After sending Ashley back to her tribe, Dan Lei said he was finally free to move around without carrying a little burden with him.
The little girl was sensible and didn't cause trouble, but weakness was a sin. In the end, she and he just weren't cut from the same cloth.
Still, after sending Ashley home, Dan Lei received his quest reward: a helmet made from Sub-Drone carapaces.
Of course, the most important reward was that place where the seven oases converged.
Just as Dan Lei had expected, it was a blessed grotto-heaven—in the literal sense.
Yes, the place still looked like a wilderness desert on the surface, with an ugly sinkhole left behind after the Genius Society's buried probe had been dug up.
But when Dan Lei went straight down through the sinkhole, he discovered that the Ley Line activity below was frighteningly high.
Moreover, following the flow of Ley Line energy, Dan Lei had a Horned Beast dig a tunnel. Before long, they found an enormous basalt lava cavern with an underground lake and geothermal heat.
The cavern made an excellent site for a Magecraft Workshop, with just two drawbacks: no food, and too many minerals in the underground lake water for ordinary people to drink.
Neither posed a problem for Dan Lei. With enough Ley Line mana, using Replacement Magic to get back to the surface was easy. He could solve the food issue by trading with nearby tribes or hunting for himself.
As for water, was it really that hard to purify the mineral-rich underground lake water with Magecraft? Besides, the Chizuru Clan could drink seawater without issue. The minerals in the cavern's water were excessive only for ordinary people. At worst, drinking it would taste unpleasant and give Dan Lei an upset stomach.
So Dan