Insect Tamer's Ascension-Chapter 126 - . Star stone’s dangers (1)

Clara quickly went to the place where the boar had been digging aggressively, to the point that it didn't even try to notice if something was lurking near it.

"There is something good that it found here, young master. He is feeling something too," Clara spoke with a light grin, and Theo came toward her in curiosity.

The boar was already there with an upright face before it sniffed the ground too, and a small snorting noise came from it.

Theo could tell now that something was good there; it was not always that the boar acted like it.

Clara kept digging the soil, and after she reached quite a bit of depth, a single tug made her widen her eyes.

"What is it?" Theo asked and tried peeking in, but he couldn't see anything yet.

Clara grinned, "It's treasure, young master."

She moved her hand a little in and then tried tugging her hand out, but it didn't come out. She tried again, and it was at that time that her hand finally came out with a lot of soil.

Theo stepped back on his own. A lot of soil was in the air right now.

Yet when he looked at the thing in her hand, Theo became a bit confused.

"Rock?" he asked in confusion.

"Not just any rock, young master. This is a low-grade ore," Clara spoke and tapped on the rock-looking thing in her hand, making a lot of soil fall down.

Theo finally saw some luster on it, yet it was too dim to say that it was an ore.

"This is a low-grade ore known as StoneIron. There was a reason that the Ironback Boars and the Silverback Direwolves came here to make a territory," she said and showed the ore to Theo properly.

"Usually, when you find this ore in the forest, you are to report to the Merrick castle right away. There can be a whole vein in the area, and it's all your family's property," she explained.

"Wait, we found a vein of ore here?" Theo asked with widened eyes.

"Unfortunately not," Clara chuckled awkwardly and kept the ore down.

"This is an abandoned burrow of a boar, young master. The owner either got killed or had to move on. There are still a few things in there that could be valuable. Please wait."

There was a sparkle in Clara's eyes that Theo had not seen before, but when he saw her like this, he couldn't help but smile warmly.

"So you like treasure hunting, Clara?"

"Who doesn't like it, young master? For a commoner, you are only one burrow away to find something that can retire you for many years," she spoke almost instantaneously.

Theo chuckled and tried digging out the dirt with her while the boar and the pup sniffed the ore they kept on the ground. The pup moved its paws to make more of the soil come off the ore.

The mantis glanced at the thing that radiated a good fragrance for him; it was the ore. Yet when it felt like the fragrance was nothing compared to what it smelled like back in the castle, it went back to sipping on the boar's blood as if it was juice.

There was still a little blood coming off the boar's big gash, yet it had considerably lessened.

Theo sat on the side while Clara dug the hole more. Just a few minutes later, she tried pulling out yet another thing, but it was stuck too tightly.

Another few minutes of digging around finally helped her pull the big thing out.

When Theo saw the sword-like silhouette, his eyes widened in shock. Just what was this burrow anyway?

Clara quickly removed most of the chunks of roots and soil from the sword-looking thing where she shivered and jerked for a second too.

"I-It's a boar's spine, young master," she said, half happy, half panicked. She threw it to the side in disgust before dusting off her hands.

"What?" Theo looked at it closely and saw the whitish spots from the soil. It really was a bone.

But then he saw why Clara was so disgusted; he chuckled, seeing all the worms attached to the spine. It was as if there was a whole kingdom of them out there.

"Mantis, I got a treat for you."

__________

Fleshbore Maggot (Tamable)

Ordinary

Level 0

Type - Decay beast

___________

Theo saw its description and saw the mantis briskly come to him for what he said.

He quickly pointed at the worms, and it was time for the mantis's eyes to shine.

It quickly went to the spine and proficiently removed as many small maggots as it could and ate them in the embrace of its forelegs.

It was disgusting to look at for Clara, but for Theo, it was a normal day.

"Is there going to be more stuff in there?" Theo asked while he looked at the dug-up soil with curiosity.

"…" Clara looked inside it once more and then at the spine covered in maggots; her face shook instinctively with disgust.

When Theo saw that, he smiled and went near the hole on his own.

He rolled up his sleeves and dug his hand inside before starting digging too.

"I-I can do this, young master," Clara spoke from the side in a hurry.

"No worries, Clara. I know you don't like insects like this." Theo moved his hand up and showed her a crawling big worm in his hand.

Clara shrieked involuntarily before placing a hand on her mouth.

Just like that, Theo started digging for a few minutes.

He found nothing in the place for a while until he started digging to the side, and that was it—he finally found something in the ground.

When he latched it into his hand, Theo felt a cold sensation as if he had taken it out of a fridge, which didn't make sense.

When he finally pulled it out, every beast, every person in the clearing with him looked at the glowing stone with widened eyes.

"That is…"