Mining

Nicholas used to run a bakery. At that time, the world didn't really bat an eye about breads except it being a plain, dry, and hard-to-chew food. It all changed when Nicholas opened a bakery in the capital of Arkteia Kingdom. He was the one to introduce them to a new world of breads. He was the one to introduce various forms of donuts, cakes, soft bread, and much more.

A small, humble bakery in the capital of Arkteia that served the tastiest and sweetest bread. That's what it became famous for. Sometimes, other kingdoms would even send their envoys to come and buy breads for the royal family.

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"Business was supposed to be normal that day. It's just that noble. Why…" Nicholas said.

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One day, a carriage of a certain noble family came to his shop, escorted by many knights. Normally, only envoys, representative, or servants would come in place of the nobles. But on that day, it was the noble himself that came to his doorstep.

"Are you the baker of this store?" the noble asked from within the carriage.

"Yes, I am. If you would like to buy some bread, please come back tomorrow as we are closing right now" Nicholas answered.

"No need for that" the noble waved his hands and the knights escorting him started to surround the store. "Nyikelaos the baker. I order you to become my chef. Your talent is wasted here by running a measly bakery in such a place, surrounded by peasants."

Nicholas frowned. He built the bakery with his own blood, sweat, and tears. He had found a nice, kind, and loyal worker, who was a homeless boy that he cared for. He even took the time to teach him how to bake bread. He felt that the noble had just insulted all of his hard work and effort.

"I'm sorry. I don't plan on being anyone's chef. Nor do I want to stay being a baker. I'm afraid you would have to leave this place empty handed" Nicholas replied to the noble.

"Hehe… hahaha… HAHAHA… as I said, this is not an offer, this is an order. Men!" the noble flicked his finger and one of the knight came forward and attacked Nicholas' one and only worker. Reunard was his name.

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Hearing the story until this point, even Iledoya could feel his heart burning with anger. He has seen what happened that day from Reunard's perspective but not from Nicholas' perspective.

"At his last moment, all he did was thanking me and asked me to sing him a song… hahaha" Nicholas said while laughing. It wasn't the happy kind of laugh but the laugh of someone hiding his feelings.

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"Nicholas. I repeat, become my personal chef!" the noble said again. "You may not have any more workers but… you happen to be close with the people around here, right?"

After laying down Reunard's body back on the floor, Nicholas stood up with his back towards the knights, clenching his fists. Dark blue mist started covering the ground from where Nicholas was standing. Looking outside from the carriage, the noble found it strange for a while. He didn't know what it was until he realized something.

"FALL BACK! ITS HIGHLY CONDENSED SPACE MAGIC!" Normally, unless someone uses a technique like Iledoya's magic eye technique, it should be impossible to perceive magic. For it to be visible, it had to be condensed.

Just like Iledoya's clothes or the magic balls, by condensing magic they become visible. But Iledoya's clothes are the example of condensing magic in just the right amount and having it under control.

In Nicholas' case however, is that he released all the magic he possibly can. Due to the sudden mass release of magic, a rare case where it condensed to the point of being visible. Highly condensed magic, is what the people call such cases. When such thing happened, the highly condensed magic can affect its surrounding which in most cases, can be dangerous.

For example, highly condensed Fire magic could heat its surroundings and in some cases, even to the point of melting it, depending on its grade.

As the knights started to retreat in a hurry, the knight who killed Reunard wasn't quite lucky. Just as he was about to get away from the dark blue mist, it touched his legs and his legs vanished. "AARRRGHH" the knight screamed in pain as he fell to the ground.

Nicholas turned around and started approaching that knight, with the mist following him closely. Standing close to the fallen knight, the mist around Nicholas' feet started engulfing the knight. In his last moment, he was screaming "SAVE ME SIR! PLEASE SI—". Being completely engulfed by it, the last words of the knight got cut off.

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"After that, I controlled my magic to engulf myself, my store, and Reunard's body. I didn't know what would happen nor did I care what would happen. After I engulfed myself, I fall unconscious. I was woken up by a patrolling guard of Gilrad, as apparently, I got teleported right outside its canyon" Nicholas ended his story with a sigh.

"I spent my days here using my knowledge to make a weapon for my revenge. Hehehe… and it just happens that the violin was the last part of my plan for revenge"

Iledoya's interest got piqued. "Can you show me?"

Nicholas shook his head "I don't know a suitable place to show you. And unfortunately, it still needs some tweaking that I plan to do on my way to the capital."

Iledoya was disappointed. But he had another idea that made him smile "Then how about I help you with your plans?"

Nicholas was quite shocked about his idea. This is a noble he was talking about here. Killing a noble! In the capital! No sane man would want to help him. "Didn't you hear my story? It's a noble that I want to kill! You will become an enemy of the country!"

But Iledoya shook his head "I'm just going to help make sure no one and nothing will stop you. I have my ways to help without showing my face. So how about it?"

Nicholas hesitated for a while. "Haaa… fine. But we're stopping at Ruteshia first before going to the capital."

"What a coincidence! I too, plan on going to Ruteshia after this." It was such a perfect coincidence for Iledoya. "Well then, I'll be going now!"

"I'm staying at…" Nicholas gave Iledoya his address. "Just knock on the door when you're planning to leave. I'll wait"

"Okay, thanks!" Iledoya turned around to leave. But then he turned around again "Um... Do you happen to know where the Adventurer guild is?"

Nicholas did a facepalm. 'How long have you been staying in Gilrad?' Is what he thought. He still told Iledoya the directions anyway.

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Now, Iledoya was standing in front of a cave. "Well… This is definitely the place, judging by how many picking sound I can hear" From outside, Iledoya could hear the sounds of many many people mining.

One of the most famous metal used in weapon or tool making was a metal that can only be found in the canyon of Gilrad, thus it was named Gilrodum. When he went to the guild to ask where to mine it, the receptionist sighed while muttering 'not another one'

The cave in front of Iledoya right now was a favorite spot for mining Gilrodum. Though it is now very rare, due to so many people mining for it. But Iledoya had his ways.

Kneeling down to touch the ground, Iledoya spread his magic into it. Similar to his magic sense technique to sense his surroundings, he is using his magic to sense what is underground. Though the difficulty is drastically higher when spreading magic into solid materials. Not many could achieve this feat. Even Earth mage would have difficulty doing the same.

After spreading his magic underground, Iledoya decided to move somewhere under a tree. He lay under a tree with his arms behind his head as he closed his eyes.

To Iledoya, it would feel different to spread his magic through different materials. Though there's only a slight difference, with Iledoya's skills, he could perceive the tiny difference when his magic goes through metal or through a plain rock.

By relying on this difference, he controls his magic to find a material that he rarely find.

Miners, adventurers, and blacksmiths would often walk out of the cave. When one group saw the laying down Iledoya, they thought 'What is this boy doing? Does he want to get Gilrodum?' they looked at each other, confirming that they were all thinking of the same thing. They giggled as they thought 'Does that boy think it will rain Gilrodum if he just lays down?'

The group waited outside the cave, waiting for their companions who was still in the mine. They would often chat about Iledoya who was just laying down outside of the cave.

After all their companion returned from their cave and was about to leave, they decided to give Iledoya one more mocking look.

But when they turned to look at Iledoya, their legs turned weak and their mouth almost touched the ground.

Ores was falling down from the tree like rain onto Iledoya.

All the miners, adventurers, and blacksmiths felt their heart and hard work crushed into dust and blown by the wind.

'Heck! It actually rained Gilrodum!'

Gilrodum had the distinct characteristic of being silver with green stripes and the ore shared this characteristic. Their group consisted of almost 20 people and they were only able to get a bag or Gilrodum ore. While Iledoya had it raining beside him piling up into a mountain as big as him!

The group walked back to town with shame. They felt as if their soul was slapped.

While the mentally broke group walked away, Iledoya was quite happy with his found. 'With this much, it should be just enough but…' as he thought that, he controlled his magic a little and another ore came raining down from the tree.

Unlike the Gilrodum that was silver with green stripes, these ores were green with blue stripes. They amount was only a quarter of the amount of Gilrodum that Iledoya found. Because he found that it was rarer than the Gilrodum, Iledoya also 'picked it up'.

'I wonder what ore this is' Iledoya thought as he looked at the unfamiliar ore.

The way Iledoya 'picked up' the ore from underground was quite unique. Every time he found an ore he wanted, he would form his magic into a tube, connecting it to the surface. For safe keeping from greedy eyes, it reached all the way to above the tree. Once done, he would control the tube to simulate the human throat's way of moving food to move the ore above ground. To Iledoya, this was just something a little bit hard to do. Well, at least he did drop a single sweat… due to the heat outside that is.

After much contemplation, Iledoya took the logical decision 'Let's just ask Grat tomorrow'

Since he is conveniently already outside of the town but still in the canyon, Iledoya decided to just sleep in his backpack once again.

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The next day

"What an interesting find you have here." Gratrosa was currently staring at the green ore with blue stripes that Iledoya found.

"Do you know what it is?" Iledoya curiously asked.

"As a matter of fact, I do. How deep did you dig into the ground to find this?" Grat asked.

Iledoya thought about it. He then did a rough estimation "About ten times deeper than the layer to find Gilrodum I think?"

Gratrosa felt that his heart almost jumped out of his chest. While his heart didn't jumped out of his chest, he did spurted blood.

'Oh you got to be kidding me. How did you even dig that deep yesterday and still capable of coming back today...' he thought. "The last time this thing here was seen was 500 years ago. They named it Edium"

"Edium? That's a strange name…"

"Well yeah, cause the founder; Eduuuaertdo's full name, was very long and complicated. So they just took the ed from it and used it to name the ore" Gratrosa explained.

"Wait. isn't that the name of…" Iledoya came to a realization

"Yep. That's right. The one and only. You can find this thing anywhere on the continent but you have to dig down really deep and even so, it is still rare. Even here in the canyon which makes you have to dig less, it's already considered very deep. While it isn't considered the strongest material out there but…"

"But?"

"But it is considered as the best material to imbue magic. Not only does it store a lot more magic, but it somehow makes runes more effective. Some people say it has other properties but it is still unknown" Gratrosa explained

"That's a pretty cool metal right there" Hearing its description, Iledoya stared at the edium ore in Gratrosa's hand.

"So what do you want to make out of these?"

"Hmm… For the Gilrodum, please make them into a cauldron. For the Edium… how about making…"

[edited by ed]