The Shopkeeper of All Worlds in the British Wizarding World

Chapter 705 Underground Mine
After using magic to hide the tent, Ryan and Baru waved goodbye and headed to their respective destinations. This place was a mining town built around the mine in the canyon, so the height difference of the whole town was very large. The mine where Ryan and his friends were going to collect flying stones was at the bottom of the canyon.

"This drop is really too high." Hermione sighed after standing on the mountain and looking at the deep canyon below, "I really don't know how those people in the past could endure such a life where they could only see the sun for one or two hours a day?"

"Don't forget, the mine below was left over from the collection of flying stone ore 700 years ago." Ryan pointed to the dirt road that had been opened up on the edge of the cliff and the rails on the wooden bridge and said, "I think people at that time had enough flying stones to easily go up and down this cliff, instead of going up and down on the simple railway or dirt road like now."

"You're right." Hermione said after carefully observing the roads and the remains of buildings in the valley. "Look at the buildings at the bottom. They should be the ones left behind when people used the existing facilities in the mine to mine various minerals that were not mined when they mined the flying stone. But after the associated minerals were mined, people naturally abandoned these mines and buildings. The buildings that are currently in use are all located halfway up the canyon or above."

"Then how do we get down?" Rose Crystal, who was hidden in Ryan's backpack, asked, "We can only go down halfway up the mountain. There is no way down any further. How do you plan to get down to the mine at the bottom?"

"Of course we fly down. The Cornflower Household Broom I bought specially for us can carry the three of us down together. And flying slowly shouldn't be a problem right now." Ryan said, and then took out a flying broom from his space pocket.

"Actually, it doesn't have to be that troublesome." Hermione said to Ryan, looking a little embarrassed. "I have also learned your magic of using magic energy to form wings to fly. I can fly down by myself."

"That sounds good." Ryan said in surprise. "But why do I rarely see you practicing flying? You should know that flying is like swimming. You can't just master the theoretical knowledge to fly successfully. You still need some practice."

"I practiced." Hermione refuted Ryan's statement. "It's just that I never practiced in front of you. In order to practice, I went to Mr. Luo Zhen to learn from Mercury Lamp how to fly with wings."

After the two of them stood on the edge of the cliff and stretched out their wings, Ryan finally understood why Hermione wanted to avoid him to practice flying. After mobilizing the energy in her body, two balls of blood emerged from Hermione's back. These bloods seemed to have life and slowly stretched outwards from her back, just like a tree growing continuously, and finally formed a pair of red skeleton-like wings.

After the wings were fully extended, they flapped gently. As the wings flapped, black mist emerged from the blood-colored skeleton and began to spread along the skeleton, just like the membrane of dragon wings, completely filling the gaps in the skeleton. After a slight tremor of the wings, Hermione's feet left the ground and flew up.

Ryan now understood why Hermione was unwilling to practice flying in front of him, because the wings were full of evil and dark power. Especially for women who love beauty, the black and red wings were really bad.

"This pair of wings looks pretty cool." As someone who had experienced the cultural baptism of the 21st century in his previous life, Ryan did not think that there was anything ugly about these wings. Instead, he felt that they had a special kind of beauty.

"Really? That's great." Hermione felt Ryan's sincere praise through their soul connection, and she became much happier all of a sudden. "Let's go now. If we hurry, we might be able to go back for lunch."

After that, Hermione came to the edge of the cliff and cast an invisibility spell on herself, then spread her wings and swooped down. Ryan and Rose Crystal also cast an invisibility spell on themselves and glided down from the cliff following Hermione.

The mine was at the bottom of the canyon. It took the three of them some time to fly into the mine. The mine was a cenote. The entrance was not very big, but it was very deep. When they landed at the bottom of the pit, there was almost no light around them. They could only vaguely see the sky above their heads, which was now only the size of a ping-pong ball. "It feels like the underground level we had in our first year, which was also very deep underground." After stepping on the ground, Hermione folded her wings and looked at the small piece of light above her head and sighed, "Unconsciously, so much time has passed."

"Yeah, it's as if everything happened just yesterday." Ryan folded his wings and sighed. Fortunately, the two of them had good dark vision after their bodies were strengthened many times. They could still see clearly within a distance of at least 20 to 30 meters.

According to previous adventure experience, it is best not to light a light in such a dark and unclear place, otherwise it is easy to become a target for the enemy hiding in the dark. So in the darkness, the four people set out.

After going down to the bottom of the mine, Jill took the initiative to come out of the body of Rose Crystal and volunteered to walk to the front to explore the way. According to her, as a heroic spirit, she is more suitable to act here in such a complex environment. At the same time, she can become virtual at any time, so it is easier for her to survive even if she encounters a surprise attack.

After walking for a while, Ryan found that there were a lot of traces of human activities around him. For example, there were traces of various metal tools digging on the stone wall, and some semi-rotten wooden support pillars. Even metal tracks covered with thick dust could be found on the ground.

"Which direction are we going now?" Hermione said, holding her wand in confusion, because the mines in this area are interconnected, some are left from the earliest excavation and flight, and most are left from later people digging for other minerals. Because of the rich minerals here, people have dug in this direction for hundreds of years, and now there is a complex cave system like a spider web underground.

Therefore, when Hermione came to a fork in the road with exits up, down, left and right, she stopped and had no idea which direction to go next.

"I have a way." Ryan said, taking out a palm-sized golden compass and tapping it with his wand. Soon the needle in the center of the golden compass pointed to a tunnel entrance.

"Let's go this way." Ryan pointed to a tunnel to the left. "I asked Baru yesterday, and he told me that besides the flying stone, this place only produces various metal ores, and those ordinary metal ores will not have strong magic reactions. Therefore, we just need to use this compass to find the place with the strongest magic reaction in this area."

Guided by the compass, the four people arrived at an open space beside an underground river in just two hours. But they found that they were not the first to come here, because there was a kerosene lamp on the open space, and a short figure seemed to be packing something beside the lamp.

In this kind of quiet underground space, footsteps can be heard very far away. So when Ryan and his team walked to within 50 or 60 meters of the figure, they saw that person standing up and shouting, "Who's there?"

"Relax, sir." Ryan saw from a distance that the man in front of him had a beard that was even thicker than that of Headmaster Dumbledore, but he looked much shorter, giving people the impression of a dwarf. "We are just tourists from afar, coming here to visit the mine where the flying stone was mined in the past."

(End of this chapter)