430 Time To Get Mining!
When we arrived at the mountain, Helga quickly guided us down a path she and the dwarves had made with their amazing mining skills and earth shaping skills. Apparently not only they made a cave but even crafted stairs to move down easily. The caves were illuminated mostly by special crystals that generated light and also mushrooms. I had thought about picking a few, but Helga said that aside from their luminescence, they were not valuable and it was better to let them be there to illuminate places.
They were certainly more convenient than putting torches that will eventually get the entire cave with the smell of burnt wood and oil, or magic items that will eventually run out of magic and will need constant replacement like torches.
“But aren’t these sold elsewhere?” I wondered.
“Yeah there are some people that farm these mushrooms for house decorations, though they’re also edible but have a very plain flavor, they’re not that cheap for their flavor though, so most people only keep them as decorations.” Helga said. “Anyways, we are here guys! Time to work our asses off today as usual!”
“With Lucifer and the rest with us, we’ll have an easy time!”
“You guys can fend the monsters off for us, right? This way we can fully concentrate into mining!”
“Oh man, I’m gonna MINE!!!”
Helga roared as the dwarves roared behind her, raising their pickaxes, shovels, and other utensils they brought, which I quickly took out of my Inventory for all of them to hold.
The enormous cave expanded upon several meters, its ceiling reaching as high as 60 meters or even 70, there were many crystals growing around everywhere, many illuminating the entire place naturally, but amidst the walls and the ground, there were also other, shinier rocks than the normal ones, those were Ores! And some were shinier than others, emanating special essence, magic! Those were Magic Ores!
“Woah! This place’s BIG! Let’s go mine now! Mine! Mine!” I couldn’t help but act childishly as I felt excited about mining myself. Back in my previous life I was an avid player of Minecraft and Terraria, those two were my childhood alone, so I have always wished I could mine in this world.
With the addition of the game-like description of items, the power of alchemy to create items which also reminded me of my other favorite games, the Atelier series, and the knowledge of skills such as Mining, Crafting, and more existing, I couldn’t help but want to replicate those games mechanics in real life now!
However, I was quickly and abruptly stopped by Lucifer, who quickly realized, faster than I did, that I was missing the most important tool.
“But where are you going to mine without a pickaxe, dummy?!”
“Come on, didn’t you bring some more inside your Inventory? Get them out, we can mine all together here, Maria, you can pick any spot you want this is a cave we found ourselves, but it is completely closed, we’ll need to mine it to find another route somewhere else, but for now you can just pick ant spot.” Helga said.
“Right, thank you Helga!” I said, quickly taking a Pickaxe from my Inventory.
This item was a very basic Pickaxe made out of Reinforced Steel Ore, specially made to break through stones to get the precious ores out.
[Reinforced Steel Pickaxe (D-Grade): Lv1]
[Mining Speed Enhancement]: [Enhances the Speed while Mining by +20%]
[A brand-new Pickaxe made out of Reinforced Steel Ingots; it comes with an enchantment that grants a faster speed while mining. Its high attack power is ideal to break through incredibly hard rocks and stone.]
In fact, I had brought a brand-new Pickaxe for myself! It was rather expensive as it was a new item, and it was enchanted to grant a boost to mining speed and also the ability to Level up, something not all blacksmiths can grant to their creations so easily. With this, I’ll mine some new Magic Ores to enchant Partner’s old spear, which she really wants to upgrade. For that she wants to use expensive materials that can only be mined from this big mountain range… I guess I am just giving myself a reason.
“Alright…! Ah, are you not going to mine?” I asked, with the pickaxe in my hands, as Emeraldine, Partner, and Lucifer seemed to be just looking around.
“Huh? I am not really interested…” Said Lucifer.
“I think I’ll pass too; I don’t really care about mining…” Said Partner.
“My body is rather not… suited for such things.” Said Emeraldine. “But I’ll make sure to inspect whatever you find!”
I guess I am alone in the world of miners, desolated, completely alone and without friends… However, I quickly felt the pat of Helga on my back.
“Come on, don’t let them get to you, if you’re interested in the profession, then I’ll guide you. You’ve got all of us here. We dwarves are fanatics of mining, finding new ores, and crafting stuff out of them, it runs in our veins.” She said. “Now, hold the pickaxe and point at that piece over there, see that bulging piece of stone?”
“When stone bulges like that, it means there’s a big amount of ore or crystals below, hit it hard and make it crumble to reveal what’s inside.” Said Helga. “Come on, give it your best!”
I pointed my pickaxe into that bump of stone and then…
I hit it with a strong and powerful hit!
Right away, with a single hit of my pickaxe, the stone began to crumble apart, as cracks spread through not only the floor surrounding it, but also the walls in front, and even a bit of the ceiling!
Stones began falling everywhere around me, as I quickly generated a shield to protect myself and Helga.
“You hit it a bit too hard!” Helga reprimanded me.
“S-Sorry… It is hard to calculate the power of my strength sometimes…” I apologized.