Mined Games chapter 4

“Ow.” I moaned aloud as I slumped down to the floor. I was in serious pain. Barkskin was damn useful, and the gloves were great, but neither prevented me from feeling tiredness or soreness. I took another sip of health potion, enjoying the sweet berry taste as it flooded my muscles with relief.

Pulling off my gloves, I trekked over to the elevator and made my way back upstairs. I dropped the ore into the smelter, then the bars into the magic forge, cashing out all of my ore into coins. Then I checked those coins in my inventory.

Copper coin (210)- A basic coin made of copper, forged in the style of the local economy.

Silver coin (90)- A basic coin made of silver, forged in the style of the local economy.

Ninety two silver, and some change. I was able to mine ten bars worth of copper from ten copper stones. I’d spent ninety the first day leaving me with ten, then kept the next two days (including today) of coins, plus the thirty per day I was able to mine from the silver rocks. Even after all that work, days of grinding myself down, I was still short of the money needed to open the second level.

I was close, of course, only one more day until I could manage at this rate. Eight more silver. Stripping my gloves off, I dropped them on top of the rack where I’d already set my pickaxe, and picked up the canteen of water I’d left in that exact spot, cleaning my hands off by pouring the liquid over them. Then I wiped my face with a towel I’d brought and did my best to scrub the dirt off.

I’d learned my lesson the first time I came down here, about how dirty mining could be, and took my shirt off before starting, since the barkskin made it unlikely I’d hurt myself anyway. I was lucky I’d been able to use dads charge stone when he wasn’t around, or else I wouldn’t have been able to use the thing more than once.

While my father’s talismans were mostly garbage and usually didn’t survive more than one use, some of them came empty, and we needed to fill them. The charge stone was an absolutely trash quality mana stone with incredibly small amounts of mana generation, but it worked for talismans, so most places that sold the things had them around, even our shop.

Speaking of our shop, now that I was cleaned off, I headed out into the shop proper. I was still running it most of the time, though I closed it down for a few hours a day for my mining, usually during lulls that came pretty much daily, just in case someone mentioned it to my dad.

I changed my pants and shoes, dropping the dirty clothes in the back as I switched them with ones that would work with my clean shirt. Then, with my daily mining out of the way I went back to inventory.

Doing this every day was annoying and excessive, but my dad was paranoid and it wasn’t worth arguing with him, plus it gave me something to do. Heading over to the jewelry section of the store, I decided to get it out of the way quick, and I had an idea how to do that.

Reaching down to pick up the whole cushioned tray of jewelry, I looked around to make sure no one was watching me, and then I pushed it into my inventory. The pocket space had a feature that let me get an accurate count and description of its contents. I could use that to skip quite a bit of work, plus it would just be cool to see what it could do.

Ring (15)- An unremarkable circle of metal that can be slipped onto a finger as a show of material wealth or romantic attachment.

Necklace (11)- An unremarkable circle of metal that can be fastened around the neck as a show of material wealth.

Jewelry tray (1)- A cushioned black container fashioned for the securing and presentation of jewelry.

Huh, I’d half expected a specific breakdown of each one, and I was pretty sure I could do that, since I’d been able to do it with the ore, but it wasn’t necessary since the information listed was enough for the inventory sheet. I was about to withdraw the whole thing, when I noticed something unusual. There was one more slot in the inventory, a ring that was separate from the others.

Ring of Vitality (1)- A tier two iron ring that confers a boost to the vitality of the wearer, giving them deeper stores of physical energy.

I stared. Hard. That was…that was a magic tool. Magic tools were expensive and VERY rare. We shouldn’t have one here. It must have gotten mixed in with some small lot of jewelry dad bought, he had a tendency to snatch up batches of the things from estate sales when he could, because he could get a huge profit on selling them individually after buying in bulk.

The best quality item we would see around here was a mana item, which wasn’t the same as a magic tool at all. I didn’t know why they were different, but the basic breakdown was that mana items were imbued with mana and were stronger and more durable than normal objects, while magic tools had special properties.

Magic tools were one of the cornerstones of condensation among humans, actually. While humans had discovered ways to condense mana inside ourselves to prived fuel for spells, allowing us to catch up to other species who were naturally able to use magic, the fact remained that the human body was not designed for large scale magic use.

Aside from mana capacity, which was handled by condensation, and mana sensitivity which decided how fast you could condense your mana, the third aspect of mana usage was mana tolerance.

Among all species, humans had the lowers mana tolerance, and while condensation and crystallization DID upgrade the body, the tolerance upgraded far slower than the capacity, at least until later in the condensation process. In response to this weakness, humanity had developed a method for using spells without directly channeling through the body, which was magic tools.

Every mage had to have a focus, an object capable of being used for casting. Mana items could do the trick, being reinforced with mana, but all the REAL mages preferred to use magic tools. They came with unique abilities that could aid in combat or spell casting, and any mage worth their salt had more than a few for that fact alone, even when they weren’t using them as foci.

This ring was a tier two, which based on the labeling of copper at a tier one material, would make the ring an apprentice level magic tool. To any higher level mage something like that would be useless, but to an Acolyte something at that level would be not only invaluable, but priceless.

Edgebank was a backwater town. There were apprentice level mages here, sure, but the overwhelming majority of people in the city were acolytes, and I knew if I auctioned this thing off I’d rake in potentially dozens of gold. Even a direct transaction would see the weakest and least useful apprentice level magic tool selling for ten gold minimum, and that was an insane amount of money.

I withdrew the tray and put it back on the shelf, the necklaces and rings coming with it, but I made sure to keep the Ring of Vitality. I marked down the inventory sheet with the numbers, and I made sure to count the ring as well, but once I did, I walked back to the counter and popped open the register, pulling out the coins needed to pay for a ring and dropping them in before marking the transaction book for a sale.

Despite being worth more, I’d paid the amount listed on the sign, and was completely nonplussed about taking the ring from the old man. I’d consider it payment for the uncompensated work I did here every day while he blew all our money on card games like an idiot. I was sure I could fund his habit better after I was able to rank up a bit anyway.

Which left me unsure of what to do with the ring. The extra energy would be useful for my mining later, I was sure, but at the same time I only had a finite amount of mining to do. Assuming the second floor had a similar amount of ores, the potions and talisman could carry me through that fine.

I didn’t need the ring for it, and the cash from auctioning it would enable me to get the formula I needed sooner than expected, and re-invest the money into opening lower floors of the mine, which might enable me to start condensing my mana much sooner after GETTING said formula.

Staring at the ring in my inventory I weighed the immediate convenience of the ring vs long term success…and came to the obvious conclusion. It might be kind of a waste, but I believed that with the mana condenser I would be able to become an AMAZING mage. I was intelligent as hell, and I’d always had an amazing memory. I’d be able to master dozens of spells once I had what I needed to cast them.

Besides the mine was a cash cow that would never dry up. I could keep stockpiling my money, and use that money to buy not only mana stones, but also other magic tools in the future.

It also opened up the possibility of being able to attend the mage’s tower when it started recruiting again. Tara was a shoe in to go, and I knew Rala was already a student. I’d pretty much assumed I’d never get in, because the mage’s tower only accepted the top ten percent of mages in the city, but I had a month or two to kill before it was time, and with mana stones and a steady income of cash, I was pretty sure I could make it.

I spent the rest of the day in a daze, doing inventory but not thinking about anything except what was to come. I was almost buzzing with excitement. I’d had hard times in my life. Years of constant derision and abuse, sneers and jeers and attacks. This could be the chance to put that all behind me.

Not that I really blamed them. Sure, I hated some of the worst offenders. But the inherent hatred of weakness that humanity had was pretty well earned. Before we’d discovered condensation, humans had been nothing. We’d been pests and servants the other species ordered around and forced to do their bidding.

Without magic we were weak, we were nothing, the Elves most of all had exploited us, at least until we got magic of our own and rebelled, which had resulted in a three century war that had left both sides devastated. Seeing humans who couldn’t make it as a mage reminded everyone of what we used to be.

Even I’d thought little of myself at times. Hating my own deficiencies and myself by extension. The only person who never cared was Tara, who had always been there for me, but she was an outlier, a truly kind hearted person in a world where most people cared more about power than loyalty.

I’d never forget what she did for me, or what the others did TO me. And all of that started now. Tonight. I finished the inventory and closed up shop early, heading up to the apartment above the shop where I lived with my old man to change into a new set of clothes, including something with a hood that would shadow my face.

After all, I would need it where I was going. If I wanted to auction the ring and buy a new formula, I would need to head to a place where no one would know who I was or even try to find out. It was time for a visit to the Edgebank black market. I was heading for the Ship of Fools.