1 Prologue: The Discovery

At the end of a dark tunnel leading deep underground. Two men swung their pickaxe at the rocky walls of the cave. They wore thin ragged clothes with only a yellow hard hat as protection.

"Smith, I heard that you would be resigning soon." One of the men said heavily.

"Casper, I'll be resigning tomorrow." The man other man, called Casper, stopped mining.

"So soon?" He asked as he started shaving off the rocky wall again.

"A few days ago I met a friend of my late father in law. He's a retired high ranking officer of the military. He called a few people and got me a low ranking job at some company. He'll tell me everything today and I'll start tomorrow." Smith said as he mined.

"That's good. You have a wife and soon a daughter, the pay here won't be enough." The man sighed and then smiled again as he mined, "I still haven't married or have a family to support, so even if I got a better pay I wouldn't know where to spend it." The man said with a laugh.

Smith held a frown on his face as he continued to mine. Just last month Casper lost his mother because he couldn't afford the medical bills.

The two mined in silence.

"Casper, I already told the Mister Jackson, my father in law's friend of your situation. He said that he told his friends to keep an eye out for a vacancy that you could take up."

"Smith, that was unnecessary. Like I said I don't really need a better job. I've worked here for five years and this cave is like a second home to me." Casper said.

"You know as much as I do that we'll lose are jobs soon. The mining company will have machines take over the whole process."

Casper sighed hearing what Smith said. He forced his pickaxe into the stone wall. As he continued to push the pickaxe in he noticed that he hit some type of hard rock. After a few tries the stone covering crumbled off the wall and revealed a blue gem.

"What? Isn't this a coal mine? Smith come take a look I've found something!" Casper said.

Smith who was mining close by stopped. He turned to see the blue stone stuck to the wall.

"What is that? Sapphire or somthing? We might have struck it rich?!" Smith laughed as he moved closer and tried to scrutinize the stone.

"It doesn't look like saphhire or any other type of blue stone I know."

Smith grabbed the stone and pulled it out of the wall. The wall started to shake as they both ran with the stone back a little. The wall had a layer of stone fall and then the cave stabilised again.

The two stood under. A wooden beam made to hold the cave up.

"Smith! how could you just pull it out?!"

Smith held the stone, "It's got this mysterious feel to it. It glows and is quite light. Holding it makes me fell energized. Casper you take a look."

Casper caught the stone. His mind went blank the moment he touched it. In another second the world completely changed for him. The stone grew brighter in his eyes until it was like a star in his hand. The cave disappeared and he was now in a word of darkness with with millions of small glows moving around with the brightest light in his hand.

"Casper, Capser are you okay?" Smith patted Casper on the cheek as he said this. Seeing that their was no response, he whispered, "Did he fall asleep?" Smith grabbed Casper's shoulders and started to shake him awake.

Casper was brought out from the world of lights and back into the cave with Smith furiously shaking him. He had Smith release him.

"What are you doing?!" Casper said as he moved back. He looked at Smith and noticed that he could see Smith clearly. Other then that he could see weird particle like glows floating around.

He looked at the stone in his hand and had a weird word appear in his head, "Mana?"

"Mana? Casper that's a Mana? What's a Mana?"

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