Still gasping for breath, Ren stared at her with disbelief.
“Oh, and about this morning.......”
Assistant Instructor Lin began tidying the training equipment.
“Since a certain professor has given you free time, we'll carry on with training as scheduled. But,”
She raised a finger at the frightened look on Ren's face.
“I'll let you devote the afternoons to collecting crystals.”
“Really?”
“Of course. We'll train at night too, but only lightly. Just enough to keep the rhythm going.”
That mischievous smile surfaced again.
“And I always carry recovery medicine with me.”
Ren could not decide whether to be relieved or more worried.
***
Professor Mei's history lecture was surprisingly basic.
While the professor explained the history of the first cities ever built and their relationship with low mana concentration zones, Ren realized he already knew most of the content.
His father had told him all sorts of stories.
“The first cities were built in regions low enough in mana to keep Beasts of powerful mana away. That is why our city stands where it does. The mana here is not sufficient to sustain even an Iron Grade Beast without training.”
Professor Mei explained.
‘That's why the ruins beneath the Academy are so interesting.’
Ren thought while the mushrooms in his hair pulsed. A place dense with mana beneath a region naturally starved of it.......
At last it was time for the crystal gathering lecture.
Professor Song handed out the mining equipment: a small but sturdy pickaxe, a basic mana detector, and a special bag for holding crystals.
“Ren!”
Min called to him as they headed for the cave.
“Senior Liu taught us a few tricks yesterday. Want us to show you?”
“Crystals near the surface usually form a particular pattern.”
Taro explained as they descended.
“Senior Liu said you have to look for lines that cross at a 60-degree angle.”
“And he taught us how to tell a mature crystal from an immature one.”
Min added, pointing at a vein in the wall.
“Look, the color is deeper at the center, isn't it? That means it's ready to be mined.”
Ren watched with interest.
The knowledge flowing into his head confirmed what they said and added deeper information on top of it.
How the arrangement of the crystals indicated purity, how the flow of mana converged at certain points.
“And the most important thing,”
Taro lowered his voice.
“he taught us how to avoid the unstable areas. Some tunnels look safe, but.......”
The sound of cracking in the distance lent weight to his words.
“Senior Liu said accidents with impatient first-years are common.”
Min shuddered.
“That's why it's better to work in a group, at least at first.”
Ren was not particularly worried. With the right knowledge, even surface veins like these would yield far more than they appeared to.
“Shall we start here?” he suggested, pointing at a spot where the flows of mana crossed in secret.
His companions could not see those flows, but after everything that had happened recently they trusted his judgment. As they set to work, Ren could not help smiling.
Assistant Instructor Lin's brutal training, and gathering with his companions. Perhaps the rhythm of this new life was not so bad after all, he thought.
But the moment he lifted the pickaxe his muscles screamed, reminding him that the ‘light’ night training was still waiting.
A little later, the boys grew confident, spread out, and began digging deeper.
Fifty meters below the entrance, Ren examined the tunnel wall carefully. Despite this being his first time mining, his movements were startlingly precise.
“Again?”
Min stared in disbelief as Ren pried out a fairly large crystal.
“That's the fifth one in thirty minutes.”
“Is this really your first time mining?”
Taro set down his pickaxe in frustration.
“After we spent all that extra time with Senior Liu yesterday, I thought we'd obviously have the advantage......”
“I'm just good at observing.”
Ren pointed at the pattern in the rock.
“Do you see how the lines cross here? Where the energy converges like this, there's usually a crystal inside.”
“How do you know all that?”
Min asked, narrowing his eyes.
“I can't see a thing you're talking about....... Knowing that much is cheating.”
“You do know a strange amount....... Just like you knew about the flaw in Kai's scales!”
Taro added with a laugh.
Just then, footsteps cut their conversation short.
As Klein Goldcrest passed nearby, the Golden Lion wrapped around his arm displayed its splendid mane.
As always, he was headed toward the spot where Luna was working.
Luna was at the deepest part of the zone permitted to first-years.
Her Shadow Wolf was lighting the darkest veins like a ghost.
Unlike most, who worked in groups, she mined alone, and even in such ordinary labor every motion was precise and graceful.
“It's almost unfair, isn't it?”
Min muttered as he watched her work.
“That wolf can sense mana concentrations we can't even see.”
“There's more to it than that.”
Ren said, observing. The mushrooms in his hair pulsed as they analyzed her technique.
“Look at the angle she strikes the rock at. She doesn't waste a single movement.”
“Luna!”
Klein's voice echoed down the tunnel.
“I've found an excellent vein over here. If you want, we could.......”
“Busy.”
Luna's sharp reply rang out of the darkness.
“Pathetic.”
Jin's voice came from another tunnel above Ren.
“Looks like the Goldcrest heir is begging for attention again?”
Klein spun around, full of fury.
“Shut up. I have nothing to say to a bastard with an ordinary Beast like yours.”
“Come up here and say that again, you kitten with a mane.”
“Enough.”
Luna's cold voice cut through the tension.
“Some of us came here to work.”
The two exchanged murderous looks and withdrew.
“As I was saying,”
Ren continued once they had gone.
“there's a pattern to the way mana forms. Crystals usually.......”
“Look out!”
A small shower of stones came clattering down near them. Jin was smiling from the level above.
“Oops, my hand slipped.”
His smile turned cruel.
“But our trash must be used to things falling to the ground, isn't that right?”
“Is there a problem?”
Min stepped forward and materialized his Water Snake.
“Not right now.”
Jin shrugged.
“Keep an eye above you while you work. There might be another...... accident.”
Once Jin had left, Taro picked up his pickaxe with trembling hands.
“Maybe we should find another area.”
“No.”
Ren said, studying the wall.
“This vein is too good to give up. Besides,”
He smiled slightly.
“it would be a waste to let that fool swagger off in triumph, wouldn't it?”
Min and Taro exchanged a look, then smiled as well.
However much Jin threatened them, they needed crystals. Besides, the professors would not let a serious accident happen.
“I just heard something collapse. Is anyone hurt?”
Professor Song's voice sliced through the air. As Jin vanished into the tunnel above, Ren turned back to the vein they had been working.
“There's one more thing that worries me.” he began as he pried out another crystal.
“Did you notice that some of the upper tunnels have fewer crystals than yesterday?”
“Now that you mention it,”
Taro examined the walls above.
“the areas Senior Liu showed us yesterday are almost empty.”
“It takes time for mana to regenerate a vein.”
Ren explained.
“That's why most people mine intensively at the start of the term. By the time the holidays are over and the crystals have formed again, most of them will be busy with other lectures and won't come down here. We have a month, maybe two at most, before good crystals become noticeably hard to find.”
He felt the pressure of time bearing down on them.
“That's why we have to make use of every moment now.”
“Well, I can afford to take it slow.”
Min shrugged and draped his Water Snake lazily around his shoulders.
“I'd rather study more before evolving my snake.”
“But Taro is going to need crystals soon.”
Ren reminded him, thinking of the coming wager.
“And not just crystals for training. He needs enough to buy processing and sealing materials as well. You'll need them too, and it would be wise to stockpile crystals.”
“At least it'll be a bit cheaper your way, right?”
Taro smiled, letting his Digger Beetle's pattern surface faintly on his skin.
“And I do hope you're right....... You have a wager to win, after all.”
Ren nodded, but his thoughts had already run much further ahead.
A hundred Bronze crystals....... Exchanged at the Academy, that came to a thousand of these small ones.
And that was only the beginning. The Bronze Grade Beast parts his Spore's evolution required would be far more expensive.
To say nothing of toxic fungi of the same Grade....... Once he reckoned it out realistically, the numbers he needed went beyond imagination.
“Ren?”
Min waved a hand in front of his face.
“You drifted off for a second there.”
“I was just thinking.”
Ren turned his focus back to the vein.
“We need to be more systematic. Work in shifts, use every bit of free time.”
Ren broke off, his voice carrying the weight of knowledge he could not fully share.
“Sealing materials are expensive, and once these veins run dry it'll be far harder to gather enough crystals to buy them.”
Taro looked worried.
“How much will we need?”
“For the final seal.......”
Ren calculated in his head, recalling the exact requirements.
“The basic materials alone probably come to ten thousand Iron Grade crystals.”
Min whistled, and his snake coiled tighter around his neck.
“And that's just for Taro's Beetle. What about your evolution? Are you planning to grow that expensive fungus everyone says is worthless?”
Ren pretended to concentrate on his mining to avoid the question.
For now, he judged it better to keep that worry to himself.
“One thing at a time. Let's stay focused and keep moving.” he said at last.
“Right now we need to focus on using these veins while they're still rich. And tomorrow we have to explore deeper. Where the other students don't dare to go.”
“Didn't Senior Liu warn us not to go too deep?”
Min said uneasily.
“He said the tunnels can become unstable, and that something...... is moving in the dark.”
“We'll only go a little further down.”
Ren insisted, the mushrooms in his hair pulsing reassuringly.
“Besides, we're going together, aren't we?”
His companions nodded and returned to work.
As the rhythmic sound of pickaxes striking rock filled the tunnel, each of them thought about the challenge that lay ahead.