Chapter 52
Chapter 52
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 52
Chapter Title: Placing Rocks and Eating Rocks
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[Passive Skill: Mineral Devour]
[Your stomach and teeth grow tougher.]
[You can enhance the power dwelling within your body by consuming minerals.]
[You can imbue the unique properties of minerals into your magic.]
“What the hell is this?”
I doubted my eyes for a moment.
My stomach and teeth grow tougher? By eating minerals?
This was exactly what I used to do before awakening.
A skill with a similar effect actually existed?
Back home, I fell deep into thought for a long while.
[Mineral Devour]
Just how far did this bizarre skill's limits extend?
I was swept up in an irresistible urge to experiment.
Could I really mass-produce gold or diamonds just by scarfing them down nonstop, like I'd imagined not long ago?
Just thinking about it brought a smile to my lips.
But starting with gold or diamonds carried too much risk.
What if there was no effect? I'd just be burning cash.
I decided to begin with the cheapest, most accessible, and most mineral-like mineral out there.
Iron.
I headed straight to the nearby hardware store.
Ignoring the owner's puzzled stare, I bought a full box of bolts and nuts.
Back home, I dumped the bolts out onto the dining table in a clattering heap.
Hmm. But how exactly was I supposed to eat these?
Should I turn them into sand first?
I familiarly transformed them into sand powder and swallowed a handful.
“Hmm... Doesn't seem like much effect.”
But the skill gave zero sensation.
“Guess I have to eat them raw...”
I stared at the bolts and nuts on the table.
Just looking at them made my jaw ache.
But I decided to trust the skill description.
[Your stomach and teeth grow tougher.]
I had no choice but to believe that one line.
I picked up a single nut, squeezed my eyes shut, and cautiously crunched down on it with my molars.
Crunch.
With a crisp sound, the metal chunk shattered far more easily than expected.
It felt like biting into a slightly hard biscuit.
I opened my eyes in astonishment. It really worked.
I grabbed a few more and chewed them up thoroughly.
The taste was utter garbage.
A fishy metallic tang flooded my mouth.
I swallowed the bolts and nuts one by one down my gullet.
Finally, every bolt on the table had vanished into my stomach.
Soon after, I felt the iron lumps in my gut melting away smoothly.
I could sense the finely ground metal powder mixing into my body—precisely, into each and every grain of sand that made me up.
It was as if tiny flecks of iron dust had blended into some of the countless sand grains forming my body.
Even so, after devouring a whole box of metal, the efficiency was horrifically poor.
“Is it because the quality sucks? The efficiency is total crap.”
Fine. I'd succeeded in the experiment, so I could buy the expensive stuff later.
I dove into full-scale testing.
My first attempt was body transformation.
What if I could turn my entire body from sand into steel?
I closed my eyes and tried to gather the metal dust embedded in the sand composing my body.
I imagined my arms and legs turning into solid steel.
But the result was failure. My arm just turned into sand as usual.
Becoming an alchemist of steel would have to wait.
Undeterred, I jumped straight into the second experiment.
The second test was material creation.
Could I directly produce iron from sand?
I held out my palm and gathered sand on it.
Then I tried to shape it into the exact same form as the nuts I'd just eaten.
This time, I succeeded about halfway.
The sand grains started clumping together, faintly taking on a metallic sheen.
Pouring in more effort to force them together, I managed a fairly similar shape.
But it definitely wasn't refined steel.
And even that fell apart back into ordinary sand soon after I let go.
“Yeah, I get the gist.”
I nodded as I watched the sand scatter.
I now had a rough idea of the skill.
It temporarily imbued the 'properties' of the minerals I ate into my sand.
Parts of my sand would turn iron-dust-like, making them a bit tougher, magnetic, and conductive to electricity.
But I couldn't produce perfect steel.
“Then eating gold wouldn't mean much either.”
It'd just revert to sand anyway.
I made a slightly regretful face.
Guess you can't get something for nothing in this world.
“So what do I eat next?”
I sank into deep thought once more.
A hard mineral? Or one with special properties?
The first thing that came to mind was, of course, diamond.
The hardest mineral.
If I ate it and imbued that property into my sand?
It'd become the sharpest weapon and sturdiest shield.
I immediately hopped online and checked diamond prices.
Then quietly closed the browser tab.
“This is definitely a no-go.”
Industrial diamonds were cheap.
But from eating those bolts earlier, I'd learned that better quality meant better efficiency.
Even cheap industrial diamonds would cost a fortune to eat by the kilogram.
I scratched my head and pondered alternatives.
Suddenly, an idea flashed through my mind.
“Come to think of it, do I even need to buy them?”
Abandoned mines.
Wasn't the theme of the 20s floors I was climbing right now a mine?
Couldn't I just go there and dig up all kinds of minerals myself?
Yeah, that seemed perfect.
I quickly posted my idea to the Mage Gallery.
[Title: Anyone tried mining ores on the 20s floors?]
Author: ㅇㅇ (H33.333)
Do diamonds or tungsten and stuff spawn too?
Mages started leaving replies one by one.
ㄴ Fridge: Diamonds? Nah, you've got orichalcum and mithril too. Though the amounts are tiny.
ㄴ Magic is Firepower: Great way to make money, which is why hunters drag their feet on the 20s as long as possible.
ㄴ PKachu: I just mined exactly what I needed for my gear and quit.
“Orichalcum? Mithril?”
Figures a tower like this would have fantasy metals.
You'd feel ripped off without a mithril weapon.
I couldn't hide my excitement and fired off the next question.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ (H33.333): So how do you find them? Just dig around?
ㄴ Fridge: Standard method is using the monsters.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ (H33.333): Oh, is there a way to control that drill machine?
ㄴ Fridge: No, not that. It's a 25th floor boss anyway, so it shouldn't spawn in normal fields...
ㄴ Fridge: Use the kobolds. Leave a few dogs alive and beat them lightly—they'll run. Dig around where they flee to.
Of course. Another hidden tip I didn't know about.
That explained why they carried pickaxes and bags.
ㄴ Dung Beetle: When you wanna make items from ores later, hit me up first. No magic gear workshops in Korea. You'll need an intro before visiting.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ (H33.333): Probably won't make gear. Already got good stuff. Workshops can't make legendaries, right?
ㄴ PKachu: What kinda next-gen bullshit is this?
ㄴ Magic is Firepower: So you're just mining ores for cash?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ (H33.333): Nah, to eat them.
ㄴ Magic is Firepower: ?
ㄴ Fridge: What, your constitution turns you into a rice mage if you eat rice or something?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ (H33.333): Got a similar skill.
I explained the skill's effects in detail.
ㄴ Fridge: Gotta theorycraft the best combos when I got time. Sounds fun.
ㄴ PKachu: I'll make some combos too!
ㄴ Magic is Firepower: Hmm. Maybe I'll give it a shot...
Mages suddenly piling on.
Well, it did sound fun.
I'd been simming combos in my head nonstop too.
ㄴ Fridge: But you're a solo mage—how you gonna dig?
ㄴ PKachu: What, an earth mage can't dig?
ㄴ Fridge: Ah... True.
He had a point.
No reason to delay any longer.
The moment I woke up the next day, I plunged straight into the tower.
[Tower 23rd Floor (EXTREME) Entry.]
I double-checked the floor-by-floor ore data Fridge had provided.
Each floor had completely different ores.
Take the 21st: mostly common stuff like iron and copper.
I had zero interest in random junk metals.
Diamonds! Orichalcum!
Hell, even redstone from games!
My goal was solely those special, useful ores.
My head was already filled with visions of hurling diamond-sand cutters.
Even more enemies appeared than on the 22nd.
Three massive drill machines, surrounded by dozens of kobolds like an ant swarm.
Why were mid-25th floor boss monsters popping up like clockwork?
“God knows what nightmare's waiting on 25 just to balance this.”
Feeling the tower's malice, I gripped my staff.
There were two standard ways to farm ores on the 20s floors.
Loot the small bags the kobolds carried after smashing them, grabbing whatever ores dropped.
Or exploit their habit of fleeing toward ore veins, then chase and mine properly.
Obviously, I planned to do both.
“Gotta deal with the drills first.”
I'd briefly wondered if there was a way to use even those drills for mining, but nothing came to mind, so I dropped it.
My own digging skills were superior anyway.
I lightly tapped the ground with my staff.
The mine began to shift at my will.
***
A moment later, I leisurely turned the drills to sand with weathering.
Of course, I didn't forget to snag their cores.
Now only the kobolds remained.
I slowly approached the survivors.
But something weird happened.
“What's this? Why are they acting like that?”
The kobolds took one look at me and started backpedaling in terror.
Some dropped their pickaxes, others collapsed clutching their heads.
“Why are these guys such cowards?”
They were supposed to be vicious and tenacious—only fleeing after all but one or two were dead.
These had zero will to fight.
They just trembled in place, unable to even run.
“What the hell has them so scared?”