Rin's spirit drained as he clawed his way through the third sleepless night, haunted by Shogon's words. He allowed himself to drift into a trance-like state and meditated for solace. Time and space around him pulsed with an ethereal energy, and he could almost feel the vibrations of his own breath as he inhaled and exhaled.
A metallic voice snapped him back to reality: "Mr. Shento, someone will be escorting you to your duty shortly." Rin opened his eyes, beholding the metal box connected to the wall by a long, thin black rope. The device's static, unfeeling sound was loud in the small room, woke Rin from his rest.
The door clattered open, and a mammoth of a man appeared in a uniform. His massive frame filled the doorway, and his deep-set eyes seemed to bore into Rin's mind. "Mr. Shento, please come with me; I am taking you to your duty today," he said plainly, his words were rumbling like a wild bear.
"Duty? I'm not obligated to any duties! Please leave me in peace," Rin retorted, crossing his arms over his chest and closing his eyes again.
"Please come with me. This is part of your training," the giant man said relentlessly, his eyes never leaving Rin's face.
Out of curiosity, Rin followed the giant man down infinite tunnels where the air became hot and sticky with humidity. The walls of the tunnel seemed to close in around them, and the sound of digging and drilling filled the dusted air. They arrived at an entrance to a gargantuan cave from which workers dressed in plainclothes lugged heavy loads in and out. Their faces were streaked with dirt, and their backs bowed under the weight of their burdens.
"From now on, you will be working here and sleeping here. Meals will be provided along with the other workers," the giant man told Rin gruffly.
Two men in worker uniforms abruptly approached Rin, inspected him harshly, and handed him tools and clothing before pushing him unceremoniously into line beside other new arrivals that were shuffling their way into the cave's depths, where temperatures soared close to 36 degrees Celsius.
Rin had been a prisoner in this cave, toiling at manual labor for months. Each night he slept among his fellow slaves in an adjacent camp. Despite several attempts, Rin could never escape—just endure the merciless beatings that followed each failed try.
But endurance had strengthened him. His thin and scrawny figure was now muscled and fit. Meditating became Rin's only respite from hard labor; he would practice when the others were sleeping. The rhythmic sound of dripping cave water and humming buzz of flies became his nightly companions.
Tonight, while meditating, Rin overheard two men talking.
"I've been here over two years! When do I get to start training? This is all a lie!" a tall man complained, standing so quickly he almost struck his head on the low-ceilinged cave.
"Shhh! If they hear you, they'll punish us with extra hours of work. Just look at that monk there — if he can handle it, so can you," said a smaller man as he burrowed beneath some straw bedclothes. "Just be grateful you're still alive."
When both men had fallen asleep, Rin finished meditating and prepared for another day's work.
"Hey you! Monk! We need more workers at the other site. Come with me!" barked a supervisor, his grate was harsh for Rin's ear in the morning. His face was stern, a rigid mask of authority that held no room for discussion. Rin reluctantly rose to his feet, the soreness in his muscles protesting as he did so.
The supervisor led Rin away from the camp and into another cave. When they reached their destination, Rin saw fifty wounded and injured workers stretched out outside the excavation. They lay sprawled on the ground, their faces contorted in pain and fear.
"What happened to them?" Rin asked the supervisor who clenched as he had seen too much of such tragic for the past few months.
"This site isn't safe," the supervisor warned Rin, his eyes brushed over the injured workers with an unsettling detachment. "We think we hit sandstone with the explosives, but who knows? Too many men already hurt. Follow me."
Rin followed the supervisor into a manual transport cart that ambled deeper and deeper below ground, the temperature dropping with every inch they descended till it was almost below zero. After five minutes, they reached a vast cave where strange cuboid objects jutted from the walls like shards of glass. The objects seemed to shimmer by itself from no source of light, their surfaces were polished and extremely solid.
In the north side of the chamber, a towering structure rose some five hundred feet in height, its sides carved with intricate reliefs and half embedded in the cliff face. The sheer scale of the structure was awe-inspiring, and Rin couldn't help but feel dwarfed by its presence. Through an excavation tunnel came a loud explosion, screaming and yelling sound of worker erupted from all direction. "Be careful! C8 tunnel had collapsed!" A minor quake shook for few seconds beneath the workers' feet.
"Not everyone gets to work here—you should feel honored," said the supervisor, he spoke with a mislead and blinded sort of pride. "But they need more hands now. Go check in with the foreman!" He ushered Rin onward, pushing him towards where all the new workers were being registered.
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Rin signed in with the foreman who was a short scrawny man, "oh, you are the new guy! You are here just in time. Something happened at the 5th dig site. Come with me."
Rin nodded as he felt an unshakable present of evil that clung like a second skin to his body. The walls seemed to pulse with an unusual energy, as if the very rock itself bore witness to its long history.
Just few hundred feet from the entrance of the 5th dig site, a crowd of workers brawled and protested. A dozen foremen held long sticks pushing the workers back.
"What happened here?" Rin asked, he could barely speak over the cacophony of noise.
"Some odd things had been happening in this dig site. Some workers thought this place is cursed." The short scrawny foreman told Rin while gave him a used wool coat, its fabric worn and moth-eaten. "The weird temperature drop is another thing that's scaring a lot of workers. Usually, the temperature is much higher as you go deeper. But here, it's the opposite." He cast a sideways glance at Rin before pushing open a door, its hinges groaning in protest.
"Just moment ago, an explosive went off accidentally. Some workers were killed and heavily wounded." The foreman led Rin into a branch tunnel where there were three other workers already working at the site.
The foreman briefly gave Rin an introduction of his duty and his coworkers, "Start working! Don't let me catch you guys slacking off."
The foreman gave Rin the duty to load the rocks and dust out of the site with another worker, it didn't take long for them to become friendly, because the other worker used live in a temple himself. They shared many similar topics from their memories.
"My name is Kei, you are a monk too? Ha ha, ha I can't tell. Your tattoo is something!" Kei, the young boy of late teen stared at Rin's mark on the shoulder.
Rin hadn't had a haircut in weeks, and his mane now draped over his shoulders like an extension of his long coat.
"Are you also here to become an immortal? I came all the way from China to here to train. Generations from my family had done research for years to find them and I was the only one who made it here. How about you? How did you find them?" The boys asked many questions.
"I didn't find them, they found me." Rin replied while hauling rocks into the carrier. Rin found one thing in common among the workers he met for the past few months; that was they were all either looter, thief, or robber, but all claimed themselves as "explorer". They were all hunting for the secret of the Immortality, greed as their grand prize.
"Ha ha, you must be special!" Kei teased Rin.
As Rin used the shuffle to collect rocks that were scattered and piled on the ground, he discovered something unusual. A wooden box stuck between the crack of a large stone. He reached forward in attempt to get the box out, a strong vibration rocked the entire tunnel, a heavy large rock broke off from the tunnel ceiling and about to hit Kei from above. Rin rushed forward to push him out of the way, instead he got buried into a pile of rocks that blocked the entrance of the tunnel.