In the dim mine shaft, the damp air carried a muddy mineral smell. The place was hardly pleasant.
Jiang Li was currently using her headlamp to feel along the mine wall with both hands.
The mine wall was cold and rough, made of dark stone and covered with chisel marks; her fingers could not dig into it at all. Under her feet were sparse fragments of stone blocks.
She scanned with the screen, but no prompt appeared. It seemed they were all useless stone.
Jiang Li kept moving forward, stepping through a few shallow puddles and taking several turns before finally stopping beside an irregular section of the mine wall.
She picked up her pickaxe and tapped along the wall, sometimes lightly and sometimes heavily, listening closely to the sounds.
In her previous life, she had once been lucky enough to help transcribe a research paper on mineral veins, so she knew the general distribution of ore veins and the points to watch during mining.
She finally found a satisfactory angle. This was a bumpy stretch of black rock.
Jiang Li stepped back, bent her elbow, and used the sharp end of the pickaxe to strike fixed points around the perimeter of that large mass of rock.
When the last point was struck, a big stone about 3 meters in diameter crashed down with a thud. Aside from the side facing the mine wall, which was gray-black, every other surface was dotted with tiny flecks of golden light.
“Perfect!” Jiang Li flashed a peace sign.
Crouching down, she rubbed the gray stone powder at the edge with her fingers. This was indeed ore.
Screen scan.
“Red Rock Gold Ore: a Gift from the depths. It is a common mineral. Guess what it does?”
Jiang Li looked down and realized that the monitoring had been off for some time. Her eyes lit up.
She tried to put the silicon crystal into her backpack, only to discover that the backpack had somehow been restricted.
Only out, no in.
If everything was under the game’s control, then could the game one day dispose of the items in the backpack at will? What would be the meaning of anything they were doing now?
Thinking of how today was the last day of the Novice Protection Period, while others were killing monsters, she was here doing manual labor and not earning a single thing.
Sigh. Even if she got something, after all that hard work she would still end up with nothing. Not a single item would truly belong to her.
Jiang Li slumped against the ground in frustration, her eyes vacant, her hands holding her ore unconsciously. The change to the backpack filled her with a strong sense of insecurity.
She did not want to give her things to anyone.
“Beep, beep, beep… Metal ore detected… 200 kg of Red Rock Gold. Potential System upgrading…”
“Potential System upgrade complete. The current system is the Potential Wish System.”
Jiang Li stared blankly at her empty hands. The ore had disappeared.
Before her eyes appeared a purple system interface with its own bling-bling golden glow.
It looked like some Q-style interface. In the upper left corner was her own face, nickname Jiang Li, LV2.
Below that was a horizontal menu with Messages, Wish, Tasks, and Space.
At that moment, the message list contained one message from Xiao Bei.
“The Potential Wish System Xiao Bei has upgraded to Baby. From now on, Baby will serve you.”
“Detected the host’s strong desire for private space. The space module is now open. Current space size: 0.01 square meters.”
“Upgrade condition: all kinds of energy ore. Upgrade size depends on ore energy.”
“As long as the host works hard, there will be bread and milk. Everything will come.”
“When you need Baby, just call Baby in your heart, and Baby will serve you at any time. Baby is amazing, you know~”
“Baby, what time is it?” Jiang Li tried silently reciting it in her mind, and Baby’s soft babyish voice immediately rang in her ear.
“Host, it is now 1:50 PM.”
“Baby, call me sister.”
“Okay, Baby received it, sister.”
An indescribable emotion rose in Jiang Li’s heart. If her earlier setbacks could be exchanged for the Wish System now, Jiang Li would be more than willing.
“Baby, what skills do you have?”
“At the moment I can only provide procedural services. After future upgrades, I can become the host’s assistant… scanning, appraising, treasure hunting… I can even manifest to help sister with work.”
“Then how do I upgrade?”
“The more tasks sister completes, the more points you get, and Baby can upgrade.”
Jiang Li checked her level… LV2, still 200 points away from LV3.
She opened the task list.
Completed:
1. Travel 20 kilometers… exceeded the target! Reward available, 20 points.
2. Pick up 3 silver crates… exceeded the target! Reward available, 10 points.
Pending tasks:
1. Mine 500 kg of ore, no Species restriction, 50 points.
2. Go to a dungeon once, 10 points.
3. Upgrade the space area to 1 square meter, 30 points.
There was no time to keep thinking; the monitoring was about to turn on.
Jiang Li stood up and got back to work.
She knocked and hammered around the place where the ore had just fallen, and the huge hole was soon shattered into pieces.
Little Mouse Mouse had just turned on the monitor and saw Jiang Li working diligently. Looking at the rubble all over the floor, it could not help but sigh. This person was surprisingly capable, getting back to work immediately after using the bathroom.
If it were itself, it would definitely take a rest. Mining was hard physical labor.
At this time, Jiang Li was using the screen to scan the broken stone blocks on the ground.
No reaction whatsoever.
Little Mouse Mouse shook its head and turned off the surveillance screen. Mining this ore really was not that easy.
“Player equips the ‘God of Gamblers’ title, gaining one see-through ability per day!”
When Jiang Li opened her eyes again, the world before her had completely changed.
Ore buried deep in the rocks could not be taken out, so she could only look for shallow ones. Jiang Li ran quickly through the mine shaft, using the see-through ability as a scan for the first time, though she was not sure how long it would last.
All she could see were black rocks, interspersed with tiny specks of light… gold, silver, red, blue… Some were scattered here and there, some in patches, some in heaps. Even the ceiling of the mine shaft contained tiny bits of ore.
Of course, there were also places with no ore at all.
“Baby, help me mark them.”
“Received, sister.”
Baby activated the system camera’s scanning function and kept marking along Jiang Li’s field of view. A gradually clearer map of the mineral veins appeared in Jiang Li’s mind.
Just as Jiang Li had run 5 kilometers, her vision shifted again and returned to that ordinary mine shaft.
“Baby, how long did I run?”
“Sister, 25 minutes.”
Jiang Li understood. She switched back to the 666 Title and rubbed her slightly dry eyes. If used for surveying, this see-through ability would last at least half an hour.
It might also depend on the grade of the items.
Fortunately, she had just discovered several large mineral veins. As long as she mined along the veins, upgrading her space was a sure thing.
The monitoring turned off at just the right moment. She gulped down a bottle of mineral water, and Jiang Li collapsed onto the ground. After running at full speed, her clothes were already filthy.
She took out a vanilla ice cream and bit into it, and Jiang Li could not help exclaiming at how satisfying it was.
After eating two compressed chocolate bars, Jiang Li stood up.
Now it was harvest time.
Jiang Li first picked up her pickaxe and struck the nearest ore. Knowing the exact location, she effortlessly obtained a piece of silicon crystal ore.
Although she needed to expand the space area, she still could not end up mining nothing at all. Putting this silicon crystal into the space stone, Jiang Li decided to mine her way back from the point where she had finished running.