The three major mercenary groups can be described as elite for this mission, and there is no intention of hiding their selfishness at all. Wells's identity as the honorary president of the Mercenary Guild may not be anything to others, but in the mercenary circle, he has a status beyond Liu Li's imagination. Although this mission was released in the name of Landolia, it was Wells who drew up the contract, and several mercenary groups wanted to show it well, so that their team's ranking could be moved forward, and the benefits were much more important than the rewards of this mission.

The "Steel Blade" mercenary group is ranked ninth in the Kronos Empire, and with this ranking, it can already have a station of its own in the plains in the north-central part of the empire. Even the Imperial Family had no right to deprive it of it for no reason, and the size of the garrison was no less than that of the fiefdoms of the nobles below the earl. "Gangfeng" benefits from the income of the territory, and can allocate enough resources to cultivate the strength of team members, so that this ranking is more stable, and a virtuous circle is achieved. It is precisely because of this status that the two brothers, Cook and Masla, are frequently invited to drinking parties held by nobles.

The top three mercenary groups in the empire are even larger than the average marquisate, and the benefits are even more exaggerated. The two brothers, who are not willing to be resigned to the current ranking, will naturally not miss the mission released by the "Honorary President". If the evaluation of this mission is higher, it is estimated that there will be no problem in making the ranking of "Steel Blade" rise by one place.

The mercenaries of the Kronos Empire have such a high status that their counterparts in other countries cannot envy, who let the fifth emperor of the empire make the same choice as Wells before succeeding to the throne - to run away to become a mercenary with his own interests. Even in just thirty years, this prince relied on his extremely high talent and unremitting efforts, coupled with the help of the heirloom ancient sword in his hand, to be promoted to a seventh-order martial artist and sat on the throne of the president of the Mercenary Guild.

When the prince named Gisien was active as a mercenary, he helped countless of his peers. Originally, the imperial family did not intend to let this "disgraceful" prince inherit the throne, but he was the best among brothers, especially after the promotion to the seventh order was confirmed, all opposition came to an abrupt end. His popularity among the people is far beyond the imagination of the royal family and nobles, and at the ceremony on the day of Gisien's succession, the legendary title of "Mercenary King" resounded throughout the imperial capital.

For thousands of years, although not every emperor has been a rare emperor, at least he has been able to make less progress and more than enough to keep his achievements, and so far there has been no such thing as self-destruction. Until now, the relationship between the mercenaries and the royal family has been extremely harmonious.

According to the statistics of those who are interested, the combined area of the garrison of all regular mercenary teams registered in the empire accounts for more than one-sixth of the territory of the empire. Mercenaries have such a high status in the Kronos Empire, and naturally they also have corresponding responsibilities. In times of peril for the Empire, they must step up. In the thousands of years since Gicien succeeded to the throne, the empire has experienced wars large and small, and even threatened the dominance of the royal family on several occasions, but all of them were saved by the help of mercenaries. According to the mercenaries, "There is no place in the world that is more comfortable than here, and we must protect her." A simple "she" word is enough to explain the mercenary's attitude towards the Empire.

Liu Li didn't know how to evaluate the task arrangement this time, the front was decent, there was nothing out of the ordinary, and even considering all kinds of possible accidents, it was not too much to say that it was not leaky. Only the final closing stage has Landolia's crazy style, but fortunately, there are not too many people involved at the end of the mission, and Landolia didn't even inform a few mercenary captains of her crazy plan.

In Landolia's plan, because of the different locations of the magic circles, the route of travel varies from long to short, and the five teams need to enter the dark cavern in batches to avoid suspicious Odin spies that may exist in Shadow Iron Town. Of course, it is impossible for such a large-scale operation to go completely undetected, but the main purpose of such an arrangement is to delay time. The later they spread the news to the bottom of the cave, the more time they had to set up the circle.

According to Landolia's arrangement, the three mercenary groups were divided into five teams, each accompanied by two mid-level spellcasters under Wells. Each spellcaster carries a piece of black ** and crystal containing the spiritual mark of Landoria as a road marker, so that the vice dean can teleport over in time to arrange the magic circle.

The strength of each team can be more intuitively reflected from the detachment, among which the "Gray Corner" mercenary group is responsible for the setting of a magic circle, the "Shadow Iron" mercenary group can also only set up one place, and the most powerful "Steel Blade" mercenary group needs to be divided into three and go to the three locations where the magic circle is set up.

In fact, it is still reluctant for the "Shadow Iron" mercenary group to be in charge of a magic circle alone, after all, the strength of their team is only about half of that of the "gray corner", but they have one of the biggest advantages - locals. The career of a mercenary cannot be lived for a lifetime, and as you get older, the decline of your physical strength is inevitable, and even a powerful warrior can only slow down the process at most. There is no shortage of retired mercenaries from the "Shadow Iron" mercenary group, although they can't fight on the front line with their companions, they can stay in the station on the outskirts of Shadow Iron Mountain to cultivate new fires for the team. For this mission, these "old men" went out of the mountain together and returned to their old jobs. Shadow Iron Town is their home, and if something really goes wrong in the Dark Cave, the first ones to be affected are their families. It is their duty to defend their hometown.

The location of the magic circle assigned by Liu Li was the farthest from the entrance of the dark cave, and because of this, his team was also the first to enter the cave. Squirrel and Lin were naturally with him, accompanied by the more familiar "Gray Corner" mercenary group.

The Squirrel is an excellent scout for the team, and as she has become more proficient in martial arts, she has even been able to pass through the shadowy beasts of the Shadow Beasts without being noticed in the dark underground environment of the Dark Cavern. The transition between stillness and movement is mellow, and the light and agile body is like a real cat, and there is silence between walks. The only thing that makes Liu Li a little unhappy is that it is getting harder and harder to catch her tail, of course, this is indeed not a good time to pet the cat, and Liu Li will not be unimportant.

"There are shadow beasts in the passage on the right side of the front at a distance of about 100 meters, and there are thirteen of them, and no particularly powerful individuals have been found. "The voice of a squirrel can be heard in the telepathic communication network.

Thanks to Liu Li's spiritual communication network, the team's march has been very smooth. Although psychic communication is a basic spell that is not advanced, it also takes nearly fifty percent of Liu Li's energy to maintain a network covering hundreds of people. Now he is like an ordinary spellcaster, protected in the middle of the team. In fact, Liu Li's ability to do this was already extremely surprising to the two middle-level mages accompanying the team, maintaining such a large spiritual communication network, Winnie and Max asked themselves if they could barely do it with their middle-level spiritual power. But to keep the situation of "breaking the line" in the battle, the two can only say that it is a miracle. It can be seen that Liu Li's spiritual strength is several times more than that of spellcasters of the same level.

That's right, the mid-level mages who follow the "Gray Corner" mercenary group are none other than Winnie and Max, two of Landolia's most impressive students.

Wells's mage team naturally majors in red spells. The dark caverns are rich in black elements, but they don't repel other color elements like the Eastern Swamp before the circle is activated, and these mid-level mages have no problem casting spells here. And when the circle is activated, the black spells they have minored in can also come in handy, so that they will not lose all their combat power due to the activation of the circle. In fact, for these mid-level mages, although the number of black spells is not very large, most of the time they are even more handy than red spells. There is no way, who let them be the students brought out by Landolia, and the vice dean is specialized in spells.

"Flaming Blade. As Max's spell was successfully cast, the weapons in the hands of several mercenaries in the front row emitted a dazzling red light, and then disappeared again. Mercenaries can clearly detect the change in their weapons - although the light is faint, if it slashes at the enemy, the damage will be increased by at least 50%.

Max is at the bottom of the entire mage team, but he is the most optimistic one for Wells, if he hadn't accepted Liu Li as an apprentice before, Wells might have taught him as a personal disciple. Majoring in the red element, Max has the same understanding of spells as Wells.

How can teaching apprentices also need to consume resources, with Liu Li such a pervert in front of him, Wells has always had a feeling that "those precious materials in his own small warehouse are about to leave him". If it weren't for that, even Landolia wouldn't want to share her own disciples with him. Well, of course, Wells is just obsessed with it, and Landolia really decided to do something, and he can't stop it.

Winnie is a true legend of Landolia, specializing in spells, she is extremely hot in the use of spells, and her strength is firmly in the top spot of the mage team. If it weren't for the lack of a sense of the big picture, the captain's position would not have fallen to the slightly inferior Heathman. She also majored in red spells, and what she was best at was the thunder and lightning spells that Liu Li was familiar with. When the team turned to the right aisle, it was Winnie who attacked first.

"Shock...... Shake...... Shake...... Thunder!" A first-order primary lightning direct shot spell was thrown into the form of chain lightning by Winnie, not seeking to cause much damage, just to paralyze the shadow beasts for a moment, and then the electric ball formed by "Thunder" shot out and exploded in the center of the herd. The thirteen shadow beasts were all skinned and fleshy under the blow of the spell, and counting the paralysis caused by the lightning spell, before the battle was engaged, the combat power was reduced by more than thirty percent.

"Excited!" Liu Li uncharacteristically did not use offensive spells, but cast a green auxiliary magic, although the effect is far less obvious than when Heng plays the war song through the carved demon pattern harp, but it will not be like the war song, as the performance stops and loses its effect, it can be said that there are advantages and disadvantages.

"Agility! New life!" Liu Li kept casting spells, completely replicating the state of blessing when he and Heng walked through the Transverse Rift Valley and fought with the rock beasts. This not only gave the mercenaries facing the Shadow Beast a small increase in strength and agility, but even increased their endurance, slowing down their physical exertion, and slowly healing the abrasions they accidentally received over time.

Liu Li is helpless to do this, in fact, he is better at offensive spells, how can it be too difficult to maintain the smooth spiritual communication network in the battle, resulting in his inability to accurately control the spells in his hand, Liu Li doesn't want to make any oolongs because of his poor state.

A small encounter ended without danger, and the Shadow Beasts couldn't even break through the front row of mercenaries. After a brief break to recover, the team moved on. More than an hour had passed, and the entire team had already covered a third of the planned distance, and the second team should have entered the dark cavern at this time. Liu Li had a hunch that this mission might not be as smooth as he imagined.