Mined Games chapter 7

I won. Nominally. I spent almost all of my money, with only two and a half gold left. Riley was impressed, and I made arrangements to work with him again sometime soon. I didn't commit to anything specific, I didn’t care enough to bother. I was too excited about what I’d gotten my hands on.

In fact, I was so excited I barely had the presence of mind to stop and spend one and a half gold on mana tinged ore (a substantial amount, and enough to get me easily a hundred pounds of the stuff, even if the actual mana content was pretty low) before I headed back to the shop to use it as an entrance to the mining company.

As I entered, I checked my inventory, where I’d packed away everything I’d picked up so far, to make sure I wasn’t missing some obvious ingredient for my plans that I hadn’t realized I’d overlooked in my excitement.

Gold coin (1)- A basic coin made of gold, forged in the style of the local economy.

Mana tinged ore (100)- A common tin ore imbued with ambient magic due to long term exposure to a nearby mana crystal vein.

Laten Maddok’s World Warping Weft of Worrying Wisdom (1) - A unique and powerful formula for the condensation of spatial mana crystals in the human body. Grants ease and power to spatial magic casting, at the price of extremely inefficient mana condensation rates, due to the extreme complexity and density of the formulated crystal.

It was nice to see the confirmation that what I’d bought was at least valuable. It…wasn’t exactly what I’d been hoping for when I went in. I’d wanted something that would enhance my condensation speed and synergize with the mana condenser to let me become some insane world class mage within a few months like in all the old stories.

This though…this was better. Sure, given the expense of mana tinged ore and other mana imbued minerals it was going to take me about as long to reach second rank as it would a normal person. But that was the point. I wouldn’t BE a normal person. I’d asked Riley about the spatial crystal as we’d been leaving, and he’d confirmed a few things about it.

First off, spatial magic, like any kind of magic, could be used by nearly anyone. Unless you had a completely opposing magic type (in the case of space it would be void) anyone could cast spatial spells, but the complexity of the spell constructs and the extremely ethereal nature of the mana made that kind of magic extremely difficult to work with, even for higher level mages.

Secondly, as the auctioneer had said, was blacksmithing. Blacksmiths were a powerful and important subtype of craftsman, ones who created foci and magical items that humans could use to channel their absurd magical power. Blacksmithing was considered one of the most vital professions a human could have, and one of the most lucrative as well.

What the auctioneer had said about magic tools was common knowledge among the upper echelons, and it was an extremely important factor in the price and desirability in magic tools. Since spatial crystal was so hard to condense, and blacksmiths up to Caster rank (the third rank of condensation) couldn’t make any items aside from their own mana type, it made spatial items nearly impossible to find for low level mages.

Which wasn’t a small thing. There were only a few Caster ranked mages in the whole of Edgebank, and maybe one or two of them were Blacksmiths. Which meant that if I could learn to craft I’d basically be able to write my own deposit slips.

That was also why I kept my last gold. I was going to use it to open the second floor of the mine, and hopefully find some more valuable ore in there that would allow me to up my purchasing power. I was going to need a whole lot of mana tinged ore to work with this new formula. My sensitivity was garbage, so the mana condenser was the only chance for someone like me to ever work with something of this level.

Sadly, before I could use all that mana tinged ore, I was going to need to actually study this new formula. I’d studied my Mandrifal Cipher for months before I’d been able to properly start condensation, but most of that was learning to hold specific structures in my head and channel the mana in the ways needed to form the crystal. Since the Cipher was apparently a ridiculous overcomplicated convoluted mess I was pretty sure I could manage the new formula.

Despite that, I had to spend hours reading the book, which was only partially formula details, and mostly notes from the creator on little pitfalls and slip ups he’d found during the formation process, and what to avoid when condensing the mana so I wouldn’t have to start over from nothing.

When I was sure everything was in order, I decided to finally give it a try. Before I did though, I recharged the barkskin talisman with my own mana to drain out everything I had, effectively making myself a normal person again.

Mana condensation was the process of imbuing mana of a specific type into the body, condensing it to the point where it would crystallize, imbuing your body with native mana reserves that would recharge from ambient mana and allow you to cast with that mana crystal as your base mana type. Even before learning what I had about formuli earlier I’d known that.

Until the Apprentice rank, when the crystallization process actually occurred, the mana imbued into the body was just a stockpile. You were holding it but it wasn’t part of you, so draining it all away would leave your body empty and essentially render you useless.

That was why the mages tower didn’t let Acolytes actually cast any spells, nor did anyone else. Until Apprentice rank, using magic was essentially eating your own progress. Lucky for me, my sensitivity was so low and my formula so shitty and pointless that I was only in the first circle of condensation, so I barely had anything to drain.

Once I was empty, I made my way to the mana condenser. This thing would be the secret to my success. If I didn’t have this, there would be no way for me to ever catch up to anyone.

I’d never been able to figure out why my mana sensitivity was so low. Naturally, some people had higher sensitivity than others, but humans in general had high sensitivity to make up for our lacking tolerance and capacity. The entire concept of condensation was based on sensitivity, making up for our shortcomings, and I’d hit the reverse jackpot with mine rock bottom sensitivity.

Shaking off the morbid thoughts, I forced myself to focus. I’d thrown this pity party a thousand times. I’d been down the rabbit hole of self disgust and sadness and self loathing at my ineptitude more than once. This was my chance to fix things. To enter the world of mages in a way I thought I never would.

I pulled a mana tinged ore out of my inventory and opened a panel on the side of the condenser, setting the ore inside and closing it. Once I did, an image of the ore appeared on a flat panel of black glass to one side of the machine, and when I touched the image, the front of the condenser popped open, revealing a place for me to lie down.

Without any sort of hesitation, I climbed into the device, lying down at a steep angle, and the door slowly lowered itself closed. I heard a series of clicks as it fastened into place, and then the inside of the device began to glow blue.

From the walls around me, blue mist began to gently waft. Not quickly, just lazily floating down to land, feather light, on my skin. Absorbed on contact. I closed my eyes, forming the patterns I’d spent hours memorizing in my mind’s eye as the mana flooded into me.

There were a lot of patterns. It was a complex formula, and I could see what Riley meant about density. Despite intaking mana at a speed that I couldn’t have ever comprehended before, the structures that made up this formula were filling much slower than my original would have with this amount of power flooding it.

I spent about ten minutes there, intaking just that small amount of mana, that one percent of the mana tinged ore, and when I was done, I’d only managed to condense the mana in my tricep. On one arm. I was sure with denser ore I would get much more mana, or if I ever managed to get this damn thing repaired, but even so, one muscle in ten minutes was still hundreds of times faster than I had been doing this on my own.

Muscles, veins, tendons, ligaments, arteries, bones, marrow, intestines, liver, lungs, eyes, brain, heart. The thirteen stages of condensation, with each needing to be followed in order, and with the heart finalizing the rank and beginning the crystallization process.

Climbing out of the device, I stretched. I didn’t feel much different, but I had ninety nine of those one pound ores left to work on. I’d be lying in that coffin like structure every spare moment I got, so I figured before I started my real training I should at least check out the new floor of the mine.

Walking over to the elevator, I slipped the last gold I had into the slot next to it and waited. The door slammed shut in front of me, and I saw light flood from between the cracks and through the grating, before it opened back up. When I stepped in, there was a small dial above the switch that let me move up and down. It had a one on it, and also a two.

I flipped it to two, and threw the switch, feeling a lurch as the thing began to descend again. I could feel anticipation and excitement flooding me. After just one session in the condenser the idea of being able to do that again was already intoxicating. Just ninety nine of those ores weren’t enough. I needed more.

Which was why I was coming down here to start with. I could possibly find more veins to mine, so I could have more money to spend on the condensation process. Maybe there would even be mana stones down here, and I could use those along with whatever I could buy. Maybe I could even join the mage’s tower when it was time to hold recruitment if I got it done fast enough.

When the elevator stopped and the doors opened, I had to brace myself before stepping out. I was putting a lot of pressure on this moment, but it was just such a big deal to me. Finally, I dismissed my excitement and stepped out, looking around the mine floor to see exactly what was down here for me.

There was not, sadly... any mana tinged ore or other minerals with dense mana. There was, however, a LOT of potential coin down here.

It actually took me a minute to walk around and count it all up. Twenty five copper. Ten silver. And a single vein of rock shot through with what I was absolutely certain was gold. This would be enough, especially combined with what I had upstairs, to train myself for quite a while.

I almost wanted to get started mining right away, but I knew despite not feeling particularly different after the condensation training, that was because I’d had such pitiful reserves before. If I used those other ninety nine ores I would be stronger and faster afterwards. Mana improved the body, after all, even if it did it slower for humans due to poor tolerance.

Climbing back onto the elevator, I rose back up to the cabin where the mana condenser was held, and slipped another mana tinged ore into that panel before climbing back in. I’d need to polish all of those off before I got my daily mining in. But once I did, I’d clean this whole place out. I was finally on the path to becoming strong, and I couldn’t wait to start walking it.