It was ultimately not the stone they were looking for, however.

Althea and the rest of them decided that the samples they had were enough to bring back to Alterra for future studies.

For now, they had to continue looking for the mysterious Elyssian stone first, and they’d just send the sample stones back for someone else to study.

The difference when she Earth Scanned this time was that they had the mystery metal. When she held on to it, the scope she could see with her earth ability increased to more than a kilometer away.

With this, they could choose their hunting spots farther away and save time in the process.

Garan looked at her worriedly. "What if there are side effects?"

"I know my body best," she said. She was confident, but seeing the worry in the man’s eyes, she couldn’t help but compromise a bit. "I will use it once a day."

They noticed that the first batch was a bit more nuclear. They radiated more nuclear energy.

The second batch, which came later, had less. The difference was nearly negligible...they could only determine this because they had the machine that could accurately measure this.

They moved the AWG in the cave, setting it up as their new base camp. They took the water it gathered so far and placed it in the space before they headed out.

Because Althea had already scanned this area using the new metal, they could directly skip kilometers of area and choose a new center point to start ’scanning’.

It was just that the number of undead everywhere was staggering. After the mountain range that separated the Undead from the rest of the world, the rest of the surfaces had tons of undead.

The exemptions were probably the top of some mesas, but even some had undead on them.

This meant that to be able to travel a kilometer away was a challenge. Even if they had two level 30s in their party, it was not possible for them to just ’swim’ in this endless mob and leave unscathed.

While they were staring at the endless number of Undead, platforms made of ice appeared in front of them. It wasn’t a continuous bridge—that was too energy-consuming—rather it was several platforms a few meters high and about ten to fifteen meters apart.

They looked at Garan, whose expressions remained impassive. "They won’t stay upright forever," he said. Even if his level was high, their designation was more than a kilometer away. Even he would have to watch his consumption, and he might not be able to help much during the actual battle.

Garan lifted Althea up, and Sinnan lifted Medusa, and they jumped over the platforms, with Garan creating new ones as needed.

Ten to fifteen meters was not a short distance, after all, and only those with high levels could be effortless about it. Althea could jump that distance, too. It was just that doing so for a kilometer would tire her out too much, so she happily let her husband do the work, naturally wrapping her delicate arms around him.

They arrived at their destination sometime later. This time, it was Althea who created a platform because it was much easier to create permanent platforms with earth than any other element.

This was energy-consuming because it’d have to carry four adults fighting constantly and withstand the weight of the Undead mob below. So, Althea never volunteered to make the pathway before. Anyway, those could be rebuilt later.

KKKKRHHRHKKHRHH!

They looked at the sea of Undead below them, with only their small platform separating them. Althea pushed it up a bit higher by instinct, so that the Undead—as they had tested before—and their limited ’2D vision’ would not rush to attack them.

Both Garan and Althea consumed quite a bit of mana early on, so the two of them were constrained to using their weapons. The two of them used crossbows this time to preserve strength.

They also began to master the Undead’s pattern of movements, behavior, and the like, most of which were extremely consistent. It was almost like they were duplicates of each other. If it weren’t for their different appearances, height, and so on, they might’ve really thought so.

They would stay there for a bit, but not for too long. Unlike the first batch, Althea could start scanning from the safety of the platform. This was made easier because of the mystery stone.

Althea also couldn’t keep her promise of using the metal once a day. Garan relented, but only for three times.

For the next two days, they managed to scan several areas with this technique. At night, they would find a nearby mesa’s tableland to drag their tired bodies and camp there.

When the third day ended, Althea reached level 22.

In each location, Medusa was there to check the cores and some carcasses. Whenever they collected cores, mostly recovered by Althea’s vines, they would study the composition if there were any differences, add-ons, and the like.

For the first two days, there was not much difference, but by the third day, they began to notice something after shifting directions.

The Undead’s cores were less radioactive, a bit fainter, and the Undead themselves a lot less tanky.

Afternoon of the next day, Medusa looked at the others. "After testing 10 Undead in this area, and 10 from the previous sector, I am 100% certain that the cores and undead in this direction are a bit different."

The difference was not big, but considering how consistent the data was before, even a slight difference was significant.

Specifically, this difference increased as they headed more in this direction.

It took them several more hours of brainstorming before they finally figured it out. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

It was aether. The more aether there was, the less nuclear it was.

The Undead quite liked Aether, which was why they also go in the direction of territories whenever they were wandering. It was ironic as it would weaken them, but the situation reminded them of bugs heading straight to fire.

Althea looked at the others. "In theory, the Elysian Stone should have an ample amount of aether, right?"