Zac wished he had a mirror to more sneakily look around the corners , but could only work with what he got . He rubbed some dirt on his face and singed scalp to cover his skin , and then wrapped some of the vines around his neck and head . Somewhat satisfied with his camouflage , and carefully peeked around a corner , mostly hidden behind a huge mushroom .
The tunnel Zac peered into contained five miners , and he was surprised to see that most of them used different means to extract the crystals .
Two were using basic pick-axes to gradually chip away at the walls . But each swing only made some tiny chippings fall , proving that their strength was nowhere near Zac’s . If he used one of those pickaxes he would likely be able to slam a decent hole in the wall , even if the rock was strengthened .
Another two of the miners were actually mages , and they simply held their hands to the wall . It took some time to see what they were doing , but he saw that a Nexus Crystal slowly was emerging out of the wall after a while . Apparently , the rock was even resistant to spells , as the earth mages Zac encountered so far usually had a far easier time manipulating stone .
The last miner was slamming away at the wall with a mace , and his Strength was overbearing . Every slam created a reverberating thud that made stone chippings fly .
The miners were all demons who looked well fed and cared for and didn’t really look weaker compared to the scouts he encountered . He had hoped that the demons placed their weakest in the mines , which would make Zac’s next actions more convenient . But the Strength of the mace wielder seemed to be even higher compared to the demon with the great sword and black arcs of lightning .
Next to their feet , they each had a sack of extracted Nexus Crystals . The mace-wielder’s sack was filled the most and the mages were second . It was all these sacks that were the goal of Zac . He had decided to scout out the demon activity in the cave for a bit , and steal as many Nexus Crystals as he could . He wanted to see if the crystals could help him in evolving his race or class before biting the bullet and gaining a level to see what happened . He knew he was grasping at straws , but he was really out of options .
Zac based his guess on two things . First the monkey packs . The higher density of energy the packs stayed in , the larger they became . The packs closest to the valley sported the largest monkeys , and a few even evolved to the point of using skills . The second clue came from the imp that was hiding crystals in a stash . He guessed that it maybe wanted to use the crystals for evolving as well .
If the beasts could use cosmic energy to evolve , then why couldn’t he? So he wanted to steal a large amount in order to experiment . Perhaps there was a method of usage that would evolve his body , but not improve his level .
Zac slunk back into his tunnel , moving further on . His target wasn’t these half-filled sacs . Moving onward he spotted quite a few tunnels with miners , and rhythmic thumping on the walls filled the tunnels . He soon found a deserted tunnel whose crystals all had been extracted . He picked this tunnel and started moving through it , ascending slightly as he did . He wanted to get closer to the center of demon activities .
All these miners had sacs , but Zac never saw anyone carrying them back to the Demon City . That meant that either they were collected and put in a pouch or were left here in the caves . In either case , they should be collected somewhere .
The tunnels that had been mined looked truly bleak compared to the magical feeling of the untouched ones . Not only were the crystals in the walls removed , but most of the vegetation had also been ripped out of the tunnel . The only thing left was a smattering of moss to somewhat illuminate the area . Luckily for Zac , these exploited tunnels were completely deserted as anything of value was taken . It made it easy for him to move around the active excavations and into the inner area closer to where he expected the cave mouth to be .
He really felt thankful that his titles had improved his mental stats quite a bit . Normally he would be completely turned around after days in the tunnels . But while he couldn’t exactly pinpoint where he should be in relation to the mountain , he generally knew the layout of the tunnels he had traversed and the direction he was moving . This was completely different from the old Zac who could almost get lost in his own neighborhood , and could only be attributed to either Intelligence or Wisdom .
