Oliver's group numbered twelve in all. After entering the dining hall, they picked three round tables in a corner and sat down.
"Captain, you found an amethyst, don't be stingy!" someone called out.
"The usual!" the bearded captain laughed. "One bottle of Norscha for each of you. Want more? Buy your own." Then he raised his voice, "Hey, bring us twelve bottles of Norscha, quick!"
Norscha was a decent wine — ten inkstones per bottle, so twelve came to a hundred and twenty inkstones.
Whenever any of them found an amethyst, it was tradition to treat the group to a celebration. After all, mining amethysts was a matter of luck. With good fortune you could find one within a few days; with bad luck, you might go a thousand years without one.
"Nearly thirty years, and I haven't found a single amethyst!" Frustration gnawed at him. He tilted his head back and drained a large gulp.
When he had first arrived in Hell, his luck hadn't been bad. He'd reached Midgod rank, scraped together ten thousand inkstones for the Demon Exam, and passed — becoming a one-star Demon. But his very first mission had ended in failure.
And in the panicked retreat, he had been accidentally separated from his close friend, Bachler.
He and Bachler had pooled their resources to afford the Demon Exam, then taken on a mission right away. The first mission failed. In truth, Olivier had earned nothing at all. After the failure, the money on him amounted to a pitiful few hundred inkstones.
With a few hundred inkstones, get back to a city? Dream on!
Fortunately, the mission site hadn't been far from the Amethyst Mountain Range. He'd heard of the place, so he'd made his way here cautiously over the course of several years. The agreement was clear: anyone who couldn't pay five thousand inkstones upon departure would have to hand over three amethysts instead.
"Never mind three — I don't even have one. Nearly thirty years…" The more Olivier thought about it, the more miserable he felt. He threw his head back and drained more than half the remaining wine in one go. "And in this godforsaken place, there's no way to take missions either."
To return safely, he needed to earn enough money.
To earn money, his only option as a Midgod was to mine amethysts.
"Olivier, hey — you're not the only one who hasn't found a single amethyst." Someone nearby spoke up. "Don't get discouraged. Remember that poor fellow we ran into last time? He once went ten thousand years without finding one."
Olivier forced a thin smile.
He needed to stay on good terms with these people.
Mining amethysts in the Amethyst Mountain Range was no safe enterprise. This wasn't a city, after all. If someone got lucky and unearthed a cache of amethysts at once, plenty of others would kill for that fortune — that was perfectly common. So most Midgods formed small groups for protection.
Oliver's twelve-man crew was one such group. At the very least, they could watch each other's backs.
Tens of thousands of miles away from where Olivier sat, Lin Lei's group of four stood at the edge of the Mist Sea. They hadn't come to mine amethysts — they were here simply to take in the sights.
"Jenkins, you don't need to stick with us. Go mine on your own. We'll just look around the Amethyst Mountain Range for a day or two, and then we'll probably be on our way." Lin Lei glanced back at Jenkins and spoke casually.
Jenkins was deeply grateful to Lin Lei and the others.
"Mr. Lin Lei, the three of you have done Jenkins an extraordinary kindness. I truly don't know how to repay you. Besides, once you leave, who knows when I'll see you again? And mining amethysts is pure luck — maybe if I stay with you, I'll actually find one." Jenkins joked.
"Not bad, kid. You've got loyalty."
Lin Lei smiled and nodded. "All right, then I'll mine alongside you. Let's see if I can get lucky in the next day or two and find an amethyst."
White mist blanketed everything. Lin Lei gazed at the endless fog before him. "Let's go — into the mist. Everyone, keep watching the outside so we always know which way is out." With that, Lin Lei, Dilia, Bei Bei, and Jenkins flew into the white fog.
Lin Lei looked at the mist with surprise. "This fog — it's so cool." The temperature was quite low; where it touched his skin, it felt like ice.
But none of them minded.
"Boss, hurry up." Bei Bei walked backward, keeping his eyes on the opening behind them. "I can still see outside — keep going!" Bei Bei grinned as he flew deeper in, and the others naturally followed.
They all flew slowly. When they had gone roughly eighty meters, they came to an abrupt stop.
"Hm? How strange!"
Lin Lei's brow furrowed.
"Whoosh, whoosh~" In the boundless white mist, a faint wind could be heard. But even that feeble sound made Lin Lei's head spin. He jerked his head sharply, fighting to hold on to a sliver of clarity.
Dilia and Bei Bei struggled to keep their wits as well.
Jenkins, meanwhile, had already grown dazed and lost his sense of direction. Lin Lei immediately grabbed him and pulled him back a short distance.
Only then did Jenkins regain his bearings. The moment he did, he turned pale with shock. "What just happened? I heard this whooshing wind, and then the whole world started spinning — I was completely disoriented." Even Jenkins himself was shaken and frightened.
"This Mist Sea is no ordinary mystery," Bei Bei remarked with clicking admiration.
"Lin Lei, let's be careful. We only came to look around — we're not trying to mine amethysts. Let's not have an accident." Dilia tugged anxiously at Lin Lei's hand.
Lin Lei squeezed Dilia's hand and looked into her worried eyes. After the golden lava lake incident, he had no desire to put Dilia in danger again. He smiled and nodded. "Don't worry. We won't go any deeper into the Mist Sea."
"Hey there." A muscular man with short greenish-blue hair suddenly flew over. "You'd better be careful — don't go getting stuck where you can't get back out."
"My good sir," Jenkins said with a smile, "I'm curious about one thing. How is it that people who go deep into the Mist Sea can't get back out? If I left my clone on the outside and went in myself, I'd be able to sense my clone's direction and location. Couldn't I just fly back out?"