Chapter 06: Good News!

On the seventh day of his search for ore, Jonn was busy digging a hole while two of his fellow villagers watched with curiosity.

Eliot, 18, and Alise, 21, observed their friend and village leader on this peculiar journey he had embarked on days ago.

Alise sat on a rock with a transparent vase of water beside her, while Eliot stood ready to hand Jonn his tools or assist him as needed.

Jonn was two meters below the surface, working in an uneven hole less than two meters wide. He had been there for the past two hours when Eliot and Alise stopped by to bring him food and water.

However, Jonn had barely touched the eggs with vegetables that Alise had kindly prepared. Eager to see the first results of his days-long quest for ore, he simply drank some water and continued working diligently.

He wasn't using his mana, as he still felt difficulty doing it without using it on his two {Skills} or the Celestial Magnifying Glass. This meant he didn't need to take frequent breaks to recover spent mana, although his physical exhaustion was slowly becoming apparent.

"Time to stop, Jonn?" Alise finally spoke up, unable to bear it any longer, as she stood to meet her friend's gaze.

Jonn was now completely covered in dust, with a reddish layer of dirt clinging to his clothes and skin. Even his white hair was stained. Beneath the layer of black earth in this area lay an intensely red soil.

They didn't know exactly what Jonn was after, but the white-haired boy had no intention of stopping until he achieved his goal.

The Celestial Magnifying Glass showed me clear signs of dense mineral formation here. I have to keep going until I find a rock. Based on the magnifying glass's results, there must be something significant here!

Driven by excitement, he pressed on, ignoring the beautiful sunset in this dark region and missing Alise's company, while even Eliot contemplated leaving to return home. But before the young man with short black hair could depart, he heard a shout of joy.

"Haha! I found you!"

Eliot peered closer at Jonn, puzzled as he saw nothing—it was too dark to see the bottom of the hole Jonn had dug.

If Eliot had perfect vision, he would have noticed that Jonn's shovel had a slight dent at the tip where it rested against a scratched rock.

Upon closer inspection, one could see stripes on the rock, which was enough for Jonn to identify it as raw ore!

"What did you find?" Eliot asked, trusting his friend's excitement.

Though not particularly clever, Eliot was a hard-working young man. He didn't fully grasp the complexities of the world, but he understood that his friend's behavior signaled something positive.

"I found ore, Eliot! Ore! Do you know what that means?"

Eliot didn't share Jonn's exuberance, slightly disappointing the white-haired boy. "What does it mean?" he asked plainly.

Jonn shook his head and explained, "It means coins, Eliot! Coins mean food!"

The realization struck Eliot, and his eyes widened. "Food? We have to call the village Councilors!"

"Before that, help me out of this hole," Jonn said, feeling the pangs of hunger now that he had found what he was searching for.

Once out of the hole two minutes later, he sat down where Alise had been and started eating the cold food she had kept for him in a basket. After finishing all the water from the transparent vase, he noticed Eliot returning with one of the village's most important members.

Tim, a man of medium height with messy white hair streaked with white, came running as fast as he could. Despite his thin frame, it didn't take him long to reach the spot where the white-haired young man was resting.

"Village Elder, Eliot told me something unbelievable… Did you really find a mineral?" asked the old man responsible for analyzing and maintaining the grounds of the Eternal Village.

Having caught his breath and eaten something, Jonn felt better after hours of hard work. He nodded with a smile and stood up, gesturing for Tim to hand him the torch he had brought along.

Night had fallen over the region, and in this simple place, torches were the best the inhabitants of the Eternal Village had to light their way.

Tim watched as Jonn climbed back into the hole and revealed a rock over three meters deep. He couldn't help but recognize the colorful rock.

"Limonite!" he exclaimed in surprise.

In his searches, Tim rarely found mineral rocks in this region. Occasionally, he had been lucky enough to find something small and of little use, so he was well-versed in recognizing minerals and understanding their potential benefits for the village.

"How did you find it?" Tim asked, while Eliot realized his friend had been right all along.

"So it's true. Are we going to get more food?" Eliot asked Jonn.

Jonn nodded to Eliot as he once again requested his friend's help to climb out of the hole. Meanwhile, he explained, "I've spent the last few days searching. Fortunately, I found something that made me dig this hole. Call it luck if you like, old Tim. I figured I'd find something sooner or later, and luckily I did before I gave up."

Tim accepted this explanation. However, the "how" was less important now. The crucial task was to determine the extent of the Limonite ore in this area and then to begin to exploit it. With this resource, the Eternal Village could get iron for artifact production and even trade ingots.

In their declining world, many minted coins existed, but one could produce ingots of various metals to serve as equivalents to the coin's value, even without an official stamp.

"Village Elder, it's good to know you're lucky. Perhaps your luck will save the village and lead us to a better fate," Tim said, grinning widely as he acknowledged the discovery. "For now, we need to form a team to mine the Limonite as soon as possible. I'm asking the Elder to assign me three strong men to dig this ground with me."

"Don't worry, old Tim. I'll dig with you, Eliot, and one more person. We'll call it a day for now. Tomorrow morning, we'll excavate an area larger than what I worked on today. With luck, we'll find more ore than we can manage," Jonn replied, smiling as he gathered his tools.

Working through the night wasn't ideal, so Tim agreed to return to the village with the good news.

He didn't feel guilty about not having found anything in the past. He had dug here and there in the Barren Hills of Deepshadow but had only found dirt and ores of little value.

Some ores contained beautiful crystals, but in a breaking world, items like jewelry—crafted from these crystals—had almost entirely lost their value.

In today's Valorian, sacks of wheat were worth more than diamonds!

Tim placed little value on the beautiful crystals accumulated in the village, but tonight he could finally go to bed with positive plans for tomorrow. His leader had been luckier than him, finding something that would have been difficult for anyone to discover without a great deal of luck.

The Barren Hills of Deepshadow were so vast that choosing a spot to dig and finding something valuable was akin to finding a tiny needle in a massive haystack!

"Everyone, the Village Elder found ore today! Tomorrow we'll work for Limonite in the hole 19 minutes to the east!" announced the man in charge of the village lands, eager to put his old forging skills to use again.

The men around the torch-lit houses sensed a change in the air, each recognizing in their own way the significance of Jonn's discovery.

"Is this serious?" Alise asked, never having imagined that Jonn was actually after such a valuable find.

With iron, they could produce weapons, tools, and ingots to trade for grain and cereals!

Petyr, tending to his horse beside the village's large water trough for animals, narrowed his eyes, contemplating the implications of this fresh development.

He genuinely believed that his methods were the only ones to save the village. Seeing Jonn show him they weren't made him open his mouth and want to go to the place Tim had indicated for himself to check it out.

That's exactly what he did five minutes later, followed by several other men and even some women.

Jonn returned home to wash up, where fortunately he had prepared a bucket of water earlier for a shower. Otherwise, he would have had to fetch water from the village cistern.

At that moment, the system showed itself to be alive again.

{Ding!}

{+1 progress point in the mission [Save the Eternal Village].}

...

{Quests: [Save the Eternal Village]}

[Save the Eternal Village]

[Progress: 2/20]

His eyes immediately lit up. With one more progress made, he could earn the first partial reward of the quest, 3 attribute points. After that, he would get 1 {Skill} when he completed another important advance for his people!

Jonn's thoughts raced as he took a cold bath. Although he could easily heat the water, he preferred it cold after the intense physical exertion earlier.

What can I do to speed up our progress? Metals and food are crucial for the development of any community. We are vulnerable, and securing these resources will help us become more stable. What else could be important for the village?

He pondered for a moment and arrived at an obvious conclusion, given his position, knowledge, and context.

Armed training. The Eternal Village needs a militia!

There were no specialized warriors in the village. The closest was Petyr, a hunter, but he wasn't exactly a fighter who could match a warrior trained by Valorian's dominant forces. Nevertheless, he was the best Jonn had at the moment.

First, I'll mine some iron and build weapons. Then, it will be time for Petyr to train a group to become soldiers!

This plan reassured him, and soon he was in bed, where he would sleep deeply for the next few hours.

After the first significant physical effort he had made since Hewet's death, Jonn would enjoy a restful sleep, something he had seldom experienced recently.

When he woke up the next day, already smiling at the prospect of achieving quick results with the Limonite rock and expecting the outcomes of his greenhouse experiments, he encountered something unexpected.

The system displayed his current status, which had changed slightly from what he had seen before!

{Name: Jonn Irondoom}

{Age: 16}

{Level: 1 (10%)}

{Reputation: Level 4 "Elder of the Eternal Village!"}

{Stats:

[Health: 111] [Mana: 110] [Stamina: 102]}

{Attributes:

[Strength: 10.2] [Agility: 10] [Dexterity: 10]

[Constitution: 11.1] [Endurance: 10.2] [Intelligence: 11]

[Wisdom: 10] [Charisma: 10] [Luck: 10]}

{Resistances: None}

{Skill: [Analysis]; [Essence of Life].}