The Iowa Mountains stretched for hundreds of kilometers from north to south and were only a dozen or so kilometers wide from east to west. The only flat passage through them was Iowa Pass.
Landen now planned to build a tunnel on the southern slope of the pass, cutting through the mountains for more than a dozen kilometers and reaching the forest south of the Hindukush Basin.
Finding ruins after digging less than 400 meters was certainly a good omen. The passage inside the ruins also ran southwest, descending the mountain. The only drawback was its limited width: at its narrowest, it could barely fit a Magic Pattern Tiger.
So the excavation became a two-part operation: Landen explored ahead while the Great Fairies widened the passage behind him.
After walking less than a kilometer, they came to a fork. One passage continued west, while the other turned south and climbed upward.
Landen looked up at the steps as they grew steeper and wider, then exchanged a glance with Blaze.
Blaze nodded. "This should be it. The path leads upward, which means there's another ruin."
"I was thinking the same thing." Landen patted his old friend. "Give me some cover."
Landen drew the Magic Web Sword and climbed the steps by its magical light. After going up a few dozen meters, he came to a rock wall. The wall worked much like the entrance at Moge Castle, but the Magic Web Sword was of little use here. Black Rabbit came over and used its Magic Pattern to control the Earth Element.
Once roughly a meter of Earth Element fell to the ground, sunlight spilled into the cavern. Before Black Rabbit lay a valley hundreds of meters long. Its floor was still paved with beautiful stone bricks, and Magic Plants grew thick