“Can you see Verde Village from here?”

“Umm…”

Oliver stood on the edge of the cliff in a gray shirt, with black suspenders and pants. A pretty typical mining outfit around Greenstone. After reaching Rank 6, most of their bodily functions should be 10 times stronger than before, but Miners weren’t Archers. Rocks also didn’t have particularly amazing eyesight either. Even after being strengthened 10 times, the actual effect wasn’t necessarily better than using binoculars.

“Look over there! Holy shit!”

“Oh no! Is that Verde Village?!”

“Uh… Probably not.”

He shook his head, “That’s where our mine used to be.”

There was a huge circular depression in the ground. It was several kilometers wide at first glance, which sounds like a lot, but from their perspective, it was just a small section of the mountainside. The sinkhole was already covered in grass and other greenery, even some small trees started sprouting up in the wreckage of the older ones that were swallowed by the earth. 

For that matter, even after sinking into the ground, some of those trees were still alive and well. There were also plenty of animals wandering around, wild horses, boars, oxen, even predators like cougars and Greenstone Tigers that actually had green fur with black stripes. The central most part of the depression had already turned into a deep lake, where lots of animals gathered around to drink.

Some streams came down near where they were standing and reached all the way to the bottom of the mountain. Aside from their old mine, there were quite a lot of other collapsed areas and sinkholes, just that most of them are pretty old. Already overgrown or turned into large lakes over the years.

The villages were also pretty easy to find, because they could just follow the black or gray smoke down. Although electric stoves did exist, most people used fire to cook. A lot of people also made campfires or bonfires and cooked on grills. It rarely got cold enough to use a fireplace to keep warm. Knowing the general direction of the village from the mine they built, it didn’t take long for them to locate Verde.

“Umm… It doesn’t look that different.”

“The Greenstone Warehouse is gone.” Oliver immediately noticed the biggest changes, “The wall is missing on the eastern side. It must’ve sunk into the ground. But most of the houses look the same. No, are there more houses than before?”

He squinted and frowned, but his green eyes were still able to recognize his own house. It still looked intact, though he had a small river running right past his back yard. He couldn’t help smirking, “I think I see Peri!”

“Where? How can you see anything that far away?!” Squinting didn’t really work for Jade’s crystal eyes, “Ollie, look! Is that Kale Town?! It’s so huge! It’s like a city!”

She pointed toward the bottom of the mountain, where there were lots of woods and farmland interspaced. Beyond that were some villages with dozens to hundreds of houses. Getting closer to the ‘urban’ area, there were a lot more visible roads made of concrete. The houses were closer together and the yards were smaller. Only at the very center of the town were a few five to ten story buildings and the townhouses formed tightly knit rows. There was a big park in the middle of the town though, some very wide buildings like malls, schools and shopping centers. Further off in the distance were the factories and a power plant that spewed lots of black smog into the air.

“It looks kinda sketchy.” Oliver frowned, “I heard there were over ten thousand people in Kale Town… Over there should be the ruins of Verdant Valley Town.”

He pointed over towards the huge valley to the right, which was the west. There were roads leading to and from the town, but they were all blocked off in several sections. The 10 meter high walls prevented people from escaping after being infected by the plague. Some places were burned down and looked dilapidated, but overall, the whole town was relatively intact. The power plant and factories outside the walls weren’t running, but there were still smoke trails leading up into the sky.

Beyond that were two particularly large mountains, similar to Greenstone, with quite a few smaller mountains spread out for as far as the eye could see. There weren’t many people living over there though. Only a few tiny villages smaller than Verde, which were basically impossible to see from such a great distance. Even with Oliver’s superhuman eyesight.

“Wow! Is that the ocean?! It’s huge!” Jade screamed in shock when she looked over to the left. The entire Eastern Coast of Kresvalia was obviously far beyond the couple-hundred kilometers they could see from their current elevation. However, they were still able to see the small port city and a few other coastal towns, along with several other mountains in the northeast and southwest.

“What are those tiny dots?”

“I don’t know. BIrds? Boats?” Oliver saw the slightly shiny little things moving around at a snail’s pace, but didn’t think too much about it. Although the coast was less than a hundred kilometers away, even the bigger buildings were hard to make out, not to mention any living creatures or vehicles.

“We should hurry home… I hope the vaults weren’t destroyed in the collapse. Otherwise, who knows what Peri would have had to do for a living?”

“That’s right! Without us mining, how could the rest of the villagers support themselves all this time?! Let’s go!”

“Wait, no! Aaaaah~!”

Jade wrapped a stone snake around Oliver’s body and hopped off the edge of the cliff. In mid-air, he broke free from those rocky bindings. Then he reached out and pulled himself closer to that stone back, or more specifically, the glowing green ‘core’ inside of her chest. He quickly wrapped one arm around her neck and his legs around her waist, avoiding those dangerously hot hands and feet. Although the skin on her torso was also pretty warm, it wasn’t much higher than human body temperature.

“Ollie~! You’re making me lose my balance!”

“Then don’t jump off a freakin cliff!”

As he shouted, ropes appeared around their bodies and shot out in every direction. At the ends of those ropes were picks made of silvery-gray metal with a yellowish tint. Using his own manipulation abilities, Oliver easily controlled those picks to stick into the cliff nearby. They also wrapped or grabbed the tree branches as they fell.

“I can do that too!” Jade giggled and reached out with her hands, creating dozens of thin stone chains that wrapped around her wrists. They shot out and caused serious damage to the poor trees, even killing a few unlucky squirrels and birds…

“You’re making us heavier!” Oliver couldn’t help complaining as they landed lightly on a steep slope. He dissipated his conjured items and so did Jade. Then the two of them separated and slid down the mountainside.

“The fresh air! It smells so good out here!”

“Hahaha~! I can finally breathe without a damn air tank and mask!”

A few hours later, the two of them stood in the middle of a clearing next to a river. The sun was going down…

“I’m pretty sure it was this way, right?”

“Ollie! If you don’t know, then why were you leading the way?!”

“If you knew, then why were you following me the wrong way?!”

“I didn’t say I knew!”