Sprites were a remarkably stubborn species, though you could not tell from their appearance.
In fact, this diminutive race, which lived only around Ancestor's Peak and seemed rather mysterious to all the peoples of Loren, possessed many traits that outsiders would never expect. Every one of them was a soldier; they were brave and skilled in battle; they excelled at building heavy machinery; when inspiration struck, they would dig a huge hole into their sacred holy mountain; and they had a breathtakingly obstinate streak. When they found the holy mountain too hard, they would rather wear out a gigantic strategic-weapon-class golem than give up on boring a hole into it.
And when they discovered that the hole was useless, they immediately decided to use it for pickling spicy cabbage.
But they were all good sprites—hardworking, sincere, rational, and clever. There was no doubt about that.
"Originally, we planned to put this cavern to some other use. After all, it was such an excellent natural deep cellar, and it had taken so much effort to dig out. Leaving it unused would have been a waste. But shortly afterward, we learned about the Vibration Focus, so we changed our plans," Stella said, flying beside Milmina's head as she chattered and pointed at the various facilities throughout the cavern. "Although we can't dig any deeper, magic power runs through the mountain here. By monitoring the Energy Flow, we can roughly determine what is happening farther down. Directly beneath this cavern lies an extremely active Energy Field, covering nearly a third of all Ancestor's Peak. It's like a blazing core, maintained in some astonishing state of balance...
"These fissures around us were already here. They are natural seepage zones of the Magic Power Focus. We haven't carried out any... alterations. You're certainly more professional