The Insider System

Chapter 390: The Deal Pt.26

Before he stepped into the cave Lake made sure to use Mana Vision to see if anything bow shaped stood out to him because if he was able to see it from here it would have made this much easier. Sadly his range seemed a bit short because he saw absolutely nothing and he was about to start walking inside when he realized he wasn't actually sure this cave held the bow.

There was a small chance he had just assumed this was his destination because it was such a large cave and the arrow was pointing right at it but he hadn't actually made sure quite yet. Setting Detector to look for a cave that held Mizzly's Bow Lake saw the stone around him start to glow and guessed he had assumed correctly that this was the right place.

This confirmed that the cave must be extremely long if the bow wasn't visible to him from here but he still didn't think there was going to be a problem because he couldn't see any enemies either.

As he took his first step inside, Lake was able to get a good look at what he would be walking through for the next few minutes and once again had to appreciate the night vision he had from one of his skills because he felt most people wouldn't be able to see what was around them like he could.

Even with torches they would have to slowly close the distance before they finally laid their eyes on the area in the very back of the first chamber that seemed to go off to the right. As he moved his way to the first turn, Lake took a few looks on the ground to see if there were any obvious tracks, human or animal, because he found it hard to believe that such a large cave would be completely unused.

He didn't see any though and this made him decide to use Detector again, setting it to look for signs of recent tracks or evidence of life. Like he had expected small scratches he assumed were from claws lit up on the stone that made up the cave floor.

He was unable to tell what type of animal they were from but just knowing that something had been inside recently told him that he should be using Mana Vision every minute or so to make sure he wouldn't walk into a den of man eaters.

Taking the first corner, Lake took a brief pause to use Mana Vision even though he had only made it a hundred feet into the cave so far and knew he probably wouldn't see anything new. After he had proven himself correct again Lake kept going and only stopped for a few seconds whenever he made it to a turn.

While he never saw anything even after he had gone around the tenth turn he did notice that the path always seemed to straighten out. This made him feel there was a slight chance this cave hadn't formed naturally and only looked that way because it was very old.

He had seen the types of things Earth mages could do within just a few seconds so making a tunnel like this wouldn't even take a skilled mage. If he was right about this it meant there was a good chance he would find something at the end of the cave that wasn't just a dead end.

This could give him an explanation as to why he was still unable to see anything with Mana Vision since if there was some type of building it was possible there would be a vault or barrier that was blocking the mana from reaching his eyes.

With this new expectation in mind Lake took another break from moving forward and started inputting things into Detector to see if he was right. The first thing he tried was barrier and getting a positive result when a gold wall appeared close to him he knew he had found some type of secret base or something.

This increased the difficulty of retrieving the bow to a level that he thought it might be best if he saved this for some other time but he didn't turn and run like he felt he should because he felt there was a good chance whatever it was that was in front of him was empty.

He thought this because he still didn't feel anyone's attention on him and if there were people here they would probably be watching the secret cave entrance to their base for intruders. Walking forward again Lake soon reached the barrier Detector had sensed and found it was over lapping with a stone wall that looked like it was part of the cave.

It was obvious this was to make people think this was the end of the cave so they would leave but Lake already knew this was no normal cave so he started using Detector to see if breaking the barrier was something he could do without hurting himself.

While he ran through all the settings he had found that would tell him what he wanted to know, Lake thought about something else he had just noticed. Detector seemed to be much stronger than some of his other skills even if they were Unique while Detector wasn't.

The example of this was how right now Mana Vision was useless while Detector had been able to sense Mizzlys bow when he had still been in the capital even with it seemingly inside of a barrier that was blocking all mana from leaking out.

This of course made sense to him since Detector was from a criminal job so there was a good chance the Insider was somehow affecting its strength while Mana Vision wasn't but it was too bad because having your skills fail sometimes led you to making incorrect assumptions which were dangerous.

When he had first come into the cave he had assumed it was going to be very long because nothing was in Mana Visions range but in reality it was short with a strong barrier blocking him from seeing anything.

There was also a possibility that Mana Vision was as strong as Detector but the barrier just perfectly countered it in this case but he really thought there was a chance that just because one of his skills said Unique didn't mean it was anywhere near as complicated as a Legendary skill he received from a job.

For all he knew Mana Vision was just a slightly improved common skill but because it had been affected by the Insider it was now Unique. This was a pretty obvious thing to realize but he guessed from now on he really needed to try and find a way to test the actual strength of his skills when it came to how they stacked up to one another.

Realizing he was now ready to try and break the barrier, finding that it would be safe for him and his gear to do so, Lake refocused on what he was actually doing and sent out a weak smack to see if that would be enough to break this barrier. Feeling the barrier shake a bit after his attack, Lake was happy that he wouldn't have to try and use anything stronger while underground and increased his power by a bit and hit it again.

Punching a small hole in the barrier this time Lake watched as it quickly started to collapse and activated Mana Vision again in the hopes that with the barrier gone he would finally be able to get a good look at what he was walking into. As he had hoped, Lake started to see mana sources light up in front of him.

He took a few minutes to try and see something that looked like a bow but was unable. He got a good glimpse of things that looked like they were alive through so he knew this place he had just uncovered wasn't as abandoned as he would have liked it to be.

The things he was seeing didn't look like people though so that explained why they didn't seem to react when he broke the barrier that was hiding this place from the outside. This meant he wasn't going to need to worry about making the people here mad when he took Mizzly's bow but the fact it probably didn't currently have an owner was too bad because it would only be half as effective if it had been stolen.

"I wonder if selling it to steal again could fix this little problem?" If it turned out Mizzly's bow was a really good match for him he would probably take the time to try this out to see if such an obvious loophole would work.

Taking his first few steps into the space he had just uncovered, Lake felt something start to pay attention to him finally even if it felt like it was only vaguely and wondered what it was and where they were. He still didn't see anyone around that seemed to be looking in his direction.

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