Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 3162: Hitting The Gold Mine

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Realm Of True Evil

I called back my clone-head drones, boarded the cloud the Cloud Prowler was hiding in, and asked it to take me toward the nearest opening in the giant turtle shell.

I had already deduced that the secret of the mysterious forest lay underground. To reach it, I would either have to make my way through the forest and then navigate the enormous network of roots growing inside the shell, or find another way in.

The first option was risky as hell.

Every one of those trees was at least Ruler-class adjacent. They didn’t just possess terrifying individual strength. They also had an overwhelming advantage in numbers. Considering the predator forest’s ecosystem, I had no idea what else might be lurking among those roots.

I didn’t need to risk my life when there was another option.

I decided to take the much safer route and enter through an opening beneath the turtle shell.

As the Cloud Prowler carried me toward it, the lava around the shell became increasingly turbulent. Massive whirlpools formed across the molten ocean, occasionally collapsing into themselves before another one emerged nearby. Waves of lava slammed against the underside of the shell, while streams of molten rock disappeared into cracks and openings beneath it.

The sight naturally made me wonder what could possibly be living underneath the shell.

Still, I had another theory.

The shell was ancient and clearly decaying. If something this enormous had been dead for who knew how long, its decomposition could have created enormous quantities of gases beneath the shell. Those gases might have been trapped under the layers of solidified and decaying material before eventually forcing their way out through cracks beneath the lava.

If those gases were also highly flammable or reacted violently with the extreme heat of the lava, that could explain the strange currents and whirlpools around the shell.

At least, that was my best guess.

I would soon find out whether I was right.

Activating my Soul Pupils, I left the Cloud Prowler outside and entered the shell alone. With all of its abilities being based around clouds, it would be practically helpless inside the shell, especially if there was a Ruler-class threat lurking within. I wasn’t going to drag it into a place where its greatest strengths were useless.

As I entered the shell, I found myself staring at something I hadn’t expected at all.

It wasn’t just surprisingly well lit. The inside of the giant turtle shell contained an entirely new ecosystem.

The turtle’s rib cage and soft underbelly had long since fossilized, forming an enormous skeletal framework that supported the island above it. The ribs curved overhead like gigantic stone arches, while the fossilized flesh between them had hardened into a dense, mineral-rich structure. In some places, I could still make out faint traces of the turtle’s original anatomy beneath layers of mineral deposits and sediment.

The lava flowing around the shell wasn’t simply entering and filling the interior. The sediments and minerals carried within it were being filtered at the opening, with the heavier and more valuable materials settling at the bottom of the fossilized undershell.

And they had been accumulating for a very, very long time.

Layer after layer of sediment had built up over the years until it formed an enormous island inside the shell. Calling it a small island was almost insulting. It was still more massive than many countries I had known back on Earth.

What truly stunned me was that the shell was still doing its job.

Despite the turtle having been dead for who knew how long, the shell continued filtering the lava, separating the useful materials from the molten rock and allowing only what was needed to enter the interior. The useless and accumulated waste was eventually carried toward the opposite end and expelled back into the lava ocean.

That made me realize something else.

The opening I had entered from had to be the head side of the turtle.

The other opening on the opposite end was likely where the waste and excess material were expelled. It was essentially an ancient biological filtration system that had continued functioning long after its owner had died.

That explained why this ecosystem could survive inside the shell instead of eventually collapsing under its own weight and waste.

And I wasn’t simply speculating.

My Soul Pupils allowed me to examine the Soul Pathways of skills and abilities still etched into the shell and fossilized rib cage. The pathways were faint, ancient, and partially damaged, but they were still there. The turtle’s body might have died, its flesh might have fossilized, and its consciousness might have disappeared long ago, but the skills engraved into its body had not completely vanished.

The shell itself was still carrying out the functions those skills had once performed.

The giant turtle was dead.

But some of its abilities were still alive within its remains.

And judging by what I was seeing, they were the very reason this bizarre ecosystem had managed to survive for so long.

I didn’t rush deeper into the shell to explore. Instead, I slowly recorded every Soul Pathway I could find, trying to deduce exactly what I was dealing with. If the forest growing above the shell was any indication, then this ecosystem could be extremely dangerous despite how peaceful and beautiful it appeared on the surface.

Understanding the Soul Pathways of the skills that remained within the giant turtle’s fossilized remains was the first step toward understanding the ecosystem itself.

It might also help me locate the creature’s core.

The fact that these skills were still functional meant that something was still powering them. Either the giant turtle’s core was somehow still intact and continuing to fuel the skills etched into its shell and bones, or something else had taken over that function.

Either possibility was fascinating.

I had stumbled into a gold mine.

The only question was whether I was resourceful enough to take the whole damn thing home.