Hilda slowly steps out of the barrier, making sure that there are no vibrations left as she looks around.

  “So Shila, want to tell me what I'm looking for exactly?”

  “If I remember correctly, it was a piece of jewellery.”

  “Unexpected, but sure.”

  “Jamine, could you clone yourself and take a look around?”

  “Ok!”

  Jamine starts splitting herself into many pieces, totalling up to 35 as she sends multiple clones into each tunnel she could find.

  “Wow Jamine, at this rate you are gonna reach 100 clones eventually.”

  “Yup!”

  “Hey Hilda, shouldn't we look around for somewhere for us to enter?”

  “Huh? Of course.”

  “Oh good—”

  “Not.” Hilda finishes her sentence.

  “And could I ask why?”

  “Well, we've got Jamine here, why bother ourselves?” Hilda walks back into the barrier, lying down on the ground which is oddly comfortable due to being oddly soft with a moist feeling as Jamine joins beside her.

  “Hey Jamine, tell me when you find it, we'll go look for it.”

  “Ok!”

  Shila stands in front of both of them, looking down at them as she drags them out the barrier, into a random much more hidden tunnel which Jamine hadn't sent any clones into.

  “Here Hilda, this is unoccupied by her clones, let's search here.”

  “Seriously? The chances of us finding it in this tunnel specifically has got to be so low.”

  “Yea, so what?”

  Hilda and Jamine reluctantly follows Jamine into the tunnel, eventually reaching a much larger room with a small box on a pedestal.

  “Damn.” Hilda says softly, walking in front of it and opening it up, finding a glowing red gem inside.

  “That's what we're looking for, hurry and touch it so we can go to the next floor already.” Shila walks towards Hilda.

  “Oh calm down, it's not like it'll move from this spot by itself.”

  “Yea but, you never know what could happen.”

  “Fine, fine, so naggy.”

  Hilda reaches out to grab it as the vibrations start again, causing her to take out her sword and prepare as a much bigger worm than before leaps out the side of the wall at Hilda.

  “That's one big piece of—” Hilda teleports out of the way as the worm tries to bite her, missing and tunneling into the ground away.

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  “Whatever, let's just go to the next floor.” Hilda looks around, trying to find the box and pedestal and Shila crosses her arms in irritation.

  “Hey, where's the box?”

  “Big worm ate!” Shila shouts loudly as Hilda looks at the tunnel it made while running away. “What?” She thinks to herself before turning to look back at Shila who is getting more annoyed by the second, “what the actual hell…”

  “Hilda, I believe I told you that you should have touched it?”

  “Well yea, but how was I supposed to expect a big ass worm?”

  “From… experience? Perhaps maybe when the ‘big ass worm’ hit the barrier at the fountain.”

  “Well, I suppose you aren't wrong there.”

  “Of course I'm not!”

  Hilda sighs, looking at the tunnel before entering it, quickly chasing after the worm as Shila and Jamine follow along.

  “What a nightmare, thank god it probably won't happen again.”

  “Hilda, shut the hell up before you jinx it.”

  “Well, that won't be happening now would it?” Hilda says back, turning around to look at Shila.

  “Actually…” Shila starts to say as a worm jumps out from the wall of the tunnel, creating another as it misses due to Hilda getting out of the way with spatial magic and sixth sense.

  “They have hormones to alert others to their location too.” Shila says, making Hilda irritated. “What? It interrupted me. It wasn’t my choice to be interrupted, you know?”

  “Just hurry and continue before the tunnel gets too destroyed and mixed up with one another to tell the difference.”

  “Sure.”

  They continue down the tunnel, eventually finding the tunnel splitting into many routes, following the path which seems like it has the highest chance of being right.

  As they keep following, they end up at the nest-like location, with many worms crawling around the walls, along with a larger worm in the center of them all.

  “That's the guy who ate the thing wasn't it?”

  “Yup.” Shila answers curtly, causing Hilda to glance over for a moment.

  “You annoyed at me?”

  “Nope.” She answers curtly again.

  “liae.”

  “Fine, maybe it's maybe, just maybe due to the fact that you're asking a question an idiot would know the answer to. I mean look at it! It's the biggest damn worm you can find in this disgusting nest!”

  “Alright, chill…”

  Shila shows Hilda the worm's information.

  Race: Worm

  Bloodline:Mother (1 percent)

  Level:200

  Stats

  (201 S) (201 E) (201 A) (201 M)

  Race:Worm

  Bloodline:Mother (5 percent)

  Level:350

  Stats

  (351 S) (351 E) (351 A) (351 M)

  “What is this ‘Mother’ thing? Haven't we seen it on the jumping spiders before?”

  “It's a mother obviously, just the one with the most children in existence along with each of them being different minster species.”

  “Well, is this ‘Mother’ alive?”

  “I assume not, I have no clue.”

  “Guess I shouldn't expect much.”

  “Mom, the ground feels weird, it feels harder to dissolve than stone.”

  “Really? Shila?” Hilda and Jamine turn to Shila who sighs.

  “I don't know anything about it, don't ask me, can we just go attack them?”

  “Sure.”

  Hilda sends a massive wave of mana and sword qi at the ceiling of the cave, intending to crash it down, only for it to be bounced away, hitting and killing multiple worms.

  “Seriously? What the hell?”

  “Well it's normal, I honestly doubt you've used mana on your eyes which, I suggest you should.”

  Hilda does so, finding mana coated on every surface.

  “Oh, so what if it has mana?”

  “Some mana can have the unique property of bouncing other’s mana and sword qi off.”

  “Cool?”

  Hilda notices as the worms start to panic as they look for the attacker with Hilda hidden behind some plants.

  “We're safe up here right?” Hilda looks at Shila.

  “Stop looking at me seriously, I have no clue.”

  “Sis, are we safe?” Jamine adds on.

  “I don't know!”

  Suddenly rumbling comes from behind as Hilda gets irritated, “damn it, is there a worm?”

  “No… this sounds like… the cave is closing in on us?” Shila answers.

  They pay close attention as the cave quickly closes in on them, forcing them to jump out.

  “Phew, that was a close one.”

  “What do you mean that was close? Our current situation sucks too.”

  Hilda chuckles slightly before preparing to fight the dozens of worms in front of her.

  “Let's go.”

  Hilda starts swinging her mana and sword qi around without a care, taking advantage of the fact that any missed attack will be bounced back.

  “Wow Hilda, this must be your favourite huh? There's no skill required.”

  “Oh, shut it.”

  The giant worm suddenly jumps into the air at them as Hilda sends an attack at it, with the attack bouncing off.

  “What the hell?”

  “Hey, Hilda, watch out!”

  The worm eats Hilda as he tries to teleport out, resulting in her getting bounced off the walls due to being resistant to mana with teleportation included.

  “Great… now it's going to bring me god knows where.”

  Hilda shields herself as an influx if acid comes out from the deeper parts of the worm, dissolving the around, allowing the worm to create a new tunnel.

  “Oh, so that's how it does that… but how do I get out? I don't have infinite mana, you know?”