Each floor of the Gloom City Ruins was roughly six or seven meters high.
According to the free-fall formula, the landing speed after falling for just over a second would not be enough to turn a loli into a dead loli, but it could still make her cry for a long time.
Fortunately, with experience from my previous life, I reacted almost the instant the ground beneath me suddenly cracked open and swallowed me.
I quickly used Blink toward the nearest spot on the ground.
Plop.
However, after blinking to my destination, I tripped over a small stone and performed a perfect face-plant on flat ground.
Still, it was much better than free-falling.
I climbed up from the ground and patted the dust off my mage robe.
Looking behind me, I saw Evin had not fared much better.
It seemed she had used a similar displacement skill in mid-air but misjudged the direction.
Now she was carefully sliding down while hugging a stalactite on the cavern ceiling.
The only one who landed easily was Cecilia.
She jumped down from the arm of a mechanical puppet, obviously having used it to buffer her falling speed.
“Is this something you made?” I walked over to Cecilia’s side.
Looking at the somewhat crude but fully equipped mechanical puppet before me, I could not help blinking in surprise.
Evin, who had landed as well, curiously came closer.
“Wow, it looks so impressive. Although I already knew Cecilia’s profession was Mechanical Alchemist, seeing this genuine mechanical summon still surprises me. After all, in my previous life, most mechanical alchemists only obtained their own dedicated mechanical puppet at level thirty or even forty, from what I know.”
At Cecilia’s current level of sixteen, I had originally guessed she could at most create small mechanical creatures like mechanical gargoyles or mechanical hounds.
“Someone in my second uncle’s guild completed a chain quest, and one of the rewards was a mechanical puppet blueprint. Since I’m an alchemist too, my second uncle gave it to me as a gift,” Cecilia explained. “Collecting the materials cost quite a lot of money.”
Even though Cecilia’s tone was very calm, the word “quite a lot” from her mouth suggested the cost was already measured in gold coins at the very least.
“This makes things even more assured.” I clapped my hands and glanced up at the hole in the ceiling above, where the tunnel had yet to disappear. “I didn’t expect the Arcane Tunnel to be usable in this way.”
But thinking about it, it seemed quite reasonable.
After all, the ground could be considered a type of wall to some extent, and the floor thickness of each level in the Gloom City Ruins surely could not exceed three yards.
“Hmph. An An didn’t believe me.” Just bringing this up made Evin pout unhappily beside me, as if accusing me of my earlier distrust.
“Tch. You clearly didn’t think it would succeed either. Otherwise, why didn’t you prepare in advance?”
I rolled my eyes and ignored the little one making faces at me.
“Let’s head this way. Avoid monsters when we can. If we really cannot avoid them, Cecilia, use your mechanical puppet to draw their aggro. I’ll cover the repair materials. For now, put it away.”
“Okay.” Cecilia nodded and used the special skill unique to Mechanical Alchemists to store the puppet into a dedicated storage ring before following behind me.
Evin quickly caught up as well, though she looked somewhat puzzled. “Why are we still walking forward? Wouldn’t it be fine to keep using the Arcane Tunnel down to the sixth floor?”
“That’s why we need to find a suitable place to descend,” I explained helplessly as I looked at the two little ones who still seemed a bit lost. “It would be best to find a spot on the second floor that’s horizontally as close as possible to the quest location on the sixth floor. Otherwise, things will get really troublesome later on.”
The second floor was still okay, populated only by monsters between levels twenty and thirty.
We could avoid them using clever methods or eliminate them by force if necessary.
As we descended further, monster levels would rise steadily.
Especially on the sixth floor, facing monsters in the sixty to seventy level range, trying to maneuver through them would be nothing short of a pipe dream.
Following the direction and approximate coordinates in my memory, I led Evin and Cecilia forward cautiously on the second floor.
The number of monsters was not too high.
Groups were bypassed using my remaining clockwork mechanisms, while lone monsters were taken down by the three of us working together.
Fortunately, our drop point from the first floor had coincidentally been close to the coordinate point recorded in that forum post from my memories.
The encounters along the way gave me a more concrete understanding of the two girls’ strengths.
Evin needed no further comment, and Cecilia’s combat awareness was also exceptional.
After all, she had unusual real-world experiences and physical foundations.
With the mechanical puppet’s presence, she could already be considered top-tier among current Mechanical Alchemists.
However, claiming first place might be premature.
After all, Epoch had no shortage of hidden experts among players.
I found it hard to believe that Cecilia was the only mechanical alchemist with a mechanical puppet.
In this manner, we successfully reached the position on the second floor that I believed was horizontally closest to the hidden space in my memories.
We had not even needed to use Cecilia’s mechanical puppet, saving us some expenses.
“Get ready,” I reminded Evin and Cecilia beside me before tearing the scroll in my hand toward the ground beneath our feet.
This time, with preparation in advance, the landing was very smooth.
The fourth floor went smoothly as well.
Only when landing on the fifth floor did the noise attract several heavy-armored rock worms over level fifty.
I barely managed to lure them away using my last two remaining clockwork mechanisms.
The sixth floor was similarly without incident.
Just as I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, I suddenly heard the sound of flowing water.
Plop.
Curiously lowering my head, I discovered that right beside our landing spot flowed an underground dark river.
“An An, where is that place you mentioned?” At this time, the two who had landed successfully behind me saw no monsters around and gathered closer, asking curiously.
I remained silent for a moment and pointed across the dark river.
Following my finger, the two saw a thick rock wall blocking the far side of the dark river.
“Break down the wall?” Naturally, Evin thought of that.
Cecilia, who had the same idea, pulled an object with a fuse out from under her skirt. “Shall I give it a try?”
…So your special equipment is not for strengthening potions? Why can you still pull out a bomb?!
As for that pink-haired loli’s ability that seemed to have already been engraved into her DNA, I had already given up any desire to complain.
I reached out to stop her. “It’s useless. That noise might attract monsters. I think there should be a special method.”