Chapter 2026: Portal 5 Crystal Cave

Crystal Cave was not something particularly unfamiliar to the adventurers and that was what had been created for Portal 5. With monsters all merged and infected by the constant exposure of mana had made them into living crystal monsters. Only some were alive as infused crystal monsters.

Or that was the premise most adventurers had thought mainly because most crystal caves they had encountered were of that kind of nature. This usually meant they were of rank C and above. But right now, this was a Rank E- portal so most of the monsters the adventurers encountered were monsters that had just been infused by the crystals.

Jin had no idea how the System was able to come out of these kinds of monsters to suit not just the rank of the dungeon portal but the kind of environment that he had envisioned. If he did not have such a power to begin with, this kingdom in an isolated region would have died.

Jin would have gone another route of improving the Kingdom as compared to isolating it and making Ress independent by itself after clearing all the mess the other ministers had done.

The more he read the reports, the more he saw this as a stereotypical scenario where the nobles held the most power and money while the others only had barely enough to go by. All it took would just be a few blows to the kingdom's internal systems to break the house of cards down to nothing.

Crystalhide Stalkers, they were like cats but a lot bigger in size, but smaller than tigers. Infused by the crystals, these stalkers were able to hide and blend within the crystal 'bushes' within the caves and they attacked in groups. It was a delicate balance of retreating and luring the stalkers out in the open space in order to fight against them.

The people who were watching from the sidelines were surprised by the adventurer's tact and skill compared to the mundane cutting and digging that was happening on the previous screen. However, that did not mean the previous screen did not have any use. There were times when the supervisors did not have enough workers and they were using the magic eye as a tool to send a message out.

It was hilarious when the first supervisor did it. He had no idea where the magic eye was but he knew that it would always be watching something within the cave. Therefore, he carved his message on a huge piece of wood and started waving around like a maniac.

It was in hopes that he was able to get them to bring down more tools as well as personnel rather than walking a distance back to the portal to do so.

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To his expectations, the magic eye finally caught hold of it and broadcast that message out to the staff outside of the portal and they followed up on that message. It was to the point Jin found it hilarious, he had decided to put up a magic eye within the city itself.

The act of advertising was also useful with the magic eye going around catching the most exciting part of the city and people were informed about what was going on.freē.com

So, to them, the adventurers' fight against the stalkers felt like entertainment even though they were also risking their lives. Those who wished to watch it were commenting among their friends and even spurring some of them to join when there was the opportunity.

As mentioned, it also gave heads up to the support staff in Central Square as they started to see if there was any need to augment the existing adventurers with other adventurer professions that would be useful for the fight.

Of course, it was a risk when trying to reinforce the existing adventurers. They were lucky so far not to encounter additional monsters upon augmenting the main force partially due to the fact that their rank for it is insufficient. At higher levels, the upper military management believed that was the case and thus they continued to be cautious even at lower levels.

This was especially true when Gara and the others found the sealed room within the Rank F dungeon portal.

They assumed it would be the same for Portal 4 which was bestowed with such a lush forest landscape. That was partially also the reason why they had decided to break every single thing and excavate everything, leaving nothing left if possible.

If they get to break the land to collect the soil until all is left with the bedrock, they will do it. As long as it was within the dungeon portal premise, they were going to collect everything to ensure it would aid with the survival of this self contained bubble.

The same goes with Portal 6 but Jin told them not to touch it until they had Portal 5 under control. As much as he wanted to run both of them simultaneously, it was better that safety came first, especially with the limited resources that the Kingdom currently wields.

Not just that, despite the majority of the mages returning for the emergency order, Jin actually had work for these mages to do. Along with Gara's soldiers, they had been tasked to scout the kingdom lands to ensure that there were no demons or monsters lurking around after being trapped in the magical barrier that Jin had cast.

If it was only the city that pertained to the kingdom of Ress, that would have been easy peasy. But it was not so simple. Its borders were still fairly wide and there was quite a distance to cover. Even with the Kingdom's army, there were not enough people to cover the land easily.

So, he had commanded them to first make contact with the villages, gather their town guards, and work together to scout for any sightings of demons or monsters that were trapped within the Kingdom of Ress. Meanwhile, he also got Gara to have a platoon to search the edge of the barrier and check whether the Demons were active.

After all, even though Jin felt that his barrier should be strong enough to withstand a barrage of attacks from a horde of low level ranked demons, he was not confident that he could respond in time even though he had the System to notify him whether the demons had broken through or not.

What was more of a surprise was that there was no kingdom army, not even a squad of soldiers assigned to the north to handle these demons. And the reason was that the War Ministers did not allow any kingdom army to be stationed in the north. Instead, troops were stationed in the East, West and South to prevent refugees from coming in.

And that was also the case right now. There were hundreds of refugees who had sought safety when the barricade dropped so most of the army was seen working to prevent any of them to come out from the buffer zone that had been indicated by the previous War Ministry. Without any new standing orders, the military had no choice but to continue complying with the old ones.

Thus, as much as Jin wanted the refugees to be part of Ress, he could not upset the current order of priorities on hand. Food and water had to be secured properly before even thinking of handling the refugees. But nevertheless, it seemed like the War Ministry was not as heartless as Jin thought. There was food stock for these refugees reserved, just that it was insufficient for the major influx.

If the lucky ones were able to get it, then good for them. Otherwise, it's first come first serve.

But that was only one aspect of the problem that the refugees presented. Jin was not sure whether there were any spies within the groups and how to search for spies is another headache by itself.

It goes without saying that there might be spy hideouts in Ress which Jin was not unaware of as well. The only good thing that might have happened was that nothing goes in and out of the magical barrier. Except air and sunlight.

So, with the people now currently occupied attempting to clear the crystal caves that portal 5 had produced, Jin could finally take a short breather and decide to meet with the various ministers for dinner... at the tavern.

He stated that there was no need for them to eat so fancifully in the royal castle when food waste must be kept to the minimum. In fact, he had signaled one of the chefs to use the food supply to give the incoming group of slum workers food going into one of the noble houses to stay. There is no need to be fanciful but most importantly, the quantity had to be there.

But despite the desire to experience the authentic tavern atmosphere, Jin had forgotten that these were still ministers in the eyes of the common folk. That was why the tavern had been cleared early and fresh food had already been prepared. Guards were also seen standing outside the door as well as the windows as a few were patrolling to make sure that it was safe from possible assassins.

"Sigh, and here I thought, I could get a drink or two casually," Jin said as he did not care about the others and started digging in without adhering to any etiquette other than thanking the owner loudly for the food.

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