The cavern looks to be about a mile long and maybe half a mile wide and there are many entrances. There are no crystals in the ceiling to provide light, but the cavern is full of glowing plants. I don't see anything dangerous, so with a thought I summon Maximus.

  Maximus appears beside me, looks around for a second, and then runs off. I am surprised, but I just watch as he runs over to a small glowing bush and grabs it with his trunk. He rips it out of the ground and the second he does, it disappears and he returns to my side.

  I have no idea what that bush is, but since it disappeared it should be something that's good. For it to disappear like that, it should mean that it went to my soul palace. Either it is something that Maximus wants, or something that counts as loot.

  I didn't see anyone selling plants in the markets, but maybe there are specific stores for plants. I will need to check when I go back to Soul City later, but I'm betting that there are. There are bound to be plants that are useful to souls or that are used as materials.

  Just in case, I take the time to walk around the cavern and see if Maximus spots anything else. He does rush over to grab one more bush, but it looks the same as the first one. After that, I pick a tunnel at random and start following it, but I keep my eyes open for ores.

  Ideally, I would love to find some materials to expand my soul palace that I can harvest. It would save me a lot of money, even if they are just low rank materials. Unfortunately, I don't find anything in the tunnel and after walking for about five minutes I enter another cavern.

  This one is about the same size as the first, except that the ceiling is much higher. I can only see the ceiling because the glowing plants are growing all the way up the walls. However, I still don't see any animals or beasts for me to fight.

  So, I start wandering around the cavern to see if Maximus reacts to any of the plants. He takes two more bushes and a small, strange flowering plant that has an orange flower. Just as we are coming to the far end of the cavern, I stop because I hear a strange buzzing sound.

  Soon a swarm of insects come flying out of one of the tunnel entrances. The insects are tiny, but the swarm is huge and I am not sure my breath can deal with it. So instead, I activate lightning field, but I put it in the air in front of me instead of on the ground.

  The field isn't big enough to completely block the cavern, but it is bigger than the swarm. The swarm flies right into it and all the little insects explode on contact. It is basically a huge bug zapper and it is fun to watch them all fly to their deaths.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  1,849,592 Blood Flies defeated! 18,495 Soul Exp gained!

  It looks like one hundred bugs is only one exp, but with a swarm that large, it is still decent exp. Especially since I can cast lightning field all day long and not run out of mana. If these swarms are common, this could be a good way to farm soul exp.

  The only drawback is that the swarm didn't drop anything, not even a single coin. While exp is important, I also need soul coins and armor pieces. So I am hoping to find something a little more worthwhile to farm.

  If I am lucky, the plants might end up being valuable, but I am not going to count on that. I make sure I know the way back, then I choose and follow another tunnel. However, as I am following the tunnel it starts to slope down and I wonder if I chose poorly.

  Since I don't know if down is bad or not, I keep following the tunnel. It goes on for a long distance before opening up into an even more massive cavern. This time, while I can't see anything, there are sounds of beasts that I can hear. The plants are much thicker here, including tree-like mushrooms.

  It is bad enough that when I advance into the cavern I am having to push my way through the plants. Maximus drops back and follows the path that I am forced to create. However, before long he darts off to the side to a glowing bush with purple flowers.

  When he goes to uproot it, one of the flowers actually tries to bite him. Luckily, it doesn't seem to be able to bite through Maximus' hide, but it keeps trying. After a bit of a struggle, Maximus manages to uproot the bush and it disappears.

  As he returns to my side, I make a note to be careful if I handle that bush. It probably can't hurt me, but it is better to be safe than sorry. I have to keep in mind that it is easier to wound my soul than my physical body.

  While keeping an eye out for plants that might try to eat me, I head for the nearest sounds of life. As I push through the last line of plants, I see a medium sized, four legged beast. It looks similar to a wolf, but has the skin and head of a snake and the tail of a scorpion.

  As I force my way through the plants, the beast notices me and lets out a loud hiss. Then it charges at me and its speed is a lot higher than I was expecting. The beast charges so quickly that its figure blurs, but I can still track its movements.

  As the beast reaches me, it twists its body and stabs at me with its tail. Not wanting to find out how strong its poison is, I move my body just enough to dodge. Then, before the beast can recover, I strike out with my claw and hit its body.

  I was expecting to directly but the best in half, but its snakeskin proves stronger than expected. While I don't manage to cut through it, there is a loud crack where my claw hits. From the way its back legs and tail go limp it looks like I broke its spine.

  However, before I can finish the beast off, there is movement in the surrounding foliage. More beasts of the same type appear from the underbrush and move to attack me. I am forced to ignore the wounded one and turn to face the new beasts.

  In total, seven more beasts attack me, but the problem is the way they fight. They actually cooperate with each other and use basic tactics in battle. They fight like a wolf pack and it makes it a lot harder for me to defeat them.

  Every time that I try to finish one of them off, others attack to distract me. They are constantly circling me and attacking me from behind, it is annoying. On the other hand, it does give me a chance to test out using my tail as a weapon.