Chapter 57: Mining-expert

Shane finished the small fight without any further issues and collected the corpses that littered the ground.

Normally he would now continue mining the elemental and mana crystals close to the cave entrance, but unfortunately, he didn't have any funds to purchase a pickaxe left, as such he could only strive through the cave rooms to kill the newcomer scaled lizards that appeared from the small tunnels in order to go hunting or to do something else.

Shane asked himself if he was at the wrong place or why so many lizards were copulating at the higher layers of the cave but it would most likely remain unknown for eternity.

Furthermore, he couldn't really complain about the situation because killing copulating beasts was much easier than beasts that were on guard against him.

Even if Shane felt slightly bad, he decided to not mind, because there was nothing for him to do against it.

As such, he decided to not mind it after a while and a whole hour passed before a notification appeared on his system.

[200x [Mortal-(Trash)](Fire) elemental crystals have been sent to Firug Grila in exchange for 26 gold coins]

Shane smiled at the message as the [Mythic] mission progress bar increased from 0 to [26/1000] but there was a small problem.

He only had 26 hours left and Shane figured out that he would have to increase his mining speed by a large margin.

Searching through the system shop for a while, Shane was not satisfied with the offers, when he changed to the Primordial Shops in order to find some pickaxes with better quality.

He had 26 gold coins and pickaxes couldn't be considered rare, as the ores required to make them were only small in quantity and their price wasn't high.

Shane could purchase a few [Common] quality pickaxes but after five minutes passed and another 30 gold coins appeared within his finances.

With 56 gold coins, Shane immediately changed his trajectory towards better pickaxes when he picked a certain red shining one without hesitating for a second

[Ambrulite-pickaxe [Mortal-(Extraordinary)] Price: 42 gold coins] additional passive effect

[Turbulent Impact(passive)]

Shane bought the Ambrulite-pickaxe because of its passive [Turbulent Impact] which would ease his mining experience by a few folds, as long as he supplied it with enough mana.

Items with a [extraordinary] quality or above had the chance to have certain special effects and [Turbulent Impact] was one of them, causing their price to Skyrock compared to [Rare] quality items.

Using a mana crystal to utilize the passive effect of his newly acquired pickaxe was perfect and more than enough for several hours because Shane didn't want to use his own mana he might need in dire situations.

With around 10 gold coins left, Shane bought an uncommon concealment potion for 16 hours with 8 gold coins, even though he had to grit his teeth.

Compared to shelter stalls, the primordial shop was always more expensive, and additionally, there would be a transaction fee of 10% increasing the price even more.

As such, his whole fortune decreased to 1 gold coin again, while his current position was much better than before.

Gulping down the uncommon concealment potion without looking at his remaining timer, Shane started his journey once again.

Standing close to the cave's entrance, he was already aware of the bad hearing sense the scaled lizards had because It was extremely difficult to imagine another reason why he could mine mana and elemental crystals unhindered with the thunderous sounds revering through the cavern's upper layer.

In front of a large brown elemental crystal, Shane stood there tranquil, taking a deep breath, as the passive effect of his newly purchased pickaxe activated.

A small red hue began to envelop the already red shining pickaxe when Shane pulled the pickaxe back before he used all his force to smash it into the crystals in front of him.

Unaware of Shane, the pickaxe pierced through multiple layers and tore apart a small part of the crystal with a single strike, shocking extremely.

Previously he was forced to smash his mining pickaxe multiple times into a crystal to obtain some small pieces of the elemental crystals.

However, now the difficulty seemed to decrease by a large margin, making it much easier for him to mine the trash and common quality crystals.

Time passed slowly and Shane received additional 7 notifications about the packages he sent to the Elus merchant.

There were still 23 hours left on his [Mythic] mission and his finances reached 246 gold coins, while the progression bar on his increased to [302/1000].

With a radiant smile on his face, Shane knew that this small fortune he earned was solely earned by the 1800 elemental crystals he sold a few hours ago.

But now his spatial ring was once again filled with even more crystals, thanks to the investment into the Ambrulite-pickaxe with its special passive effect.

Even though Shane mined two hours less compared to his first mining spree, the elemental crystals within his spatial ring told a different story.

More than 2200 elemental crystals were spread in his spatial ring, while around 100 scaled lizard corpses could be seen.

This spoke bonds for the efficiency of good tools and Shane was proud to have thought of purchasing an extraordinary quality pickaxe with such a fitting effect, instead of a pickaxe without any effect

Packaging the elemental crystals into parcels with 200 pieces, Shane sent them to the Elus merchant with satisfaction spreading through his whole body.

Umbra sensed Shane's joy and was equally overjoyed. As such, one could see a foolish smiling youth with a one-meter black snake on his shoulder sharing and spreading their joy through the cave, which was filled with soil, crystal shards, and dried blood.

Deciding to make another tour through the cave's upper layer in order to be safe from any assassinations once he continued mining, another hour passed with 22 hours remaining for his mission.

Hearing the beautiful and glamorous sound from the notifications the system made, Shane couldn't help but smile every time he saw his finances increasing.

613 gold coins!! Shane's eyes widened as he saw his finances while the progression bar for his mission reached [669/1000]

He only had to hunt another four hours in order for him to clear his mission and there was more than enough time left.

However, the only downside was, that Shane grew extremely tired with time passing.

Dispelling the tiredness by gulping down the liquid within one aqueous scale, Shane felt more lively once again.

Shane's arms felt almost completely numb and it was already slightly difficult to raise them.

In the end, he had to endure this hardship in order to accomplish the mission he received, causing him to grit his teeth.

If a little bit of hardship could allow him to reach his new goal, why shouldn't he do so?

In Shane's opinion, he would even face a mountain of hardship if it allowed him to live his dream of freedom, his desire for more strength, and his slowly increasing interest in venturing through the dimensions to explore them.

Three hours passed silently without anything special happening and Shane was already about to sell everything he accumulated to finish the [Mythic] mission as his vision blurred when the cave trembled with two deep roars revering throughout the cave.