it was a purple-black vortex." Xu Xin slowly stood up from the ground and responded.
Earlier, after failing to find anything, they had already decided to leave this cave.
But just at that moment, Keke suddenly jumped out from his arms. Xu Xin tried to catch it but couldn’t, causing it to crash right into the wall they’d been inspecting all along.
And that’s when the accident happened.
Keke’s tiny body didn’t crash directly into the wall, but rather slipped right through it.
Simultaneously, a purple-black vortex formed where Keke went through and quickly expanded.
Before he could react, his surroundings were enveloped in purple-black, and he saw nothing but endless violet blackness!
Next, a feeling of weightlessness overwhelmed him. It was as if he was falling from a great height, experiencing the sensation of free fall.
It was thrilling but so sudden he almost screamed out loud!
However, the process lasted only a few seconds before he felt solid ground beneath his feet.
In an instant, the safety of the familiar ground stopped his heart from leaping out of his chest.
But what followed was an unparalleled dizziness and nausea; he couldn’t stand on his feet and stumbled to the ground.
"What exactly is going on..." Staring at this unfamiliar scene before him, Xu Xin couldn’t wrap his head around it.
In front of him was a cave, similar to the salt mine cave, a cavern three to four meters high, damp, with the occasional sound of water dripping. The cave’s interior bristled with sharp stone pillars rising and falling.
This was a karst cave!
Looking back, behind him was the cave’s end, with only the ordinary uneven cave wall.
Xu Xin felt dizzy again, finding it difficult to stand, and instinctively tried to brace himself on the wall.
But recalling that the earlier incident was caused by Keke touching the wall, he immediately withdrew his hand, though he staggered and couldn’t keep his balance, his hand did end up on the wall.
This time, nothing happened; it was just a regular wall.
This made him breathe a sigh of relief, yet he felt somewhat disappointed.
It appeared that returning using the same method wasn’t possible.
"You saw the vortex earlier too, right?" Ji Chaoyang stood up with a wobble, shaking his head to clear it, and asked Xu Xin.
"...Yes, I saw one before, during storm season beneath a tornado’s center, there was such a purple-black vortex."
Back then, he concluded that the other side of the vortex connected to another place, similar to a teleportation gate, akin to his coordinate ability.
Behind the tornado vortex was extremely dangerous. The stick he extended felt strong tugging force, and when pulled back, it was corroded beyond recognition.
But here, where is this place? Was he teleported to the other side of the wall?
Looking at the surrounding rock walls and the tunnel ahead, similar to the salt mine cave, endless as far as the eye could see, slightly curved, the map in Xu Xin’s mind emerged.
The current location was startling to him.
"...Our current position, still inside this circle of hills, but..."
"But what?" Ji Chaoyang, having been inspecting the deep cave ahead, realized that Xu Xin had a mapping ability to know his location.
"But far from the salt mine cave, practically on the opposite end of the Hilly Resource Zone."
Xu Xin was surprised as he looked at his current position.
He thought that perhaps he was just on the other side of the wall, but he unexpectedly... crossed the entire Hilly Resource Zone!
If one were to draw a line between his current location and the salt mine cave, it would essentially be the diameter of the entire circular Hilly Resource Zone, truly traversing the entire resource area.