Several people gathered in a small, damp cave, hundreds of meters beneath the ground. The way down here was passable at best with the sole navigation tool being the spacesuits.

  Natalia questioned her earlier decision to let Pierre and Roman explore this deep. Even with her Level 6 reflexes, she didn’t feel comfortable down here.

  For some, unexplained reason, she didn’t sense the same feelings from others who joined their exploratory team. Not to mention the terraforming duo who appeared ecstatic. It was yet to be explained to Natalia why an underground river was such a big deal.

  At the far end of the cave a fast flowing water marked the river in question. One of Trisk’s apprentices came down as well to do some minor terraforming. For one, the river was wide and deep enough that a person could fall inside and get snatched away by the strong current. She was assured by the spacesuit’s AI that such a turn of events was extremely unlikely as the suit would have warned anyone getting close to the underground river but Natalia preferred to have redundancy and precautions in place.

  Because of that, she had Trisk’s apprentice here to erect a metre high wall around the river. Natalia would have Trisk to come down but he had too much on his plate right now. Apart from them, she brought Ragnar and had a direct line to Rell who was currently at the spaceship. Somehow, he’d gotten wind of the discovery and contacted her on her way down. He too believed that an underground river was a big deal but refused to answer any detailed question until they had a proper analysis.

  Which would require one person to dip their arm into the water. It was good to know that neither Pierre nor Roman were stupid enough to have done this before telling her about the river.

  Because she was the highest Level among them and had a handy spell, [Glue], she felt confident about this.

  “Done,”Trisk’s apprentice said after he’d finished the wall with a narrow space that would fit an arm, giving Natalia safe access to the water.

  “That’s overkill,” Rell complained. “The current isn’t strong enough to drag you with it.”

  “You don’t know it,” she replied as she approached the wall. For some reason, the idea of plunging an arm into black water filled her with mute horror. She knew there was no risk to her. The spacesuit was made of an incredibly sturdy material, she was Level 6 and had Healing Talent. She could even stand her ground against the likes of Keynes and her sister, gods, she was so happy to face rifts monsters and yet, this little river terrified her.

  Why?

  She knew the answer but she wasn’t ready to face it. Soon enough, she banished her thoughts and reached through the gap in the wall and dipped her hand in the river. She didn’t feel anything as the suit insulated her from the external environment. Even at this depth, the air wasn’t breathable. While it wasn’t exactly toxic like the surface, it had no oxygen or nitrogen either.

  A few seconds later, she pulled her hand from the water. The analysis came a moment after that.

  Despite calling the liquid in the river water, they hadn’t been sure if it in fact was water, which the analysis confirmed to be the case. Cheers from Pierre and Roman, and a snarky comment from Rell indicated that it was a big deal.

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  On top of that, the water was only minimally toxic with around 1% of the surface toxicity. According to the analysis, someone like Natalia would survive a single gulp without any permanent issues. She clearly was missing something because it felt like this water was technically useless to them. At this point, they had over ten [Create Water] skills among them so they didn’t worry about going thirsty.

  “No organic life,”Pierre noted.

  “Expected,” Rell said flatly.

  “Maybe,” Roman added. “But we’re so far away from the surface that…”

  “That you should be glad,” Rell said harshly. “Extraterrestrial organic life could be messy stuff. So don’t complain.”

  “Alright, I need someone to explain this to me because so far I haven’t seen anything useful,” Natalia said, she was slowly losing patience with them. “And I’d rather seal this place, just in case someone thought it smart to check out where this river leads.” Even as she spoke these words, she shuddered at the vision of someone entering the underground void.

  “Seal? Why seal?” Perrie and Roman were already on the defence. “Natalia—”

  “Enough,” she snapped at them. “Make your case, now, or we’re done here.”

  “There are few main benefits here,”Rell said before either Pierre or Roman managed to speak. “A sustainable water source. Practically, a fundamental requirement for a proper agriculture. And I know what you’d say. We have [Create Water] and such. No. That spell is bad in the long term as the water created by it is pure without any minerals. Having a source of terrestrial water is always superior in that aspect. You should read how deep in shit the colonies on Mars and Venus were dealing with filtered and purified water.

  Anyway, the second benefit is hydroelectric power. While the world got drunk on using mana as a power source, only a few years ago, 99,99% of energy used on Earth was electricity. Our research during my time in Untainted Paradise found that electric and mana systems are working surprisingly well with each other. Having electricity on top of mana would add a much needed failsafe to the surface base.

  Lastly, but not the least, we can use the river as a part of the cooling system.”

  “That’s not all,” Pierre cut in, surprisingly annoyed. “These are minor benefits, which can easily be substituted by water and cold air from rifts.”

  “What this river offers us is something no rifts currently can,” Roman stepped in. “We can use this water for global terraforming via ecosystem introduction.”

  Natalia expected Rell to call these two idiots or Ragnar tell them that it wasn’t viable but no one spoke up. What was going on?

  “This actually has merit,” Rell mused after a moment of silence. “The analysis makes it likely that the river has a substantial reach to make it a good delivery system.”

  “And there is more,” a new voice said via comms. It belonged to Persephone. “We can magically enrich the water with the dust from the magical rocks. It’ll make anything you do far more effective.”