Infinite Realm

"Wow…" Xue Yan unconsciously let out a light gasp of admiration.

They had just walked into the hall and began to take the sights into their eyes and from Xue Yan's reaction, it was easy to see that the place was quite impressive.

Similar to the main area of the 10th floor, this entire place was a huge cavern system equipped with not just its own flora and fauna but also sunlight. Yes, sunlight! It was quite surprising to discover sunlight within a cavern located deep inside Black Grill's Mountain[1]. It wasn't that there was a hole made on the cavern's roof, letting in sunlight, instead there was a real sun located high above! The cavern's roofs were so high up that not only was there a sun but there were also clouds floating in the atmosphere. 

Green grass and tress with colorful flowers scattered all round, clan air drifting through the area, and a warm sunlight raining upon all creatures, such a magnificent scenery would make one feel that they weren't underground but outside instead. It was just like a picturesque scene right out of an award-winning Spring season photograph.

"This is unreal…" Xue Yan said, still in shock of environment. 

They had appeared dozens of metres away from the closest building so they were able to take in a part of the view of the cavern from here Behind them was a huge wall with a 5 metres wide 3 metres tall hole. It was from this hole that the two had arrived into this cavern. 

While Xue Yan was in shock, Sato, on the other hand, didn't give off such a strong reaction to the view as she did. He had already played a ton of other VR games and had seen similar scenes or even much better ones. The only noteworthy attribute Sato felt was worth complimenting was that the view was much better than other VR games in terms of graphics quality. But this was to be expected if one were to consider the fact that the game made use of 4 UHDR graphics; one especially developed just for this game.

While Xue Yan was lost in appreciating the beauty of the entire place, Sato surveyed the environment with his eyes, scanning for any signs or clues of a living creature or what not. 

The cavern was really large and by large, it was really really large. It could fit in two Middle region 10th floors and still have space for a third! One shouldn't forget that the Middle region's 10th floor was already big; big enough to fit in at least 2-3 standard football stadiums. In other words, this cavern could actually fit in 6 stadiums at a conservative estimate, but 9 stadiums at an exaggerated estimate. These stadiums weren't just your average college stadiums but one closing in on the Wembley stadium in terms of perimeter and area.

The entire cavern wasn't just filled with plants but also signs of civilization. These included but were not limited to, buildings, gates, statues and so on. The architectural layout of the entire cavern was such that all buildings extended outwards in a circle with the building right at the centre being the tallest of them all. Without a doubt, this edifice had to be a very important one to this civilization, possibly being the centre of government and representation of authority of the upper echelons of the civilization. If they were to investigate these buildings, Sato and Xue Yan would probably find a few information that would explain more to them about their current circumstance and also the original dwellers of this cavern. Sadly, most of the buildings were already wrecked beyond repair and recognition and the remaining ones left standing were still greatly damaged, just less when comparing them to the others.

"Let's go." Sato suddenly said.

Xue Yan, who he was obviously addressing, was shocked out of her reverie before she asked " Where to?"

Sato replied as he began walking forward, "The tallest building."

Of the entire buildings left standing, the one at the centre was the least damaged. Added to the fact that it was possibly the administrative centre of the civilization that resided here before, Sato felt that he would have a much higher chance of finding some answers in there than anywhere else.

The original goal was to find another way out but as things stood, the green-eyed kobold, which was most likely the real world class boss, wouldn't be defeated any time soon. Since that was the case, Sato decided to explore this cavern. Who knows, maybe he might find a good surprise down here.

As Sato and Xue Yan approached the centre of the cavern, they got closer to the various buildings and were able to see them up close which was better when compared to doing so from far out.

While a majority of the buildings were made of stones and bricks, a couple of them had wood mixed in. The architectural style of the houses was one never seen before. The houses were either made in a rectangular format or a squarish one. Lines were drawn on the walls with the spacing between each being accurate to the last millimetre. Even the houses were equally spaced out and had the exact same scale. In other words, each rectangular house, though might not be equally the same in measurements, but they were in a scale. For rectangular houses, it was a 3:4:2[2] while square-type houses went by 1:1:1[3]. 

Another noticeable fact about the houses was that the doors stood at a height of 3 metres. Normally, an average human was about 175-180cm(5.74-5.91 feet) in height and though they were some towered above that, it wasn't so absurd. With a height of around 175-180cm, unless one was building a luxurious palace or hotel, logically, the doors should be at a height of 2-2.5 metres(6.56-8.520 feet). Most of the houses here looked like residential houses and not anything special. So for the homes to have a door height of 3 metres, this implied that either this civilization had a tradition of making tall doors or their average height was much taller than regular humans. 

'This brings us back to the question of who they are. Are they humans or another race?'Sato thought as he glanced deeply at a door close-by.

Apart from the rubble and partly wrecked houses, there seemed to be nothing else worth taking note of, that is from the outside.

"Let's check out a few of these houses." Sato suddenly said. Though a majority of the houses were wrecked beyond recognition, some of them were still standing. Since the buildings looked to be devoid of any living creature, Sato wasn't planning on letting any possible spoils go free like that. Even more possible was the prospect that he could find a clue as to which civilization existed here and learn more about their history and culture. The buildings were wrecked beyond recognition so Sato wasn't able to get any information on the civilization based off of their architectural designs.

"Okay." Xue Yan nodded. Sato was the de-facto of the current 'team' plus he had also saved her so Xue Yan wasn't inclined to argue with him.

Since they were already within the city, the duo didn't need to worry much about where to start from. All they had to do was to look for the closest sturdy building that was only partially devastated. While this sounded easy, one should recall that most of the houses were already destroyed, so the somewhat easy sounding task was actually a lot difficult than one would think. Luckily for the duo, there was one just a few metres in front.

The selected house was a 2 story building with each story averaging at about 5 or 7 metres in height. It was brown in colour and had a few engraved lines and images on the outer walls, acting as a sort of design for the house. Sliding a finger across the wall, Sato noticed that there was no sort of remnant ash or soil on his hand or even his sword after he made a mark on it using his blade. In other words, the material used to make the building was sturdy and had a smooth surface, similar to concrete or wood. This goes to show that the construction technology of this civilization was above average for an ancient ones. They didn't use mud or created rough works out of wood but instead used an unknown material that was as sturdy as concrete. They also smoothened the walls of the buildings and while this didn't seem to tell much, it showed that their aesthetic and design senses were approaching that of the current era. Added with the murals and engravings in the corridor from earlier, at their peak, this civilization didn't seem to be lacking as compared to the current era, in terms of art and aesthetics. To put it in another way, this ancient civilization was anything but old-fashioned.

The target house wasn't all that complete as it was partially demolished. Half of the roof was gone alongside a part of the 2nd floor. Only the ground floor(1st floor) and the door were left complete. Of the majority of partially demolished buildings, this one was a bit more complete than the rest. Because of this, there was a limited space left for searching and this was what Sato wanted. Their main goal was still the building at the centre and Sato didn't want to spend too much time checking out other buildings.

"Be on guard." Sato said to Xue Yan. While it looked like the entire place was devoid of living creatures, Sato wouldn't start treating it as such until this was proven. This was why he had taken on a cautious guard and requested Xue Yan to do the same.

Placing one hand on the door, Sato applied a bit of force and pushed it outwards.