Chapter 214: Nugget Collector

Rino fell right into the lagoon like a rock and had to use magic to get out of it. As soon as he got out of the water, he felt his exposed skull catching fire.

Dammit! Why did it have to be daytime now?

Moreover, Rino had no idea where he was as the water pushed him down the river to shallower bends. He could see the mountain and where he fell off from, but it was very covered by trees. Thankfully, this wasn't the jungle of doom, and Rino wondered how big the dwarven mine was for him to travel this far.

Town Zera wasn't anywhere near here, and Rino quickly got out of the water to dry off and hide under the shade to avoid combusting into purple flames. 

Once he was safely out of the sun's way, Rino removed his shoe to empty out the water trapped inside and stones that made their way into it. It was funny how his boots weren't wet because of the waterproof enchantment. However, the stones that fell out still puzzled Rino. He was sure that there were no possible holes for them to get into after he tightened the laces on his shin bones.

Then again, there was always that problem without muscles around his bones. There was a gap between his tibia and fibula even after fastening the laces. Maybe the stones fell into his boots from there.

Barefooted and tidying his appearance, Rino sat on the grass and redid his boot laces. A piece of small rock fell out, and Rino made a face at it. Why were there so many rocks?

However, after a while, Rino noticed something different about the rock that fell out. Picking it up again, Rino examined it against the light and wondered why the rock was a different colour. Sure, rocks in the river often came in various colours, but yellow rocks were a little rarer.

Most pebbles found in rivers were green, grey, white, blue, red, brown and even orange. Occasionally he could find black stones and all the pebbles washed to the river bed were normally chipped off ores or stones from further up where the water came from. Sand was a very common sediment found but it wasn't present in this river for some reason.

Curious about the different types of rocks and ore pieces that could be found in this river, Rino quickly fashioned a huge leaf hat so that his face would not burn while he was walking in the river. Feeling the pain of getting burned alive was something Rino could tolerate. However, having the annoying flickering of purple flames in his vision was something he hated about becoming a lich. The hood did not always cover everything, even if it was huge.

Rino spent the next ten minutes collecting handfuls of pebbles and noticed some small bits of crystals in the mix, with most of them being different kinds of quartz.

He set the crystals aside and counted that he had bits of citrine, topaz, rose quartz, clear quartz, onyx and even red jaspers. They were numerous, and the variety continued to increase as he spent more time sifting through the riverbed. However, these crystals alone were too small to be of any real use. Rino still kept them in his shadow sack. Crystals were often said to be good luck charms. Maybe he could make some sort of accessory using them and put minor enchantments on them to act as a lucky charm for gifts. It was currently a possibility he did not want to omit.

After combing the river bed thoroughly for all different kinds of rocks and crystals, Rino gathered them and spread them out on a huge leaf mat that he made under the shade. Although he did not know all their names, he could recognise a few.

One particular ore stood out to Rino, and he grouped them together. Yellow irregular shaped rocks that were pure yellow. They were slightly dull, and when Rino applied pressure on them, they would change shapes. For some reason, it eluded him until Rino recalled a scene from his previous world.

By the river, hundreds of workers would line up and sift through sand collected from the river in sifting pans for hours under the hot sun and sometimes even through the night. It was a tough game of finders and keepers. Some spend their whole lives finding nothing but little scraps, while others can make a living based on pure luck alone.

River panning was an activity that was popular after someone found a huge diamond in a river by accident. Since then, the empire faced a boom in companies purchasing labour slaves to pan for precious ores like gold and silver while others would find gemstones and purchase rights to occupy a certain stretch of the river that the public could not enter.

It posed several issues to the villagers nearby these reserved stretches of river that they often did their washing in. However, there wasn't anything those commoners could do when the kingdom passed new legislation allowing it after imposing hefty taxes for rich businessmen.

Taking out his divination spell sheets, Rino placed his raw gold ore from his bag onto the paper and cast the spell. If everything was correct, the yellow bits on the leaf mat should be pure gold nuggets!

As soon as the spell was completed, Rino could only interpret its results as positive. The river was full of gold nuggets with the scattered dotted location feedback. At the same time, Rino took this chance to find out if silver was also present. He could not tell which were silver ores simply because silver looked very different in its natural form.

Once again, Rino wasn't disappointed when the divination spell gave him scattered dots. Although these were not ores, Rino was happy to know that the actual mineral ore veins should be somewhere in the mountain he fell from. He still had no idea where the volcanoes were, but maybe the mountain range in this area were volcanoes many years ago. Rino could not be sure. Yet, it made him happy to know that it wasn't hopeless.

Rino spent the day sifting through the river to hunt for nuggets and crystals. He had no idea how many of that he found, but time flew by very quickly when he was having fun. It was the daily quest system that prompted him to leave and locate the actual ores.

Travelling upstream, Rino looked at the forest and noticed that it was quieter than the jungle of doom. For some reason, it felt tranquil and for the first time in a while, Rino felt refreshed. He was truly alone here in the middle of nowhere if he ignored his soul bonds.

Flying past the rushing and roaring water, Rino found himself standing at the ledge of the lagoon that he fell into earlier that day. With less than twenty-four hours to complete his daily quest, Rino briefly entertained thoughts about his punishment for failing to find the ores.

From above, Phil wondered how Rino could overlook the obvious and skip several stages in the quest they prepared for him. Gold panning was something that should happen much later after his kingdom was developed. The mining industry was a sign of industrialisation, and they weren't even there yet.

In the meantime, Rino started probing into the walls of the mountain near the waterfall. It was far too tedious to try and get back inside the dwarven mine against the flow of water. Hence, Rino decided to just check the lower levels of these walls to see his luck. In reality, Rino was only trying to see if there were caves within the location that he could break into from all the way down here.

The cave opening Rino was looking for finally appeared, but the entrance was only a small crack that the wind could pass through, so Rino helped himself and smashed it open using earth magic.

It was dark inside, but Rino could see the pitfall of doom for unsuspecting cave explorers. A few feet in front of him, the cave ledge disappeared, and there was a good thirty feet drop to the cave floor below. It was closer to call this a side opening into an underground ravine than a cave entrance, but it was exactly what Rino needed now.

Using shadow tendrils as a rope to lower himself to the ravine floor, Rino listened to the eerie sounds of water dripping and cave animals moving in the dark. Now that the roaring river was out of earshot, Rino decided he was far enough for his divination magic to work again.

Rino cast divination several times for the next hour to locate a gold pocket and a silver vein in the ravine cave. They were very deep down and not easily accessible, but Rino understood that this was what he was looking for.

Not willing to come back here or extend the existing mines in the dwarven caves to get gold and silver, Rino decided to think of an easier gold and silver mining method when he got back. The most important thing now was completing his daily quest before the deadline and returning to Town Zera.

With the help of his pickaxes and shadow tendrils, Rino spent the next few hours mining up as much gold ore and silver ores from the two veins as he could. He only stopped when he saw how much mana it took to store them in his shadow sack and stopped trying to empty the two ore veins.

"This should be enough to make a few bars of shiny metal," he concluded and retraced his steps out of the cave before taking off into the night sky to locate his secluded town.