The Queen of Scrolls never admits defeat

Only Moran remained before the cluster of golden crystals.

The noisy complaints disappeared, and the mine tunnel was extremely quiet, except for the water droplets that had condensed on the mine walls overhead, dripping into the puddles and making a clear and monotonous "drip-drip" sound.

The sound was particularly abrupt in the extreme silence. Just as she was racking her brains for a solution to the golden crystal cluster, the continuous dripping sound suddenly caught her attention.

She had tried all sorts of methods, but they had all failed, and she was at her wit's end.

Could the sound of water... also be a clue?
An absurd yet undeniable thought popped into my head.

Some entrances to mirrorless spaces have such bizarre methods of opening; otherwise, even though everyone knows it's there, no one would have been able to open it.

Moran, taking advantage of this sudden "inspiration," took out an ordinary crystal bottle from the mirror emblem, tilted his head back, and patiently caught the water droplets dripping from the top of the rock.

The water droplets fall very slowly, and when they fall into the bottle, they make an irregular dripping sound.

Bored, Moran and the others memorized the rhythm of the falling water droplets.

After filling the bottle, Moran walked to the golden crystal cluster and simply and directly poured the water from the bottle evenly onto the surface of the largest crystal facet of the cluster.

Water droplets meandered down the smooth crystal surface, making it shine even brighter.

Then, as if possessed, she stretched out her fingertip and, following the specific rhythm of the water droplets falling into the bottle when she was collecting the water, began to gently tap the water-soaked crystal surface.

"Tap...tap...tap...tap..."

Her tapping sounds mingled with the distant dripping of water, echoing through the empty mine shaft.

Originally, I was just mechanically repeating this simple action, without really having much hope in my heart.

However, after she perfectly and flawlessly struck the rhythm of the dripping water droplets from the bottle, something unexpected happened!

The largest crystal facet trembled violently, and the water on its surface seemed to be activated instantly by some force. Instead of evaporating, it moved rapidly along the crystal's texture like a living thing.

Immediately afterwards, the entire crystal surface began to twist and rotate, and the golden light inside burst out with unprecedented brightness, instantly engulfing everything around it!
After the light faded, a stable and dazzling golden vortex portal appeared in the place where the crystal surface had been.

Moran, holding the now-empty crystal bottle, remained frozen in place, still in the position where she had finished striking it.

This...it's open already?
Even she herself found it hard to believe.

She simply noticed the most ordinary sound in the environment and made a seemingly meaningless imitation... and by sheer accident, she solved a puzzle that might have puzzled countless people?
It's hard to say whether this is the effect of the Luck spell.

Taking advantage of the fact that there was no one else around, Moran quickly stepped into the portal.

A strange and rich aroma wafted over.

She found herself standing in a dense forest, surrounded by trees of unique shapes. Their leaves were thick and fleshy, resembling soft cat paw pads, and emitted a peculiar fragrance.

"This is... a cat's paw tree?" Moran had read about this tree before. It was said that the fragrance emitted by the leaves of the cat's paw tree was particularly attractive to feline mirror beasts.

Having confirmed that this was a mirrorless space, Moran no longer hesitated. She immediately took out a broom, lightly leaped up, and propelled the broom straight upwards, breaking through the canopy of trees and arriving in the high sky.

From a bird's-eye view, the entire outline of the Mirror Space can be almost fully seen. Its area is quite considerable, much larger than a dense forest, and it can be classified as a medium-sized Mirror Space.

On the land, besides the vast cat's claw forest, you can also see winding rivers, a few small grasslands, and rolling hills in the distance.

Whether it can be considered a "resource-rich" mirror space is difficult to determine based on preliminary observations alone and requires further exploration.

However, for Moran, the size and resource potential of the space are no longer important; the primary task at hand is to find the core of the space.

She landed back on the ground and began the search.

However, the conditions in this space are different from those in a dense forest.

The most numerous trees here are cat's paw trees, which are relatively short and have underdeveloped root systems. They are far less capable than the moss guardians, whose roots can spread throughout the entire space to form a natural monitoring network. It is impossible to find the location of the core of the space by simply "asking" a particular tree.

We still have to resort to the most primitive but also the most reliable method: a comprehensive search.

If we're lucky, we might find it soon.

She planned her route and began to explore carefully, not letting go of any item with "mirror" properties.

They also encountered many mirror beasts living here.

They're basically at a three- to five-star level, posing no real threat to her.

Moreover, they all seem to be mainly felines, with varying forms, ranging from the small and agile lightning cat to the powerful saber-toothed tiger and leopard.

Moran had already collected all the materials from them. When he encountered them, he had no desire to hunt them. He usually controlled them and used the Tracing Technique to look through their past memories, trying to find clues about the location of the spatial core from the perspective of these mirror beasts.

The search of the underground area was left to the magical pet, Forest Moss.

The moss's roots can spread outwards and deep underground, searching for things in the soil—it's much better at that than she is.

A three-dimensional search network, encompassing the sky, the ground, and underground, was thus established.

There was no time for anxiety; Moran was quite calm.

She knew that finding the core was a time-consuming and laborious task that required luck and patience, so she carried out the search plan step by step.

She didn't know how much time had passed, how many sunrises and sunsets had occurred, but when she caught an exceptionally cunning and incredibly fast lightning cat and used her Origin Tracing Technique to read its past memories, she finally found a clue.

When this lightning cat was still a kitten, it accidentally swallowed a bright, mirror-like marble.

Since then, its original Lightning Leap skill has undergone an incredible evolution, becoming an even more powerful short-range teleport!
To find out if the marble was what he had been looking for, Moran decisively ended the life of the lightning cat. Then, he carefully cut open its abdomen and found a marble the size of a pigeon egg, perfectly round, and with a smooth, mirror-like surface, right next to the beast's core.

When Moran cautiously probed the small sphere with her mental energy, a familiar sensation came over her, and she knew it was the spatial core, no doubt about it!

No wonder we couldn't find it after searching for so long, and there was still no news from Sen Tai. It turned out to be hidden inside the belly of a Mirror Beast. (End of Chapter)