25. Mining
"Alright, let's do some exploration today—double as training! And if we can find any ore, I wanna try smithing and alchemy too. Need some weapons, after all!"
Shiro’s high-energy from the morning. After finishing the breakfast Mitoka had prepared, just like yesterday, he told her today’s plans.
"There should be a mine in the northeast part of this sanctuary. Part of it lies outside the sanctuary’s boundaries," Mitoka explained.
"Got it. Alright, since I’ve unlocked the skill, I’ll use physical enhancement and run over there today," Shiro said, fired up.
The northeast section of the sanctuary is elevated, with a river flowing down from above, forming a waterfall. To the north of the waterfall stands a massive rock mountain—this is the mine.
From the temple, head north first, cross the river, pass through the woods, then turn east—there, you’ll face a cliff.
"Then let’s use Scan to search for veins from here."
The Scan skill improves precision when narrowed down, so he decided to test that.
"Shiro, according to the information the goddess gave us, this mine seems to be a bit of a hodgepodge."
"A hodgepodge? A mine?"
"Yes. Well, you’ll see when you scan it."
Shiro activated the Scan skill, narrowing it to the rock mountain and filtering for metallic ores. The detected minerals appeared: hematite, magnetite, native silver, native gold, chalcopyrite, nickel ore, limonite, tungstenite, sphalerite, galena, cassiterite, pyrite, rutile,...
"…………"
"…………"
Both were stunned into silence, utterly amazed at how perfectly convenient the ore veins appeared.
“Uh… what the hell is this? These ore veins are completely unregulated!” Shiro muttered, stunned.
“This is… more of a hodgepodge than expected. Did someone just pull ore veins from all over the world and dumped them here? (…?)” Mitoka speculated.
“Nothing but excess, or rather—abnormal abundance. I mean, shouldn’t we be unable to interfere with the world’s structure? …Still, it’s a blessing, I suppose.”
“Exactly. No, actually, I’ve heard we *can* interfere with the world’s structure. Terrain and ore veins are within our range of influence,” Mitoka replied, her tone tinged with exasperation.
“Wait—now that you mention it, where’s the standard fantasy staple? Like mithril?” Shiro suddenly noticed, asking aloud.
“Shiro, mithril is what we call ‘mana ore.’ It forms when silver or gold is exposed to dense mana and becomes an entity. We’ll need to dig deeper,” Mitoka explained.
“This sacred site is also a dragon vein outlet. Judging by the mana flow, the mithril should be about three hundred meters below these veins,” she added.
Shiro activated his scan skill downward. Filtering for mana ore…
Mithril, Eclir, Hihiirokane, Adamantite, Orichalcum, Crystal, Damascus steel…
…all confirmed as equally unregulated and abundant.
“…Well, if it’s here, we’ll just have to dig it out,” Shiro said.
“…Yes. Though judging by quantity, it’s not exactly overflowing. Still, it’s hard to believe they weren’t prepared for us,” Mitoka said.
Anyway, it’s here. No sense complaining. Shiro decided to start mining.
“Wait—do you even have a mining skill?”
“I do. But first, we’ll need to dig a tunnel,” she replied.
"Yeah, right. So, dig a hole with earth magic, and—wait, hold on. If we’ve got all this abundance, why not just extract it with Refinement, shove it straight into inventory, and break it down later?"
"...That’s correct. It’s possible."
Shiro moved to the cliff face in the direction where he’d detected the ore vein using Scry. He visualized carving out a roughly one-meter cube, then activated [Refinement], severing the solid from all sides.
He then simply shoved the cube into his inventory. It registered as nothing more than "ore."
Inside the inventory, when he separated the ore by elemental composition...
——‘[Inventory: Matter Decomposition] Level 1 acquired.’
"Whoa, it actually works!"
Checking his inventory, he confirmed the ore had been neatly broken down and stored by element: silicon, iron, oxygen, nitrogen, aluminum, sulfur, zinc, tin, carbon...
"This is handy! If Earth’s chemists could see this, they’d go berserk—no, *lose their minds*... Where’s quantum physics now? Wait, actually—how exactly do you store something like oxygen inside the inventory again...?"
"Ahaha. That’s a gap in Shiro’s design. In this world’s implementation, it’s either compressed arbitrarily or turned into a liquid state, entityified."
"Huh. So if I extract air and store it in inventory, then decompose it, I’d get liquid nitrogen?"
"...That’s precisely what it would yield."
"Damn, that’s useful."
Shiro grinned, though he had no idea how he’d actually use it.
After that, Shiro used his probing ability to dig through the mountain. He advanced in straight-line segments—cutting tunnels roughly one meter wide by two meters high—securing the walls as he went to prevent collapse, steadily excavating (or mining, if you will). The walls were reinforced by compressing and hardening them through alchemy, like solidifying a data stream.
Kind of like an old game I used to play, he mused, as he pushed forward a straight-line distance of about two hundred meters, then veered sideways a few meters, descended again in a gradual slope, repeating the process over and over until he reached four hundred meters below ground.
Occasionally, he used his scouting skill to verify the location of minerals and magic ores, extracting a decent amount each time before returning to his starting point. At first, he’d been breaking down materials as he went, but halfway through, he switched to simply storing them in his inventory.
— I can analyze the composition later with鉴定, and separate them then. Besides, I want to try another method. Shiro thought, pushing deeper into the vein, carving out the ore with steady precision.
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