Gacha Sovereign

Alex asked Aria to come close and slashed the ground underneath them after briefing what he wanted to do.

The two then fell down with the rubbles around them, and Alex used his Spiritual Energy to store them to make sure they didn't bother anything with their weight.

Aria noticed it as well but didn't say anything, knowing that Alex just did something they needed to do.

They fell down for a whole minute before Alex used his Spiritual Energy to slow down their speed, finding another layer they could step on.

"This…Are we below the ground now?" Aria asked. She didn't use her Sword Eye this time due to Alex's advice and the fact that she felt pretty tired from using it continuously.

'Yes, I can feel the Spiritual Energy that permeates the ground around here has a higher concentration. I feel no air or whatever, so we are surely getting surrounded by rocks.' Leka answered her question first since Alex decided to look around.

It turned out the runes didn't stop here. From below, it would continue to the bottom, and Alex knew that they would go deep inside the hole. This made him a bit worried because the place would have a high temperature.

He never cared about the temperature, but Aria might know that his fire was a Pure Fire Element. This would be the most obvious action to show his flame's prowess, so Alex took another minute to think about this.

When he looked at Aria's face that had no doubt about him, he gave up. 'She won't spread it anyway. I should trust her a bit more.'

With that thought in mind, Alex walked toward her and asked. "This will start to become dangerous from now on."

"Are you going there? Or do you want me to leave here?" She asked with a serious expression, wanting to know Alex's real thoughts.

Alex fell silent and sighed. "This is not an order but a question. Do you want to go with me?"

She couldn't contain her happiness and said, "I do. Please take care of me."

Alex nodded. There was also another reason why he didn't want to bring her. The fact that there would be too many poisonous substances would endanger her. Without his Pure Fire, he wasn't sure whether she could endure something like that.

After all, she didn't have a Divine Body like him, so the immunity was significantly different.

"In that case, make sure you are close to me. We might find something amazing." Alex said before cutting down another layer of rock below him.

They then started going down without stopping again. To his surprise, it kept going down. He never expected to see a mountain this big. This might be the first time he could see something this wondrous. In fact, if the mountain actually had its foot on the surface, it would no doubt go as high as Outer Space.

Alex didn't care and kept going down until he dug up two times of the length between the ground level and the top level. In other words, they had traveled forty thousand kilometers below the ground until this point.

His Pure Fire was already covering his body and Aria's, not wanting her to feel the heat.

Aria, on the other hand, was completely in awe. She never saw something this deep. However, what made her baffled was the fact that she could hear many disturbing noises from the surroundings as if there were people getting tortured around them.

Alex didn't hear it, so he kept going before finding that the rune had stopped. It was exactly forty-five kilometers from the ground level.

"This…" Alex fell silent and checked his surroundings. "What are we going to do with this? Leka, are you there?"

'Yes, Master. I have never thought that they are using this place for something like this.'

"I agree. If this is their tower, I am worried about the fate of humanity when they fight back. This tower is seriously a very powerful power." Alex furrowed his eyebrows and looked around. "I am not sure, but it might even reach God Rank Expert."

"Seriously?" Aria couldn't let the last sentence go and exclaimed in surprise.

"Yes. If I am not wrong, there will be a huge amount of Spirit Crystals beneath us that can power up a massive tower like this. After all, I have once seen a tower like this, but its height is only a fifth of this. Although I admit that the tower is far bigger than this hole, I am afraid it has twice or thrice of its power." Alex nodded with a serious expression.

'There is indeed a huge amount of energy, but it's still a bit far from us. I have found many impurities as well, so I doubt it has been touched by any hand.' Leka nodded.

Alex thought for a moment. "We will go there and see whether we can take any of them back without harming either side. If not, we will leave this place."

Leka and Aria nodded.

Alex began the journey again until they stumbled across a certain platform where he could sense the leaking Spiritual Energy.

'Master. If you are destroying this one, the Spiritual Energy will leak to the surface.' She furrowed her eyebrows. 'Leka concludes that this stone is different than the rest, capable of restricting a huge portion of the energy from going outside.'

"Yes. I can see that. If my understanding is not wrong, the last few kilometers runes are used to extract the energy from this place to be used for the source of the tower." Alex thought for a moment before turning to Aria. "Can you not tell anyone what will happen afterward?"

Aria finally realized how far Alex had thought about this. It was kind of selfish for her to ask Alex where he had no choice other than to use his ability.

Due to this, Aria smiled and swore a Universe Oath instead. "I, Aria Cypress, swear upon my name that I won't tell anything about the man whose name is unknown to me but known as Nyx to me. I won't tell anyone about his power even if I need to face death."

The Spiritual Energy fluctuated, acknowledging her Oath. Even Alex was slightly surprised for her to go this length. After all, her promise alone was enough, but she chose the path with no return with this Universe Oath.

Alex had no doubt anymore and raised his right hand before snapping his fingers.

Snap.

With a single snap, an array was suddenly constructed. This was a Rank 9 Special Realm that could stop the flow of Spiritual Energy completely, so it wouldn't be possible for Spiritual Energy to leak.

After that, he didn't wait and used his sword to destroy the last barrier before jumping down inside a quite large cave.

He was shocked by the appearance of the cave because he never thought it had enough strength to prevent the upper ground from crushing it.

Meanwhile, Aria understood why Alex actually asked her for that promise. She believed her choice was the best she could give for him, so she didn't regret it. Instead, she took the promise seriously and decided to look around first.

To their surprise, they found a very beautiful cave with rainbow-colored crystals brightening the cave room.

There was even a huge amount of Spirit Crystals they could get without mining them. However, Alex had no thought about it for a moment.

"This is a quite big Spirit Crystal Mine." Alex looked around with his Spirit Eyes. He had seen the size from above when they were only three kilometers left and felt surprised by the size. Even so, not everything was actually connected, so the cave looked smaller from the inside.

[This is indeed a big one. I have once seen a Spirit Crystal mine that contained twice the amount. If I am not wrong, that one had a total of one hundred billion Spirit Crystals. Of course, it wasn't that deep inside, so many could still get it. If it was something like this, only God Rank Experts could extract it, which not many wanted to do something like this without a big payment.]

"I agree. It will take a while too." Alex thought for a moment. "This is really tempting. After all, I will need a few hundred billion to level up someone to God King with the system power, but I shall not extract this one. Is my decision wrong?"

[Nope. Your choice. We can simply search for another star or uninhabited planet to get it, so you don't need to mind.]

"However, I will take all sorts of gems and metals that I can see here and there." Alex looked around, locking the metals and other things. The weakest of them was a Rank 8 Metal, so it was enough for the payment for this trip.

He believed that the rune didn't need a gem to supply them with the Spiritual Energy, so he just chose this, not emptying their mine.

[Alright then.]

"Aria, can you help me?"

"What do you want me to do?"

"Can you see the materials around us? Other than the Spirit Crystals and the Rainbow Crystals, we can mine it. If you think a gem will take too long to excavate, then don't bother with it."

"I understand. However, you should know that my performance will be a bit lower if I don't open my eyes, right?" She asked while opening her eyes to get all the information about the cave.

"Take your time. Since you are doing this with me, we will probably use this to get enough resources until you can become a God Rank Expert. After that, I don't think it will be a problem to let you cultivate in this place with a dense Spiritual Energy." Alex smiled.

"I understand. I won't disappoint you." She nodded.

Leka suddenly leaped to Aria's shoulder and sent a thought transmission to both of them. 'Master. I am going with her. I can help her locate every single gem.'

"Is that so?" Alex was surprised to see Leka this way, but he didn't stop her. She must have talked about it with Aria during the fall and just wanted to help him. Finding such a pure intention, he couldn't say no. "Do your best."

"Understood (Yes)!" Both of them answered at the same time as they turned around and walked toward a nearby metal.

Alex took another look at them before doing his part too.

Meanwhile, in the center of the island was a massive civilization. There was a huge building in the center of the city that looked like a castle, but the shape had the same appearance as the ziggurat that Alex saw back then.

There, many people were discussing a certain matter. They were all skeletons. Though different, it was still hard to recognize them.

"What are we going to do, Brother?" A skeleton asked.

"We have an agreement with them, so we will intercept them accordingly. For now, I have asked someone to activate all our towers around the world to prepare for the interception. If a war can't help but break, I will use that to eliminate them." A skeleton nodded with a serious expression while standing on his golden throne.

Bang.

Suddenly, another skeleton pushed open the door and shouted. "Emergency. We can't activate the tower. I believe the main tower in Scavala Mountain is not working. We don't get any input of Spiritual Energy from there, so we can't send a signal to the other towers, let alone activate them."

"What?! Send someone to the main tower and check what is wrong. They just came here, so they shouldn't know something about this yet."

"Wait, Brother. I have just come back to this planet not long ago. Let me contribute myself to society, so I don't bring shame to the name of our Royal Family." The same skeleton interjected. His eyes were full of determination and even shone a bit, telling him that he was ready to fight.

"Do you really want to go…Atlas?"