Mined Games chapter 24 (Patreon)

Hefting up my pick, I brought it slamming down on one of the stones, putting my all into the swing to try to get through this last gold ore faster. The gold rocks were always the hardest to get through, though they were getting easier now as I got stronger.

I was still only about sixty percent into the first circle of Apprentice, which was actually perfect because it wasn’t a good idea to progress too fast. A one time boost was easy to wave off, but if I made it to second circle within a few weeks it would be too noticeable. I needed to kill some time before I moved up so people would forget about me.

In the meantime, the best use of my time was mining and saving up my coins, and this last chunk of gold would be all I needed to reach the approximate value of a crystal coin. Luckily the elevator didn’t require me to use the exact denomination of coin, I just needed the value, which meant I was about to reach the next level of the mine at last.

Grimacing as I checked my inventory, I let out an involuntary whistle at the sight. It had been a little over a week and a half since I’d started at the Guild, and I’d just barely scraped together enough money while basically completely ignoring my condensation. A thousand gold coins. A single tier one crystal coin.

I dropped the last coin into the slot, stepping into the elevator and seeing the dial that let me select my floor shift to show a four. I sighed in relief. It had been such an ordeal I hadn’t been sure it would even work. Some part of me half expected all the effort to be wasted, but now I was finally ready for the next floor.

As I flipped the switch to begin my descent, I wondered if perhaps learning the truth about myself and my mom had changed how I saw the world too much. I’d spent almost every waking day training, learning, and mining. I spent time with Cecily in classes, and Alec in the dorm, and even made time now and then for Tara when we weren’t busy, but it was all so…formulaic. The social stuff were boxes I checked to make sure I got them done.

I hadn’t had any real FUN since that dinner with Olivia and Tara. Well, not fun that didn’t involve training. I enjoyed my time with Cecily, even outside the spell casting, but we didn’t SPEND that much time doing anything but spellcasting. The girl was every bit the workaholic I was.

When the elevator reached the cavern, I stepped out to look around, expecting to see fields of gold and silver. There seemed to be a huge jump in value every time. Maybe there would be platinum stones down here, or maybe a hundred gold stones. Instead of more rocks with greater value though, I saw fewer rocks, and the metal in them seemed dark and dull.

Frowning, I snagged a pick from the rack and approached one, beginning my mining without bothering to explore too much. I finished the stone quickly enough, and when I checked my inventory I was pretty shocked. Iron. Mana touched iron specifically. This wasn’t useless currency metal. This was SMITHING material

I looked around excitedly, counting the rocks. Sadly, I only had three iron here, ten of what I learned after a quick mining attempt was tin (which I knew from my materials class was combined with copper to make bronze) and one final rock shot through with glowing blue stone.

Mining that one was so exciting I almost dropped the pick, because I was almost positive I knew what it was, and after finishing the stone I was blown away to see that I had been right. The last rock in the fourth floor of the mine was MANA STONES.

Now, in terms of usefulness, mana stones weren’t up there with mana crystals. They were low enough in mana that they weren’t as useful for me in terms of condensation anymore, but having access to mana stones would open up a great many doors for me, and I had dozens of uses for these things in mind.

Once I finished, I turned to head back to the elevator…and froze. I couldn’t see it from the entrance, but off to one side, in the back of the cavern was a building. I approached carefully, keeping an eye out for any dangers as I tried to figure out what was going on.

As I got closer, I could see the sign above the door of the well kept wooden structure. “Cid’s Resupply and General Store”. I could see from the lights that there was someone inside, and while I had no clue how anyone could be down here, knowing there might be another human was…a bit of a shock.

I pushed open the swinging door, stepping into the wooden building and marveling at the fully stocked shelves with a variety of items. Despite the interesting items though, my eyes were drawn to the smiling, affable, older man standing behind the counter, looking at me kindly with warm green eyes.

“Howdy.” He said in an accent I hadn’t heard before. “What can I do for you?” Her voice was warm and inviting and…I’ll be honest, I kind of froze up for a second. Putting aside that I could count the number of people who had been that kind to me in my life on one hand, I’d gotten so used to being alone down here aside from Barew.

I swallowed hard and approached with a smile. “Um. I’m not sure. I was down here working and stumbled on your shop. Maybe you could tell me about what kinds of items you have for sale?” My words were tentative, like I was afraid that by saying the wrong thing I’d break the illusion and he’d vanish.

He chuckled. “I reckon I could do that. This is a resupply station for miners. We have rope, carts, lanterns, picks, potions, and even a few useful trinkets to help out around the mine while you’re working. If you need it, we’ve got it. Once a month, we even have an artificer stop in. One of them fancy mechanical experts that can fix machines for you, even if they’re a bit pricey.”

Machines…I knew that word. Those were devices like the magic forge and condenser. My eyes went wide. If I could fix either of those it would massively help with my progress. But somehow, it was something else she said that made me more excited.

Potions. There were amazing things in the mine, and the potions were probably just as good. If I could buy some and bring them up to Tara and Olivia, they might be able to make the concoctions themselves. There was a good chance that would be a huge help to their business, and it would be a good first step in repaying Olivia for everything she’d done for me.

Not to mention I knew the older woman loved potions and alchemy. The chance to study a new product would be priceless to her. “Alright then, what kind of currency do you use? If you don’t mind me asking.” I suspected it was coins, since the magic forge I used to make them was from here.

Sure enough, he just grinned at me. “Gold, silver, copper. The usual. I take it you have an order you’d like to place?”

I had probably ten silver worth of copper on me. I used the silver when opening the elevator, but copper coins weren’t much good to me these days, since the only things I bought were crystals that tended to cost larger denominations.

“Well, what kind of potions do you have? And how much for them?” Even if they were the basic Stamina potions, they might be a different mixture or use another base. Olivia could learn a lot from them.

Cid smiled, his salt and pepper mustache ruffling. The portly old shop keeper was wearing a red vest and dark pants, with a white long sleeved shirt on. His close cropped hair was the same dark with the odd white streak that his mustache was, and he had plenty of laugh lines on his face as he tapped on the counter while he answered.

“Well, we’ve got the usual. Health, mana, and stamina. Lesser, Moderate, and Greater potions. The lesser are ten silver, the Moderate ten gold, and the Greater potions are ten platinum.” My eyes went wide in existential dread at the absurd prices. The idea of paying ten platinum for something to DRINK was…jarring.

Still, that wasn’t the main shock. No, that was the existence of MANA potions. Condensation required packing mana into your crystals and letting them evolve as you went, leaving them in a half advanced state that provided some benefits in terms of usage, but didn’t become fully activated until you finished all of the condensation and the crystals harmonized.

However, this was based on the actual makeup of the crystals. Pushing mana into a depleted crystal didn’t REFILL them, it helped them improve. Once you hit Apprentice rank you couldn’t do anything to refill your mana stores. You just had to let them recover over time. According to Cid though, this mana potion would refill your mana directly and instantly.

That would be a world shaking capability. In fact, it might be TOO world shaking. If Tara or Olivia released something like that they’d be hunted down by the king, at LEAST. The health potion was surprising but not nearly as much, and would be about as useful, so I bought one of those for Tara to look over.

Health potions were more than possible, of course, I’d even used one myself. These seemed to be much more effective though, with the Lesser health potion capable of closing serious injuries nearly instantly.

Hanging over all my coppers was…unfortunate, but it was necessary. Besides, this store would still be here later, and I could always mine more. I’d be able to spend gold or silver here soon enough, though the copper ore would probably go towards creating mana tinged bronze with that tin I’d mined.

Finishing up, I headed back out into the closet and then trekked back to my room, tired and ready to go to sleep. Tomorrow I’d arranged to finally have my first class on combat with the guild guard, and I was really looking forward to it.

Finally learning how to fight would be a good way to protect myself, and Cecily had even agreed to sign up with me. Given her gift for fire magic I was betting she’d kick ass. I plopped down in my bed with a groan, careful to keep it down so I didn’t wake Alec, and thought over all the shocks from the day.

I had questions for Cid, about how he was down there, about the mining company in general, but I’d been too stunned to ask them so they’d need to wait. The existence of human beings in the mines was absolutely fascinating, and being able to interact with someone who didn’t know I was half-elf and hadn’t been poisoned to hate me if they didn’t was refreshing.

As I drifted off to sleep, I had a smile on my face. I was getting stronger, I was getting more skilled, and besides combat practice, I was coming close to being able to create my first magic tool. I had ideas about what to make, though I was still looking for an enchantment I could use for making spatial items.

The tutorial had been a huge help, and after looking it over there was a way to change the structure of the spell that it ran to help with actual enchantments, though that would mean that I’d need spatial crystals to make spatial items since I wasn’t using my own mana but a power source. My brain drifted off still mulling over options. I really did love being a blacksmith.