Chapter 261: The Broken Sword

With an attitude of not giving up until results were achieved, Green's team basically made their home underground.

Even so, the progress was still far from ideal. Exploring all branches of a single passage took a long time, and the consumption of physical and mental energy was not small.

Not to mention that the personnel currently available to be mobilized were limited, which increased the burden on the participants.

Church personnel could stay here long-term, but the professor could not; he still needed to return to the clinic every day. On one hand, he could not rest easy leaving the clinic, which relied mainly on Dai Wei with Kup's help; on the other hand, it was to take care of Yvonne's rest.

However, after several consecutive days, it seemed to be an unnecessary worry.

The girl had shown resilience consistent with previous impressions; expression was not her strength, persistence or rather stubbornness was. This reminded Kraft again of her uniqueness.

Although he would absolutely never reveal it, it was undeniable that he did indeed have a little hope that the search over these few days would achieve the purpose of dissuading them.

Facts proved that this was indeed just hope.

After overcoming the initial difficulties, her adaptability quickly allowed her to blend into the environment, like moss sprouting in the bricks and cold water currents, forcing open gaps and turning guests into hosts.

She followed the team back and forth between the two locations every day, shuttling through the tunnels, until finally those cultivators tacitly accepted that she could count as a member of the team, rather than a disruptive factor in normal search activities.

As the unexplored areas decreased, the collapse points on the map outlined an increasingly obvious circular boundary; Green gradually stopped worrying about appearing too eager and began to accelerate the process.

From Kraft's perspective, this meant that every other night, the search progress would advance by one or two tunnels compared to the previous day. He had to advise Green in advance not to rush when discoveries were made, at least notifying him to arrive before continuing.

This proposal proved foresighted. Under the high-intensity search, some strange but not entirely unexpected things were soon brought back.

On a morning no different from before, when Kraft arrived at the camp, Green showed him the results of the overtime work from the previous night.

A rusted stick.

More accurately, it was a relatively flat and long piece of rust; both ends had broken off due to brittleness and were lost.

The cultivators found this thing in the mud within a niche on a passage wall; it seemed that changes in the water flow had just happened to flip it out, revealing swollen, uneven edges resembling fused lymph nodes.

An indescribable place, diseased metal, the remains of some artificial object. They tried to pull it out but found part of it embedded in the bricks, not in a crack but right in the middle, so they had no choice but to forcibly break it off and bring it back. This made it look even more like some disease rooted in the passage.

Kraft used a linen cloth to absorb the remaining moisture on the surface, held the object under the candlelight with gloved hands, tapped it gently with a small pair of tweezers he carried, and then tried to pry off a small piece; underneath was still red rust.

The oxide layer was too thick, so this thing could basically be defined as a rust block; after stripping off the shell, not much remained, and one could only guess its original purpose based on intuition.

Excluding biases brought by personal cognition, he felt this looked more like a sword blade, or at least a section of a long-bladed weapon.

Regardless, Kraft was glad the priest had listened to his suggestion and decided to bring it back immediately upon discovery, rather than swimming upstream directly to find the source.

"Actually, this isn't the only one." Green crossed his arms, leaned against the wall to rest for a moment, and every second here he worried about the water vapor above his head that might condense into rain clouds again at any time, "There are some small fragments, but they are too small to be sifted out or identified."

"It looks like part of a sword; the middle is the fuller, thicker than the sides."

"Well now, not only is there armor left here, but a sword too; are you trying to assemble an army?"

"I advise you to say less." Kraft's face did not look good. If he was not mistaken, they should be approaching the target.

What needed to be done now was simple—prepare, go down, until something appeared before them, and then decide whether to advance or retreat. Regardless of whether it was good or bad, everyone had been waiting for it for a long time.

However, before setting out, there was one last problem to solve.

If he remembered correctly, not everyone here was ready to move; there was still an apprentice.

At least Kraft had not initially intended to turn the apprentice directly into frontline practice; he looked at Yvonne playing with the dagger beside him. The girl seemed to have a special affection for this old trophy beyond its practical significance.

The latter naturally felt the mentor's gaze, clearly read the meaning within it, and returned the gaze—she had not come here just to take a few days' stroll and then leave at a critical moment.

Kraft had intended to say things like "this time is different, I don't have enough certainty," or "proceed gradually, next time will also work."

But Yvonne had already passed the preliminary test; before this, she had faced similar incidents more than once, and in terms of experience, she was not inferior to most people present. As for ability, those who had previously harbored doubts about the last batch would never have doubts again.

She desperately needed this deserved respect, to be treated as an individual whose will and ability were sufficient for independence, even if this respect might come at a high price.

There would never be a moment of perfect certainty; perhaps starting with a preliminary deep mission was just right.

"Bring a hammer, not too long." Kraft asked one of the stationed cultivators for a smaller model page hammer. He had originally thought Kup would always be responsible for this post, but the squire Mr.'s work had recently become more and more detailed, spending most of his time accompanying Dr. Dai Wei with piercing needles.

"Hold this; it's about the same as swinging a candlestick."

"Is there anything else I need to know?"

"Just hold back your strength; most of the time you won't need to use full force." With the strength of an ordinary adult, hitting something solid with this would be enough to make a head under armor see its great-grandfather, "Also, the most important thing: do everything exactly as I say, otherwise there will be no next time, understood?"

Yvonne nodded excitedly and eagerly took the beautiful weapon, its page forged into the shape of flying wings.

After giving instructions here, Kraft turned to Green and asked, "Shall we set out early? I have enough people on my side."

He did not intend to bring Kup; this was just a preliminary deep dive, and the manpower was sufficient. Rather than calling Kup over, it was better to learn more in the clinic. There was no need for an extra knight squire here temporarily, but soon a professor's assistant might be needed.

"No, let me sleep for a while." As the signs began to emerge, the priest instead showed enough patience. He found a relatively comfortable spot against the wall, leaned against a package he had casually pulled over, and forced himself to close his eyes.

In fact, he did not fall asleep. Through his eyelids, he could still perceive those eyes moving beneath the cover.

After a very short period, Green opened his eyes again, led the team across the rock fissure, and headed toward the waterway where the rusted relics had been discovered.