Finding A Refiner

After seeing all the notifications and his balance, he finally decided to start mining.

"Time to mine and grow stronger!", Rei said in an energetic voice. He then looked at the wall and proceed to lift his arm. His grip over the pickaxe increased, and soon the pickaxe rapidly came down crashing into the wall.

*clank*

The sound of the metal colliding with the rocks reverberated throughout the cave.

However, Rei didn't mind much and started to swing the pickaxe vigorously, trying to break rocks.

He was successful too, but at the fortieth strike, a loud sound, quite different from earlier was heard.

*Crack*

The pickaxe broke, to be precise, it's handle and the lower edge of the metal had cracks.

"What the heck!?" Rei cursed as he looked at the broken pickaxe.

-"Pffffffttttt."- Lucas chuckled.

Rei then grabbed the head of the pickaxe which was lying on the ground.

"I don't need this garbage! All I need is my precious skill one strike!", Rei said as he puffed his chest and then used his skill. Silver light travelled from his hand and engulfed the head of the axe.

Rei then stretched his arm backwards as it budged.

*Bang*

The head of the axe clashed with the wall and shattered. The efforts didn't go to waste as a large piece of the wall fell on the ground.

Rei quickly grabbed the large piece of rock and then carefully looked at it.

"Seven! There are seven mana stones in it!", He exclaimed happily as he found seven shining orbs engraved into the gigantic rock.

-"But they are impure. You will need to refine them first..."-

"What? Then tell me quickly how to refine it! Should I lick it to remove the impurities?", Rei asked in a sarcastic manner, trying to joke as he was quite happy to find seven mana stones with the sacrifice of using his skill once.

-"You dumb shit! I am amazed! How can you come up with these revolutionary and disgusting ideas?"-

-"You licking them will only make them impurer."-

"You!" Rei exclaimed but then calmed himself.

"Then what do you think I should do?"

-"What else? Give it to a refiner to refine it."-

"And where will I find one?"

-"Where else? Go to the status and then search for Refiners"- Lucas said.

The game TLOW was built to give people real-life experiences along with unreal ones. But as time passed, it somehow shifted to becoming the source of main income for many.

With refines to schemers, including many other sellers sold their items and performed necessary tasks upon the requests of the players, of course, they would take gold coins to make a living.

Along with that, there were many online streaming services and one could even make reaction videos, or originals – they would need to have an official TLOW account and would only be allowed to post on TLOWTube.

Regardless, when Lucas mentioned the refiner, Rei didn't ask further questions as he suspected such kind of thing to exist.

Getting pure mana stones was impossible, so he was wondering since the time he got the first mana stone about getting them purified.

"Alright."

And then Rei searched Refiner on the status screen and what he saw made him go crazy

His eyes widened as he looked at the blue screen.

< = = = >

[Refiner]

[Will refine your mana stone but in return will take 80% of the profit from selling the mana stone.]

[Or]

[80 Gold coins to refine a mana stone of grade E.]

[160 Gold coins to refine a mana stone of grade D.]

[400 Gold coins to refine a mana stone of grade C.]

[800 Gold coins to refine a mana stone of grade B.]

[1600 Gold coins to refine a mana stone of grade A.]

[4000 Gold coins to refine a mana stone of grade S.]

< = = = >

Rei then looked at the screen that displayed the selling prices of the mana stones while simultaneously glancing at the mana stones that he had found.

[Grade E] – this was mentioned in the description of the bunch of mana stones.

< = = = >

[Mana Stones:]

[Selling Prices:]

[Grade S: 5000 gold coins.]

[Grade A: 2000 gold coins.]

[Grade B: 1000 gold coins.]

[Grade C: 500 gold coins.]

[Grade D: 200 gold coins.]

[Grade E: 100 gold coins.]

< = = = >

"What the hell is this bullshit!? I am not giving these bastards a single penny!"

-"Damn it Rei! Just think about it! Even if he takes 80% You will still have Twenty gold coins!"-

"I don't want your waste coins! I just want the mana stone!"

Rei was quite adamant about it – after all, it was quite a scam that was being run.

Who would take 80% of the total profit? Wasn't that too ruthless? – Rei kept thinking about it while arguing with Lucas for about ten minutes.

-"Then why don't you go to the chat room and find a refiner over there? He will charge you only 50%. Or even less if you can negotiate."- Lucas gave up and suggested the only other option available.

"Huh?"

"Why didn't you say that earlier!" Rei scolded Lucas and then searched the chat room on the screen.

< = = = >

[Chatroom]

[Warning: Please avoid stirring a fight – curse words usage is allowed, but may be censored.]

[Warning: Please avoid trading or making deals. No one is responsible if you are scammed.]

[Notice: Create an official account to post videos, raise an issue or interact with other players.]

< = = = >

"What the…?", Rei stared at the orb as he read the notice loudly.

"Lucas… just what does this mean?", Rei asked, somewhat angry after seeing this notification.

-"It simply means that the Refiners in the chat room will take the mana stone and return you the black impure material. You can then lick it as much as you want"-

"…"

Rei was completely infuriated now. He did not know what to do.

His pickaxe, which was supposed to last longer, broke way earlier solely because of his grip strength and too much of strike force.

Furthermore, he had very less money now.

If he were to buy the item that cost 35 gold coins, then he would be left with only 5 gold coins which could lead to problems in the future if he ran into trouble.

Therefore, to ensure that such a thing didn't happen, he decided to load himself with money… alas, even selling the great mana stones wasn't an easy job.

"…"