Mined Games chapter 2

The small house in the clearing was…unusual. It looked old, worn down and beginning to decay, but at the same time it also looked somehow ahead of its time. I expected someone to be in there when I reached the door, but I knocked and heard nothing.

Stepping inside I found an empty cobweb strewn space filled with strange papers covered in numbers, tables with maps and pictures and a few large devices. I checked the devices, trying to figure out what they were, and as I walked up to them, a small square of information appeared above them.

Magic forge-damaged. A special forge designed to create tools and useful items for the Royston magic mining company’s company store. Due to heavy disrepair the forge can only process grade 1 metals.

That was pretty useful sounding. I didn’t know what the hell a grade one metal was, but I’d definitely be keeping an eye on this thing. I moved over to the second device.

Smelter-slightly damaged. A device that processes ore into perfect bars. Current requirement: three ores per bar.

Well, that was good. I didn’t have any clue how to smelt metal, so assuming I could find some ore in this place this would come in handy. I moved over to the last device, the one that looked the most damaged.

Mana condenser- heavily damaged. A device used to enhance the productivity of the Royston mine workers. Accelerates the speed of mana condensation into the body. Warning: due to extreme damage, the mana condenser will operate with minimal efficiency. Mana condensed from inputted mana stones: 1%.

I stared. Hard. That was… that was insane. The other stuff was nonsense, I didn’t have much of a grasp on blacksmithing, so the forge and smelter, while useful, weren’t game changers to me. This though. This would change my whole life.

Acolytes, like me and basically everyone else on the planet, were people who had begun the journey to becoming a Mage. Mages, as most people knew, were humans who used mana to cast spells.

The main issue with human mages, however, is that human beings weren’t actually designed for magic. We can sense mana, and have access to it, but our mana capacity and tolerance are both absolutely laughable. Almost every species of being native to the world of Kalgard had some native advantage over humans in terms of mana usage.

Because we weren’t resigned to being the bottom of the food chain, humans had created a system of gathering power called Mana Condensation. Condensation was the process of packing mana into the body and training the flesh to store that mana, enabling us to access it for later use.

Acolytes, the first stage of Condensation, underwent the process of slowly packing each and every part of the body with mana in preparation for stepping into the Apprentice level, at which point they crystallize the mana in their bodies, converting their physical form into a walking talking mana stone.

There were thirteen stages of Condensation (supposedly, I’ve never heard of anyone past rank eight) and thirteen circles of each stage. All of these circles involved the condensation of mana, which could only be done through the use of a formula.

Mana formulas different in usefulness and quality, with formulas like mine being absolute garbage that gathered mana from the ambient energy so slowly that even a genius might not hit second stage in their whole lifetime. This was impacted heavily by mana sensitivity, the third of the major mana parameters all living beings had alongside capacity and tolerance.

My mana sensitivity was absolutely garbage, which, combined with my formula being some shitty public use formula I found in the library, meant I was an extremely slow condenser, hence being in the first circle at nearly twenty and being a city wide laughing stock.

This device, based on the description, would enable me to condense mana into my body directly from ores. My formula would still play a major role in the process, slowing me down for the foreseeable future, but sensitivity would be all but irrelevant. Even with only one percent of the ores being condensed it would be like training in a ridiculously mana rich environment, which would enhance my condensation speed massively.

Mana ores were extremely densely packed with mana, and even basic mana tainted ores could and would have thousands of mana in them, which meant I could condense tens to possibly hundreds of mana during however long it took the condenser to run.

That would probably be slower than one would hope for given my shitty formula, but considering I usually managed one or two mana condensed over a literal eight hour training period it would still be game changing, and even moreso when I got a better formula to condense faster and denser ore.

It was technically possible to condense directly from ore with a formula, but that was the same as condensing from ambient mana and only really came into play when you had a high sensitivity or a good formula. Even directly pulling from the ore I’d still condense the same amount of mana, I just wouldn’t run out until the ore was empty.

All of this was to say…I needed some mana touched ore. I could go try and snag some from the shop, but there would be no way I wouldn’t get caught by the old man. So all I could do was go and do some mining.

I started off toward the back of the place, where I could see a grate of metal set into the wall, with a sign next to it listing off the floors of the mine. I opened the grate and stepped inside, finding a switch I could pull beside the door that was labeled ‘descend’.

Pulling the switch, I felt the metal box lurch, and then felt a strange sensation in my stomach as it began to, as the switch said, descend. Sadly, the box stopped dead at the first floor. I’d been hoping to go lower because the mana seemed to get denser in the air as I descended.

Since that wasn’t possible though, I pushed open the grate and stepped out eagerly, looking forward to seeing what kind of ores I could find here. As I stepped out though…I felt myself droop.

Ok, so I’d maybe gotten ahead of myself. Ten veins of copper and three of silver was enough to make a pretty solid amount of coins, which could be used to buy me mana ore. Still, I’d been kind of excited about the possibility of just mining my own.

Turning around, I tried to get back into the metal device, but noticed next to it there was a small plaque with a slot in it. Apparently I needed to put in coins equal to a single gold piece in order to get to the next floor. The sign said that the ‘elevator’ (which I assumed was what the box was called) needed funds for repair.

I had no chance of sneaking away a gold to get this fixed, my dad was obsessive about book keeping (because he was a compulsive gambler who refused to let a single coin slip through his fingers), so I would need to…actually mine the ore.

With the smelter upstairs, I could at the very least smelt the ore into bars and maybe sell it. I turned to the wall, where a rack of sturdy looking iron tools sat. I reached down, picking up a pickaxe, and turned to glance down at the veins of ore.

I’d never been in a mine before, it wasn’t something I’d ever cared to try, but I didn’t think most of them were like this. The room was filled with a ring of large rock piles, shot through with visible lines of copper, surrounding a trio of rock piles shot through with what I was pretty sure was silver, based on the sheen.

Walking up to the first of the rock piles, I hauled back and swung the pickaxe at it. I was sent stumbling back when the thing basically bounced off, barely saving myself from tripping. I growled to myself and took up the same position, this time setting my feet firmly.

On my second swing, I put my back and shoulders into it, and did my best to follow through, trying to drive the pickaxe into the rock. It worked, biting in a few inches. Other than that, nothing happened. I hit it again, aiming for the same spot. I missed, hitting a different spot a bit to the left.

I swung again and again, trying to chip away at the extremely hard rock to free the copper inside. To my shock though, after I’d done enough damage to the rock (probably fifty swings), I got a message on another square like the one I’d seen when I looked at the devices upstairs.

Congratulations! Copper ore obtained (3), added to inventory. Time until copper vein respawn 23:59:59

I gaped at the message. I’d…gotten an ore? Was that how mining even worked? Also what the hell was respawn. Would the copper come back somehow? My muscles were burning and I was heaving out my breaths but I was officially excited again.

Stumbling over to sit down, I decided to take a break before moving on. As I did, I wondered about the ore itself, as well as the message. This place was strange, it had magically added this to my inventory. I was familiar with that word obviously, having been taking inventory of the shop before coming here. But where would I find my inventory.

As soon as I had that thought, ANOTHER square of color appeared. On the square, I could see the word ‘Inventory’, and below that, a mostly empty grid with a single square filled. The grid square held a picture of what I knew from working at the shop was an ore, and when I focused on it I saw another series of words.

Copper ore (1)- common tier one ore.

The square, which I decided to refer to as a window for ease of address (since I could see things through it like a window), floated in front of me. I reached out and my hand passed through it. I could literally feel the copper as my hand closed around it, despite the image in the window being a smaller and unchanging version of the ore.

I pulled my hand out, I wanted to get as many of these things as I could, so carrying them by hand when they could be left in this…magical storage, was a stupid choice. I wondered if I could put other things into my inventory, and decided to explore that possibility later. Spatial storage spells existed I was pretty sure, but no one in Edgebank had anything close to that level of power.

Hefting my pickaxe again, I got back to work, forcing my aching body to resume its toil as I brought the pickaxe down on the next copper stone. It sucked. My hands were getting numb when I struck because of the vibrations, and once the numbness faded I could only feel an ache.

Still, I didn’t stop. One rock, two rocks, three rocks. I forced myself to continue, my hands bloody from being rubbed raw by the pick. I finally got through all ten of the copper stones, but I couldn’t close my hands around the pick well enough to even think about trying to mine the silver.

Putting the pickaxe away, I headed up to the first floor, the cabin, and brought the ores I had over to the smelter. Another window appeared, complete with options for smelting. I was able to queue up ten copper bars, which I did, without ever needing to withdraw the ore from my inventory.

Once the bars were done, which took about ten minutes, since copper bars had the lowest required smelting time according to the little notation next to the picture of the bar, I headed over to the Magic Forge. Sure enough, another window came up, showing me a series of copper items I could make, most of which were useless, but one particular entry made me grin.

Copper Coin (10)- A basic coin made of copper, forged in the style of the local economy.

Perfect. A hundred copper coins was one silver, which would be some spending money I could use to make my next move. Since I couldn’t even mine all the stuff down here, moving on to the next level didn’t seem like it was a valid use of my limited funds. For now, I needed to invest in something more useful. Something to dull this pain and make mining easier. Time to go shopping for potions.