Constructing-Style Wizard

Chapter 500: 163.Underground “Adventure”_2

He transformed into a white skull, flew out of the small cottage, and headed towards Sector 6 next door.

In order to get a clear understanding of the conditions inside the Fissure Corridor, Noland Lee had been frequently exploring the underground in the past few days.

For this purpose, he borrowed an Illusion Ring from Denise Green.

The underground status of Sector 6 was quite bad.

Starting from Underground Layer 15 all the way down to Layer 90, all the floors had collapsed. Large amounts of rubble and earth were piled up in the deformed walkways, blocking the way. Even the cylindrical vertical cliff extending downward had broken into several segments.

The Alchemy Cathedral organization had people investigating the specifics of the underground collapse. From their plan to repair the corridor to its actual completion, it was estimated to take about a year.

During this year, people on the surface who wanted to reach Black City could only take a few of the remaining well-preserved vertical shafts. Apart from these usable shafts, all other places had been marked with “Collapses ahead, road impassable” signs.

This was what Derek Davis of the Golden Merchant’s Sword and Noland Lee had discussed. Derek, who had worked with Noland twice, would spend a whole year underground. The security members of the Iron Thorn Shield, such as Kent, Mark, and Fars Scott, were doing the same.

Repairing the Fissure Corridor required a massive investment of resources, which inevitably spurred the alchemy workshops on the surface to operate at full capacity. Subsequent consequences included a surge in the price of building materials, an increase in labor wages, and bustling activity in the Lower Town Alchemy Workshops.

In the past few days, Noland Lee had seen many alchemists carrying building materials into the underground with Alchemy Stones.

Sector 6 was currently ownerless, and no one had come to repair the corridor for now. Furthermore, due to the severity of the corridor collapse, there were hardly any people in Sector 6.

Noland, in the form of an invisible skull, flew into the underground tunnel of Sector 6 and continued down to Layer 15.

The space available for human activity here was extremely limited.

As soon as Noland Lee passed through the sluice gate of the staircase, he was stopped by a heap of rubble blocking the walkway.

With the aid of “Life and Death Tracking” and Deconstruction magic, Noland examined the narrow and crowded walkway in its entirety.

After confirming that there was no prying gaze here, he took out a homemade alchemy tool from the folding space of his backpack.

This alchemy tool had a barrel-shaped appearance, with a built-in spiral metal drill bit.

Noland named it Tubular Excavation Device.

By placing one end against the rubble pile, the internal drill bit would dig into it. As the drill bit moved forward every few centimeters, the metal casing outside the bit would follow, supporting the circular tunnel created by the drilling.

At the moment when the drill bit made a hole through the pile of rubble, a metal tunnel with a diameter of about 15 centimeters would be formed on the rubble.

But how could Noland get in through such a small metal tunnel?

There were two solutions: one was to use the recently acquired “Death Flight,” and the other was to utilize the features of “Breath of the Dead.”

When Noland activated “Breath of the Dead,” he would enter his Skeleton Form. In this state, he could divide himself into six segments: skull, torso, legs, and arms.

Each segment had its own magic vision – the skull could see its surroundings clearly, while the torso, legs, and arms had a magic vision of 30 degrees straight ahead.

All Noland had to do was put his arms in the metal tube, and the rest of the operation could be completed. As for the skull, torso, and legs, he just needed to hide them somewhere safe.

He had tried this set of actions many times, and no accidents had ever happened.

As for why he didn’t use “Death Flight” to get into the metal tube… it had to do with a terrible past experience.

At first, Noland indeed used “Death Flight” in conjunction with the Tubular Excavation Device. However, due to the extremely narrow space behind the obstacle, he simply couldn’t control the excavation device when transformed back into a human form.

In contrast, the smaller space occupied by his bone arms allowed for easy control of the excavation device.

So, after several attempts, Noland decided to use “Breath of the Dead” with the excavation device.

This time was no exception.

His bone arms entered the metal tube and arrived at the back of the rubble pile.

The space behind the rubble was a very crowded corridor void. It was pitch black without a shred of light. Moreover, due to the rubble blocking the path, the air there could hardly circulate with the outside, creating a particularly oppressive atmosphere.

Noland’s arms pulled out the drill bit and metal casing from the rubble and continued to drill through another pile of rubble, entering another walkway sealed by debris.

Repeating the same process more than ten times, Noland’s arms finally reached their destination.

It was the southeast corner of Underground Layer 15, a place used for cooking and lighting fires 30 years ago. The Sage’s Space, which produced carrots, tomatoes, flour, and salt, was arranged in the form of an alchemical ingredient cabinet in the corner.

Now, this Sage’s Space was buried under rubble.

Noland would have to spend some effort using his arms and the Tubular Excavation Device to dig out a tunnel leading to the alchemical ingredient cabinet.

This job required patience and time, without being interrupted.

Noland used his bone legs to hold his skull and bone torso, hopping around on the ground to find a safe place to hide them.

His bone arms, on the other hand, were working hard thousands of meters away from the skull.

Digging out a tunnel using the Tubular Excavation Device allowed his bone arms to enter the alchemical ingredient cabinet. Noland then cast down Deconstruction magic in the magic vision of his bone arms to obtain the methods to crack the Sage’s Lock and the Sage’s Space Core Array.