After the fight with the spotted feline, he reloaded and collected himself. The fight had been a nerve-aching one, and he desperately needed to take some R&R. The glowing fruit easily pulled out of the ground and he carefully placed it into his bag. Then, he dragged the cat all the way back to his temporary base. If nothing else, the feline provided dinner. The fresh meat would be a welcome relief from his usual salted jerky and hard bread.

He attempted to skin the beast for its pelt, hoping it would be able to turn into clothing similar to his own Illusory Cloak. Unfortunately, the pelt was ruined by his bullets and shoddy skills at skinning. He tossed that idea out of his head as soon as he realized the poor state of the pelt.

Verlon decided to make a stew from the cat’s meat. Stews were the easiest thing to make since he had endless water and some plants he scavenged to use as spices. The stew was a welcome relief from the monotony of dried foods he had been sustaining himself off of. The fire was also nice to sit around. The Floating Mesa was quite cold due to its altitude, so it was a welcome relief to warm up.

While he ate, he thought about joining a fireteam when he returned. He had been pushing it off, but there were just too many things he wanted to do but couldn’t because of the potential danger. Even fighting that invisible cat would’ve been a breeze with a tank or bruiser.

When he got back to imperial lands, he would have to get training at the very least. His lack of melee skills was beginning to catch up with him. Even just a simple technique would help. Maybe he should look into some other martial arts when he goes back.

Some kind of training in movement wouldn’t be a bad idea either. It’s just… they cost so damn much. By the time any normal person could afford training, they would be dead a hundred times over. This world of his was truly a world set for the rich.

He devoured the Heartbloom as a desert. It was a failed dessert. The ‘fruit’ had the taste of rotten meat that filled his mouth. Even the texture felt wrong and spongy. To make it all worse, the ‘fruit’ was somehow super tough and took a long time to get down. Still, he pressed on and devoured the rest of the fruit. The benefits should outweigh the taste at the very least. He washed his mouth out with the leftovers of the stew and passed out at the back of the cave.

He found his second Heartbloom on the third night of searching. It sat in a secluded perch just below the top of a nearby mesa. He wouldn’t have even noticed it if not for the red glow. Other than the climb, which he accomplished quite easily since his arm almost fully healed, it wasn’t too dangerous to acquire.

The Heartbloom’s effects were also starting to show. He felt… better. Almost as if his every action and breath invigorated the rest of his body. If he had to say, it was like the difference between having coffee in the morning and not, though he didn’t have to deal with any of the issues associated with caffeine addiction. Sure it wasn’t a noticeable change, but the accumulation of tiny changes eventually stacked up. It was the path to power for Seekers other than equipment and relics.

The minor healing rate buff also helped path up the small wounds and healed his side almost entirely. It only hurt when he put pressure on it, though even then the pain wasn’t too bad. His arm only felt tender and sore on occasion, so he could go back to his rifle. It was a welcome relief considering he only had nineteen bullets left including the chambered six.

Other than that, he spent another two more days clearing the entirety of the valley and marking it down in his journal. He didn’t find anything nor did he see anything of major importance other than a few herbs he snagged. He wanted to just leave at that point, but he still hadn’t technically searched the entire area.

Verlon had left the lake around the butte entirely by itself. He didn’t even approach the shoreline. The dark waters just felt… wrong, almost. There might not even be anything, but he would rather not risk the chance of encountering a monstrous aquatic beast.

Realistically, the last place he had to check were the caves. There were five major caves he hadn’t touched. He didn’t want to go in since his lantern broke and decided to leave them till last so he could get a better scope of the land. As far as he could tell, they were empty caves without any inhabitants. No tracks led into or out of the caves, so he felt reasonably confident in entering.

As for a light source, he made a simple torch using the leftovers of his oil and some firewood. It wasn’t the best, but it would have to do until he could buy another lantern. Using the makeshift torch, he scouted out two of the caves without finding anything.

Verlon walked into the third cave. The cave’s structure was the same as the last two, a windy space tunneled into the Floating Mesa. From what he could tell, no pick marks or clawed rocks caught his attention when he inspected them. It seemed they were entirely naturally cut into the rock.

He walked into the depths with his pistol lowered and the torch raised. The flickering flame cast a shaky light around the stone tunnel as he worked his way further in. The entire place reeked of mildew and dust, and he could only assume he was the only thing that passed through in a long time considering the thick layers of debris.

He passed through the stone halls until he reached the end of the cave. If it was a dead-end just like the last couple of caves he checked, he would already be headed out. This one, however, was different. A golden spike stuck out of the seamless rock, sticking straight up into the air. The golden section caught his torch's light and reflected gold across the entire cave.

Hot damn, his employer was right. Maybe. He didn’t see the full structure yet, but where there was one there were many. Verlon was confident that something sat below the cave’s surface at the very least. So, he just needed to expose it. Considering most ruins sat buried underneath the ground under revealed, he came prepared with a couple sticks of dynamite. They weren’t anything fancy but should be powerful to blow a hole through the cave to whatever ruin lurked below.

Verlon pulled his trusty pick from his bag and cleared out a small hole just next to the golden spire. He then put the stick of dynamite into the hole and lit the fuse. He sprinted off to the side of the save and took cover around the bend of the cave.

A few seconds later, a storm of dust flew around the corner with an ear-shattering boom! The area around him trembled as the vibrations tore at his ears and caused him to stumble. Verlon caught himself before he fell flat on his face and leaned against the cave wall.

The trembles continued through the floor longer than the explosion. A loud crack came from just down the cave as he heard something crash into the ground a long, long way down. He peaked around the corner to see the damage. The entire area around the golden spire had collapsed and caved into a much larger space below.

He waited a moment for the cave’s trembles to settle before moving over to the edge. Pure darkness met his view as he looked down below. He hesitated for a moment before tossing his torch down the hole. The flame-clad stick tumbled and twirled as it fell, bouncing off of what looked like the giant head of a golden statue maybe a hundred feet down. Sparks scattered and flew as the torch flew off at an odd angle and fell onto the ground an additional hundred feet below that.

Unfortunately, the impact sent the torch careening at an angle to where he couldn’t see it from his vantage point. Still, he could see the area around the torch for a moment before the flames snuffed out. Directly below him seemed to be a massive chamber centered around the statue.

Verlon backed away as he lit another torch and sat against the cave wall. Should he go down? Technically, his contract only stipulated searching for a ruin. He did, and surprisingly found one. So he didn’t need to go down into the depths of this massive ruin. He was technically already done.

But the chance of obtaining a relic called to him like a siren. The ruin appeared to be a large one, at least the largest he had ever seen considering the hundred-foot statue. If he could just obtain one high-grade relic… His path to Green Cross would be secured if he had a high-grade relic. And, if he decided to be done with seeking, he could sell the high-grade relic for enough money to sustain himself and his sister for potentially the rest of his life.

Not that he would sell it if he found one. Making money to support her was important, yes, but he also needed to become a purple rank Seeker like his parents. He still didn’t know what happened to them, and the third of their fireteam for that matter. It was a common injustice for the relatives of Seekers to never know their family’s end.

It was a pipe dream to be sure. There wouldn’t even be corpses left of his parents depending on what got them. Still, that burning curiosity scorched his interior as if demanding he plunge further into the depths of Endenhiem.

As a minor note, he also wanted to figure out why things are the way they are. Surely the answers were out there, just waiting for him to find them. If not from the ruins, then from the hidden records of previous Seekers. The higher his rank, the higher his authority to plunge all that the empire has hidden.

Of course, that was all based on the off chance he found a high-grade relic. He didn’t even know what a high-grade relic was. He had been told that he’d know one when he saw one, and anything else was a medium or low-grade relic. Medium grade would be his Boosting Boots since they provided usefulness in combat, and low grade would be his Endless Flask since it was a utility item.

The chances were high he would find something of interest with the suspected size of the ruin. At the very least, he would probably find something of historical value if not a relic. Purely based on how tall the statue was and the words of his employer about this being an important location, the building must’ve held some kind of cultural or historical value to the ancient civilization.

That being said, he would just dip down and take a look around the chamber. There was no chance he would go look around the rest of the ruin by himself. Maybe if he had a fireteam he would feel better about facing the dangers lurking in the darkness, but as he was he didn’t want more than a glance around the place. Any more would be a suicidal move and the height of greed.

Verlon secured a rope to the rock in the cave and tossed it down the blasted hole. Seeing as the rope was three hundred feet long, it fell all the way to the floor with some slack. He took a last breath of semi-fresh air and then lowered himself over the rock’s edge.