Finally Found It!

Inside the Hanging Gardens Ruins, Adam stood beside The Earth.

While sensing the underground, The Earth had her eyes closed, her hands posed almost exactly like on her Clow Card.

"How is it?"

Seeing The Earth open her eyes, Adam hurriedly asked.

"There are indeed many spaces underground."

"…Many?"

"Yes."

The Earth raised a finger and pressed it to Adam’s brow.

"Close your eyes."

Adam did as told. He then felt his magic begin to drain again, while he suddenly "saw" something…

"Look downward, and you’ll be able to see what lies underground."

Hearing The Earth, Adam quickly lowered his head, only to be startled by his new perspective. It was like an ultra-wide-angle view that could see through solid objects, and he had trouble adjusting to it at first.

After taking some time to get used to the perspective, Adam looked underground again—there really were many spaces. Each one connected to the level they stood on through all kinds of passages, and the hidden routes probably required some special method to open.

Adam focused on the area between the nearby mountain range and the distant lake. He found no tree, but his vision could not cover every part of the region between the mountains and lake.

Search back the way they had come!

They had needed to walk all the way here, but returning was much easier. The Transfer Card flashed them along the route, while Adam used the vision provided by The Earth to X-ray the underground the entire way. Finally, his efforts paid off—

"Found it!"

Adam had finally found a tree underground. It stood in an incredibly vast space, its ceiling several hundred meters below the surface. The entrance to that space was beside the large lake, in the barren area where no grass grew—the very area infested with poisonous insects.

Incidentally, the lake did not disappoint Adam. Through the perspective provided by The Earth, he could see that beneath it was an enormous trapezoidal cylinder, and even at the limit of his vision, he could not see its bottom.

Setting the lake aside for now, Adam did not bother looking for the entrance. He directly used the Pull Card’s magic and the Sorcerer’s Stone’s limitless magic to travel down.

To the left of the mountain, to the right of the water, above the tree, beneath the earth… Could this be the tree?

Filled with anticipation, Adam finally arrived inside that space.

Unlike the pitch-black darkness above, where only a few glowing cattails provided barely sufficient light, the space containing the tree had a natural light source, and it was remarkably bright.

Everywhere he looked was covered in glowing crystals, including the "tree" itself—

Countless gnarled roots gleaming like gold spread across the floor of the entire space. At its center stood the main body of the giant golden tree. At the center of its nine main branches at the top of the trunk was the space’s primary light source: a glowing sphere that illuminated the underground cavern as brightly as day, though a patch of shadow wrapped around its underside. The branches spreading from the nine main limbs were covered with crystal leaves and flowers, refracting dazzling prismatic light beneath the glow.

The Earth’s vision had shown only shapes, without color. The dreamlike sight before him after entering the space left Adam so stunned that he was almost speechless.

Before Adam could recover, the underground space’s native residents gave this unexpected visitor an "enthusiastic" welcome.

The sound of shattering crystal rang out nearby. A crystal suddenly burst apart before him, exploding into a puddle of liquid. Only then did Adam realize he was under attack—the multicolored light refracted from every direction interfered greatly with his vision, to the point that he did not even know when the attack had happened or where it had come from.

But that was fine…

The Wand of Darkness lightly tapped forward, stirring a ripple through the air. Wherever the ripple passed, all the chaotic rays of light twisted. Adam looked around, and with a filter added over his vision, the attackers immediately had nowhere to hide.

They were three-segmented insects somewhat resembling bees, roughly a palm’s width smaller than an adult human hand. Their main bodies looked exactly like the crystals scattered throughout the space. Their method of attack was to directly launch their bottom abdominal segment… No wonder those crystals contained liquid.

Adam grabbed one in his hand. After seeing up close how it attacked, he could not help observing its remaining parts for a while longer. He discovered that the insect’s severed head and thorax continually leaked liquid from the wound, then lost all signs of life after a few seconds.

Impressive. They were really fierce.

Adam tossed the dead insect aside and flew toward the giant golden tree. Along the way, he clearly provoked immense hostility from the insects—these things nearly covered the entire space, and even though Adam had concealed himself with the Illusion Card, they could still locate him. It was strange.

Braving the insects’ attacks, Adam reached the center of the giant golden tree’s crown, beside that glowing sphere.

"Above the tree, beneath the earth… It really is here."

Adam had noticed the suspicious shadow beneath the light source earlier. It turned out that the sphere was neither growing from nor wedged into the giant golden tree, but supported by a ring of massive crystals. At that moment, four people were trapped inside the surrounding crystals like insects in amber, blocking part of the sphere’s light.

Two of them bore a seventy-to-eighty-percent resemblance to the photographs Eugene had provided, though they looked somewhat older.

He had finally found them!

"So this was the imagery pointed to by Mirror, Illusion, and Shadow? And the Twin Card referred to the two of them being together?"

Amid the clusters of crystals, the figures of the four people were endlessly refracted, making the place look like a mirror maze at first glance. Eugene’s parents were sealed inside the same crystal, holding hands, while a strange sour stench lingered around it.

Adam let out a breath of relief, but he could not help feeling slightly disappointed. He had thought it would be more thrilling—perhaps there would be some miraculous magic item capable of duplicating people, and then it would turn into something like a battle between the real and fake Monkey King—

I’m the real one! I’m the real one!

…Forget it. Plain was better. They were Eugene’s parents, after all. If it turned into some bizarre fantasy tale, with a whole crowd of dads—and moms too—fighting over one son…

Even Eugene, whose parents had been absent from his life for more than a decade, probably could not withstand that lethal amount of parental love.

Adam walked up to the crystal and reached out to touch it, curious about how these people had gotten inside. Then he felt a pulling force from the crystal. Fortunately, Adam had the Shield Card protecting him.

All right, now he knew how they had gotten in.

There was no doubt this was a trap. Adam withdrew his hand and looked at the four people again, hesitating.

There was still one final Nothing Card left uninterpreted in the divination. Did it refer to Eugene’s parents falling unconscious, with no further target afterward, or did it point to something else…?

To be safe, Adam decided to rescue one of the other two first. They consisted of a middle-aged man and a young woman, so Adam rescued the middle-aged man first.

His sword rose and fell, cutting open the crystal. What concerned Adam was that only the outermost layer was solid; the inside was entirely liquid—the same liquid that had flowed from the severed crystal insects. Thinking back, the crystal that had exploded when it attacked him had splashed this very liquid as well…

Fortunately, the man had not turned into water. Adam checked him and found that he still showed signs of life. After calling to him several times without receiving a response, Adam decided to take some special measures.