Chapter 44: A Writhing Snake Swarm Part 1 of 2 (Patreon)

As Logan walked to his campsite, the ground became uneven the closer he got to the forest. He might find what he needed there.

Ernie perked up when he saw Logan. “Slaughter time?”

“Almost. One more thing to try.” Logan gestured for the octopus to move and then cleared his campsite, willing the blanket and other supplies back into storage.

Ernie nudged Logan’s leg with a tentacle. “I thought your noble quest was urgent. But now you are sightseeing. Tsk tsk.”

“I’m not sightseeing. I’m on a scavenger hunt.”

Ernie brightened. “For fish?”

“For something much better.”

Ernie bobbed his head. “Exciting! Then I shall come.”

Before Logan had a chance to protest, Ernie had latched onto him. Using his tentacles, he crawled up Logan’s torso, trailing slime. Then, grabbing onto Logan’s hair, he perched on top of his head, tentacles dangling down his neck and back, suctions steadying his perch.

“Proceed, noble steed.”

It was one thing to entertain an octopus as a hat for the sake of a skill, but another thing to contemplate doing it just for the heck of it.

“You comfortable up there?” Logan said dryly.

“It’s very high up. I’m a giant,” Ernie whispered.

Logan moved into the forest, tightening his grip on his baseball bat as he looked around, every snap of a twig or rustle in the bush making him hyperalert. He didn’t have far to go before he located a massive boulder sticking out of the ground next to a tree that easily had to be half a century old.

Green moss and dirt covered the boulder. The width of a barrel at least, it would have taken an excavator to lift before the System, and Logan had doubts whether he’d make any progress even with his increased strength.

“What are you looking at?” asked Ernie. “It looks like a rock. Where’s the treasure?”

“The rock is the treasure.” Logan willed it into his spatial collar, only to feel resistance, as if an elastic were pushing back. Then, with a snap, the boulder shifted in place, rising slightly from its depression in the ground before disappearing with a clap like thunder.

“Did you do that?” Craning forward and peering into the hole, Ernie made an excited sound. “Oooooh, shiny!”

Logan gaped. In the ground, there was a large hole where the boulder had rested, and inside the hole, a severed rock. It shimmered a dark green color like an emerald. Had he found a hidden gem?

But how had that happened? It looked like the boulder had been attached to a further network of rocks underground. Logan had severed the connection when he’d thrown the boulder into his collar. That alone implied too many possibilities to count.

Could he use his spatial collar as a severing tool? If he could, that meant he could cut other things, things that he couldn’t cut with his bare hands. Stone, metal; hell, even diamonds. Well, maybe not diamonds… they were way too small, and why would he want to? If he found a diamond the size of a gold nugget, you better bet your ass he was keeping it as is.

Still, he had so many questions. Was the ability only applicable to items that had a defined shape above ground with a hidden section below ground? Would it only be a matter of imagination?

Logan was about to use [Idiot’s Inspect] on the mineral when the System interrupted him.

Ding!

[You have successfully discovered a source of olivine, a mineral that absorbs carbon when crushed and scattered on the ground. 10% Mass Murderer title penalty in effect. Calculating reward for discovery… 90 KarmaCoin awarded! Further awards available upon mineral carbonation deployment.]

Holy shit! Logan had read about this! That biology class he’d struggled through in college hadn’t been useless after all. There were naturally occurring minerals that absorbed carbon. But for them to be effective, they had to be ground up, exposing as much mineral as possible. That’s where the magic happened.

Rain came. The carbon captured in the water dissolved the mineral and turned it into things like calcium or other compounds that went into lakes and oceans. Logan recalled that many of the sea creatures used that very mixture to help form their shells. Maybe Ernie even needed it? Either way, it was all connected.

Nature was awesome.

With the ten percent penalty, that meant he’d actually earned 100 KarmaCoin but ended up with 90. If the System awarded him for finding olivine, what would it give Logan if he ground it into sand? The rock inside the boulder hole had a ton of that shiny emerald rock, which made him think it continued further out. The area was uneven, full of lumps. What if grass and pine needles were covering an olivine depository?

Ernie shifted on top of his head. “The treasure is shiny, but I think I much prefer a mouthful of fish. Speaking of…?”

Ernie was right. Regardless of Logan’s excitement, he couldn’t spend time mining olivine for money. Lara took priority over getting rich. Still, Logan took a mental note of the location. Once he picked up Lara and the kids, there wasn’t a reason he couldn’t make a pitstop.

Still, he needed more boulders. Logan wandered away from the olivine until he found others. These had a different color, a pale beige, as opposed to the other’s dark, black tinge. Logan willed them into his spatial storage one after the other. Most gave him no trouble, only a few giving him that elastic resistance. In total, he’d managed to find over twenty boulders, one the size of a horse, the others the size of tires.

“That’s enough,” he said to Ernie. “Let’s go.”