The Underground World

"Another one! That makes five! Could I really be the chosen one?"

After wiping out another group of Demon Rats, Wang Qianduo got another tooth fragment to drop.

He'd been grinding monsters for less than half an hour and had already gotten fragments one through five. It was hard not to get his hopes up.

He said he didn't want to believe it, but deep down, he was being perfectly honest. After all, didn't everyone want to believe they were destined for greatness?

But while his heart refused to settle for ordinary, reality was brutally harsh!

Over the next two hours, Wang Qianduo didn't find a single new tooth fragment.

Forget the elusive number seven; he hadn't even found one of the common number six fragments.

That was just how it was!

"Fuck—" (a radical, not a curse)

"Another number four! Zero, you're an AI. Can't you figure out why this is happening?"

After picking up yet another number four fragment, Wang Qianduo complained to Zero.

"According to my analysis, the Demon Rats on Demon Rat Star can be divided into five types based on their appearance.

"Each type drops a different fragment. Most of the Demon Rats you just killed were the type that drops the fourth fragment. This is normal."

Wang Qianduo: "?!"

He'd only been bored and grumbled without thinking, but he hadn't expected Zero to answer his question outright.

But he really hadn't noticed anything different about those giant rats. They were all musclebound and filthy.

"According to you, there are actually seven kinds of Demon Rats on this planet. If I kill them all, I might collect every tooth fragment?"

Though he still had doubts, Wang Qianduo decided to try following Zero's analysis.

If it worked, he'd hit the jackpot!

"Zero, analyze the Demon Rats and help me find the other two types."

"Of course, sir!"

After Zero replied, Wang Qianduo piloted Unit Zero straight up into the sky.

With Zero's help, he soon found a colony of the sixth type of Demon Rat and successfully got the number six fragment to drop.

What did that prove? That Zero's theory was absolutely right!

Now he had a clear understanding of just how powerful the AI that came with his Mecha was.

For a human, telling the types apart would be a task of hellish difficulty. Zero could figure it out with just a small amount of data.

Good thing he'd complained. Otherwise, he really would've missed his chance!

So that was the key to the planet's hidden secret. It seemed he really was the chosen one after all.

The rest was simple: find the seventh type of Demon Rat. Once he did, he'd be set.

"Haha! I'm about to complete this hidden quest that countless people have been dreaming about!"

Wang Qianduo thought excitedly, only for reality to slap him in the face like a stern father.

He flew around eagerly for nearly an hour and found nothing.

At Unit Zero's speed, flying from Kyoto to Magic City took only a little over ten hours. An hour of flying was no short distance.

Finding nothing at all already told him plenty. No wonder nobody had ever found a number seven fragment.

"Zero, analyze where this seventh type of Demon Rat might be hiding."

Wang Qianduo had a few suspicions of his own, but decided to ask Zero again. Zero didn't disappoint him and answered right away.

"According to information provided by the Alliance, the Demon Rats' true lair should be underground. I suspect the unknown seventh type of Demon Rat is underground as well."

Wang Qianduo said, "I suspected that too, but I haven't seen an entrance to the underground world.

"Unfortunately, I don't have any tech-based skills that can alter the terrain. All of my skills are completely magic-oriented.

"If I did, we could try bombing the ground—"

As he spoke, Wang Qianduo suddenly took out a Blast Bomb and examined it. He still vividly remembered the explosion that day.

The mountain where Mark Bokuai had been was leveled in an instant. If that place hadn't been a Safe Zone, who knew how many people would have died?

"Analyze the area and see where we should bomb," Wang Qianduo said to Zero. He'd already decided to waste one and give it a try. The quest had him hooked now.

"I'll need to use the Fiery Golden Eyes authorization!"

"Fine!" Wang Qianduo agreed immediately.

He'd thought Zero meant using the scouting skill to examine the terrain.

But Zero activated all three Fiery Golden Eyes skills at once and even opened some kind of hidden setting.

Streams of data flashed before Wang Qianduo's eyes, but he didn't have a supercomputer for a brain. Before long, the shifting numbers had his vision swimming.

But he couldn't look away. Everything in Unit Zero, including Zero itself, served him, the pilot.

If he closed his eyes, the data would disappear, and Zero wouldn't be able to analyze anything. Then he would have suffered for nothing.

Fortunately, Fiery Golden Eyes only lasted a short twenty seconds. If it had gone on any longer, he had no doubt he would have thrown up.

"Ever seen someone get carsick? Ever seen someone get Mecha-sick?" Wang Qianduo complained, his head spinning.

"I haven't. But I have another piece of bad news.

"I only calculated the approximate direction just now. I'll need to run the calculation again to get the exact location."

Wang Qianduo: "..."

Old Wang didn't want to go through that pain again, but no pain, no gain.

The best way to overcome your fear was to face it.

Come on! You've got this!

After pumping himself up with two jin of motivational chicken soup, Old Wang let Zero put on another performance ten minutes later. He finally couldn't take it and collapsed onto the ground.

But effort brought its rewards. This time, Zero successfully calculated the location. Wang Qianduo placed a Blast Bomb beneath an abandoned fortress and lit the fuse.

Rumble! A deafening explosion shook the area, and a massive mushroom cloud bloomed where the bomb had gone off.

When the smoke cleared, a huge opening appeared before Wang Qianduo, pitch-black inside, as if it led straight into the Abyss.

Old Wang jumped in without a second thought. He could fly, so what did he have to worry about?

The Blast Bomb had made far too much noise. There weren't many people leveling on the planet, but a few were still around.

Wang Qianduo's wild flying had already caught some people's attention, and they had been edging closer, more or less deliberately.

The mushroom cloud from the Blast Bomb was so conspicuous that the moment they saw it, they flew straight toward it.

When they saw the enormous crater, they immediately thought of the famous unsolved mystery of the tooth fragments.

They scrambled to jump in, and immediately spread the news.

Wang Qianduo knew nothing about what was happening above ground. The underground world was far more convoluted than he'd imagined.

Its pathways crisscrossed in a bewildering maze, though they seemed to follow some kind of pattern.

It was hard to imagine that a colony of rats had dug a cave system like this, but there was no doubt that they had.

Luckily, Fiery Golden Eyes enhanced his night vision, keeping him from walking in circles as he followed the winding paths.

Zero's intelligent analysis also kept him on the right track.

The teams behind him weren't so lucky. They'd gotten lost almost immediately.

After walking for a while, the ground beneath Wang Qianduo suddenly fell away, and the view before him opened up.

An underground world lay before him, with mountains and rivers—everything except sunlight.

Below stretched forests made up of unknown plants, while above him hung stalactites like ice spikes.

There was a vast distance between the rocky ceiling and the ground. But since there wasn't a trace of light, even with Fiery Golden Eyes, Wang Qianduo couldn't see very far.

Still, from his initial observations, the environment here was far better than the Wasteland on the surface.

What a bitter irony!

But that had nothing to do with Wang Qianduo. He slowly flew into the underground forest and began searching for his target.

There were far more rats down here than on the surface, but Wang Qianduo didn't waste time fighting them.

He didn't have much time left before his fatigue set in. He could come back tomorrow to level up. For now, his only goal was to find the seventh type of Demon Rat and complete the hidden quest.

Perhaps Heaven rewards the diligent, or perhaps he was just lucky.

After all kinds of hardships, Wang Qianduo finally found the seventh type of Demon Rat beside an underground lake.

But it was a little different from what he'd imagined.

"That thing's freaking huge!" Wang Qianduo murmured as he watched the "hill" crouched at the lakeside, drinking water. Its eyes had withered away completely.

Underground Demon Rat Elite

LV10

Boss

HP20000

MP1000

Attack230

Defense50

Skills: Bite, Claw Strike, Earth Spike, Burrowing, Petrified Skin, Earthquake Slam