Mining (4)
One mountain after another. There was truly no better phrase to describe my current state of mind.
After busting my back to mine that mithril, all I got in return was the dwarf telling me it couldn't even be smelted. A wave of bitter disillusionment crashed over me the instant I read his message, but I managed to keep my grip on sanity. I had no idea what kind of arcane structure this damned metal possessed, but I definitely needed an explanation.
I focused on the screen, reading through the dwarf's thorough breakdown.
Most metals lay buried deep within the earth, naturally soaking in the subterranean mana over centuries. Under ordinary circumstances, terrestrial mana was faint enough that tossing raw ore into a conventional smelter posed zero threat. However, digging deeper into the abyss—or harvesting from an abnormal biome like the Forest of the Four Seasons—changed the equation entirely. Minerals mined from such places were saturated with pure, concentrated mana. Processing them demanded an advanced, specialized blast furnace.
Throwing that kind of ore into a common furnace carried a lethal risk of a violent detonation.
So there was truly nothing I could do on my end. A heavy sigh escaped my lips. Cobbling together a crude stone furnace was already a daunting prospect, but a specialized industrial blast furnace? Given that it purportedly dwarfed an aristocratic manor, building one myself wasn't even a pipe dream. At this rate, the mithril I had nearly died to excavate would turn into an utterly useless white elephant.
I needed an alternative, but my mind drew a blank.
Considering he had imparted crucial technical knowledge that kept me from blowing myself to bits, giving away a crab shell was a cheap price to pay. Closing the chat with the dwarf, I immediately contacted the other fixed handles who had received samples of the raw mithril. Preventing accidental catastrophic explosions was a matter of basic courtesy.
Having retrieved the chunk of mithril from the Heavenly Demon, I turned my attention to the next recipient.
Praise the Sun opted to hold onto his piece. According to Passing Dwarf, the detonation hazard only reared its head when the material underwent an active phase change—like melting under intense heat or violent forging that altered its internal lattice. Purely carving away shaving by shaving while preserving its ambient solid state presented no danger whatsoever.
Well, if simple contact caused an explosion, people would basically be carrying around live grenades, I mused. Even if thermal distortion occurred under high heat, it wouldn't be an issue for jewelry; if the temperature soared high enough to melt raw metal on someone's finger, the wearer would already have been incinerated long before.
Armed with a deeper understanding of the metal's properties, I finally logged out of the Gallery.
At least I won't have to handle the entire smithing process from scratch. The dwarf had offered to sharpen and polish the finished blade edge if I managed to beat the raw ingot into a basic flat billet. Alternatively, if forging proved impossible, I could acquire a custom ceramic casting mold from him, melt down the raw mithril, and simply pour it in.
The drawback, of course, is that I still have to build a functional furnace. There was also no guarantee an ordinary mold could withstand the incandescent fury of liquid mithril. In the worst-case scenario, the entire smelter could melt into a slaggy puddle of molten rock. Every single option carried its own distinct set of trade-offs, leaving me caught in a tangled web of indecision.
First things first: dinner. No matter how convoluted things got, food came first. I could agonize over mithril metallurgy tomorrow.
Checking the woven fish traps stationed along the riverbank, I was pleased to find two plump fish splashing inside. Satisfactory haul. I drew my knife to gut them as usual, but paused mid-motion as an idea sparked in my mind.
Why not test the mithril out right now?
Rummaging through my pack, I pulled out a jagged shard of raw mithril that had chipped off during my mining. One section tapered into an exceptionally keen edge. Filled with curiosity, I pressed the fragment against the belly of the fish and sliced downward.
Ssshhk—
The cut felt clean, roughly on par with a decent steel utility knife. Nothing more, nothing less. Given that the edge had never seen a whetstone, the result was slightly underwhelming.
What happens if I channel Aura through it?
The moment I circulated my energy, my eyes widened. With barely a trickle of mana, blazing emerald light roared along the metal's jagged surface like a roaring bonfire. Wondering if my overall capacity had simply increased, I immediately channeled the exact same amount of energy into my standard steel dagger. The contrast was night and day. Testing an assortment of other tools yielded the same mundane result. They demanded a heavy, sustained torrent of mana before producing even a faint, flickering aura.
So that's how it is.
Its mana economy was utterly ridiculous. "Insanely high fuel efficiency" was the only way to describe it. This was evidently what the dwarf meant when he praised its innate performance. Because it was mithril rather than mana-conductive orichalcum, the difference in handling was staggering.
This is going to be a game-changer for prolonged combat.
Aside from that brutal encounter with the Orichalcum Guardian, I had rarely run completely dry on mana. Yet raw Aura itself was fundamentally an extremely inefficient technique. Unless compressed and shaped into a razor-thin Aura Blade, the wild, leaping flames of raw energy bled vast amounts of power into the surrounding air. Mithril completely flipped that equation on its head. In terms of sheer efficiency, it might even surpass the Heavenly Demon's Sword. It would certainly accelerate my martial conditioning.
It isn't a white elephant after all.
For someone stranded in a hostile wilderness where survival reigned supreme, efficiency was king. Mithril took that core metric and pushed it to its absolute limits, making it practically indispensable. I definitely needed to craft an entire suite of gear from it. Its physical hardness matched high-carbon steel while weighing a fraction as much, making it the ultimate medium.
The only headache is the mining process itself.
Still, there was no shortcut around honest sweat. I just had to put in the grueling physical labor. After finishing a satisfying dinner, I cleaned up the campsite and prepared my bedding for the night. I left the excavated pit as it was, intending to resume pickaxing first thing in the morning.
The Elixir... stays right beside my head.
A wilderness thief might slip inside under cover of darkness. While Fast Tree Sloth would surely wake and snap their neck in an instant, taking basic precautions never hurt. With camp secured, I reconnected to the Gallery interface. I had nothing specific to post, but habit drew me to check the latest boards before turning in.
Tomorrow marks exactly fifteen days.
A turbulent, chaotic half-month had flown by. Just today, I had been slapped around and humiliated by that massive gorilla chieftain. Tomorrow, I had to haul back refined ore from the Orichalcum Cave, pick up the crystal scrying orb meant to serve as camp surveillance, and throw myself into constructing a blast furnace. I could consult the dwarf regarding blueprints.
The to-do list just keeps expanding.
Finish one chore, and two more sprout up. Finish those two, and five more take their place. And mithril could only be safely cold-worked within the bizarre confines of this forest. Sifting through the forum threads with a weary sigh, a particular headline suddenly grabbed my attention.
Assuming it was just another piece of low-effort clickbait, I almost scrolled past, until I noticed the author's handle was a verified fixed nick.
Who is this?
GonnaBeADuke. It was a screen name I faintly remembered seeing before. Overcome by curiosity, I clicked on the thread.
[Attached: Photo of masterfully tailored heavy leather boots]
[Attached: Photo of water beading flawlessly off the treated leather]
[Attached: Photo of a combat dagger failing to pierce the reinforced hide]
Detailed photo reels of heavy leather footwear. Seeing them jogged my memory.
A while back, I had promised an Adult Mandrake Root to anyone who could supply me with a pair of top-tier survival boots. Back then, several crafters had posted submissions, but nearly all of them were shoddy, subpar junk. One fraud had even tried to peddle an outright scam, earning himself an unceremonious middle finger before I shut down negotiations. The fierce bidding war had evaporated entirely once Passing Dwarf stepped in with a pair commissioned from his master craftsman friend. Everyone accepted that competing against a dwarven artisan was an exercise in futility. Satisfied with the dwarf's offering, I had completely put the bounty out of my mind.
Yet this guy kept working on it all this time...
Unlike the opportunistic quitters, this fixed nick had persisted. Of course, perseverance meant nothing without tangible results, but the final video attachment left me utterly speechless.
[Attached Video: A burly man taking a massive steel sledgehammer and repeatedly smashing it with full-force downward strikes straight into the wearer's booted foot.]
No matter how sturdy a pair of boots was claimed to be, having your own son smash your foot with a sledgehammer on video was absolute madness. Yet that unhinged demonstration made it impossible not to trust him. The man had literally laid his own bones on the line to prove the quality of his craft.
Snapping out of my stupor, I hastily typed out a reply before the madman decided to shatter his remaining limbs for an encore.
Needing to coordinate the trade privately, I opened a direct communication link. Despite his stiff, overly formal tone, the sheer passion radiating from his actions made him remarkably likable.
An urgent matter of life and death. Raw desperation bled through the rigid text. Someone dear to him was undoubtedly suffering from a severe, intractable illness. Otherwise, there was no earthly reason he would bypass every other valuable material and stubbornly fixate entirely on a mandrake root.
He's dependable.
Between the extreme video demonstration and his unyielding demeanor in chat, he was someone worthy of trust. Promising to transfer the Adult Mandrake the following morning, I closed the Gallery interface.
Tomorrow would mark Day 15—a full half-month since my awakening here. More importantly, it was the day I planned to consume the Neidan. Building a smelter, concluding the trade with GonnaBeADuke... My hands were going to be full.
Hopefully that subterranean guardian won't reawaken while I sleep.
Fortunately, no disaster struck during the night.
“Ah. What the hell is this now?”
That is, until I walked up to the mining site and realized that every single centimeter of mithril I had broken my spine excavating had completely, flawlessly regenerated.
I had zero desire for an all-you-can-mine buffet, yet the universe had forced one down my throat anyway.
Is this stuff a planaria flatworm?!
Self-replicating, regenerating mithril. I couldn't even begin to fathom what kind of unholy mutant monstrosity I was looking at.