William removed his gloves that weren't suitable for gripping the sleek crystalline Greater Fire Shards and was about to use his bare hands to rip them out of the wall directly, but then he remembered his experience with herb gathering.
What if this was the same way? Was there a chance he could damage the material in the process of removing it?
He looked through his System Panel for a specific Talent, stopping near the very bottom where two Common Talents under the "Other" category were located.
———
Other:
-Common:
--Herb Gathering: C (100PP to next rank)
--Mining: C (100PP to next rank)
———
It's only C-Rank. How long has it been since I last upgraded this?
William scanned through his memories, but he couldn't locate the specific moment. If he had to guess, it was probably while hunting in the Foam Desert. He had upgraded quite a few useless Talents back then.
It doesn't really matter when, but it's actually useful now. System, upgrade my Mining Talent to S-Rank.
William didn't care about the prerequisite Ranks, since he only wanted general knowledge that would enable him to recover the Greater Fire Shards more efficiently and without damaging them.
With his Mining Talent at C-Rank already and some overlapping information from the Blacksmithing Talent, William knew inherently that he shouldn't be outright grabbing them, but he didn't know exactly why.
As the System removed 1350 Potential Points from his balance, however, William began to understand as the information entered his brain directly.
He quickly found out that the reason why he shouldn't touch the Greater Fire Shard was because it was categorized as a crystal, and the oils from his hand could transfer to the Fire Shard's surface and making it lose clarity and luster at the microscopic level.
"William!"
Clang, Clang, Clang, Clang.
"WILLIAM!"
Clang. "What?"
"You're loud, and it's kinda hot. Can you do something?"
"Oh, sorry." William was used to the sound of forging items, so he hardly ever soundproofed his area. Not only that, but his high heat resistance once again tricked him into thinking he was in a normal environment.
William used Sound Mana to prevent the noise from leaking out, also lightening the strain on his own ears. It was the fifth, technically sixth Element he had used in the Southern Plains if you counted the secret Fire Magic, but no one was around so William wasn't concerned.
Next, he created a small five-meter dome of Ice around Carl to protect him from the heat. Carl added his own piece by creating a wall of Earth above himself, catching the bits of water that melted from the ice.
William finished forging the chisel only a few minutes later in the soundproofed environment, then got to work extracting his first Greater Fire Shard. He started on the ceiling, raising himself up with a pillar of Ice, then reached upwards to stabilize the Shard while following the instructions from his Mining Talent.
Pop! The Greater Fire Shard broke loose from the ceiling after just a few minutes, gently held in William's hand as he retrieved a bit of cotton from his Space Ring to wrap it in, along with a small black box that was given out in the Gravitas Ruins.
-Acquired Greater Fire Shard: +25 PP
Not as much as Starmetal Ore, but still quite a bit! There's so many Shards here too!
He continued extracting Fire Shards, collecting nine more and placing them inside the same box with cotton padding in between. The black boxes had plenty of space inside, so William was able to store ten Greater Fire Shards at once.
Though he used a small amount of Mana each time to reach the next Greater Fire Shard, William's Mana Reserves recovered to full in under an hour. He wasn't really low on Mana anyway, so this wasn't really a problem.
He replaced the Ice Dome around Carl that had nearly melted, then continued extracting Fire Shards for the next three hours until he had 230 Greater Fire Shards. While he was excited about the loot, William was more thrilled about earning 5750 Potential Points.
He wanted to continue mining the Greater Fire Shards, but he sensed the thieves above them descending once again, so William had to wake Carl up.