After an or so hour of resting, refreshing themselves with drinks, and eating, the group of eight senior acolytes went back up the hill to the spot where they had last mined.
Upon arrival, unfortunately, they found that the dumas were still busy lting the skygazers carcasses in their gooey, semi-transparent, bodies. Due to that, as they had agreed during their break, they went to the farside of the hill where they hadn't been to, which also ant, a place wherein they hadn't eliminated any skyglazers yet.
Soon enough, they found another clump of large black rocks that had the titanium in it. As previously discussed, Ery was the designated miner since he was able to gather much faster than any one of them. Of course, Ery had soone alongside him, anyone of them, taking their turns after one deposit had been finished. They did this so that they could put more emphasis in defending the mining area from any beasts that would be attracted by the sound of the clanking pickaxes.
"How co you're able to gather more, Ery? These stones are quite hard to break down," said Chumo, Ery's current partner in mining. Klea of course was on the defense team, it seed she preferred shooting out lightning bolts out of her hands to burn the horrible, worm-headed, skyglazers to a crisp more than doing physical labor, hence Chumo was able to speak.
"I probably am just luckier in finding more, that's all," said Ery in-a-matter-of-fact tone.
The real reason why Ery had been able to gather more was due to his keen eyes and dexterous hand. When he had returned to their world, he had spent months farming, grafting, doing all sorts of stuff relating to alchemy and so experience relating to crafting items. In potion-making, for example, a small mistake, such as a small twig or dead leaves could affect the potion's quality as a whole. So, his eyes and hands had been trained. Due to those traits, he was able to find the right spots where to strike with the pickaxe, making sure he hit the weaker parts of the black rocks, and this in return, resulted in him being the person who had the most titanium in storage. Not to ntion, he actually had one of the highest battle powers among them. That helped a lot too.
Ery focused on striking the rocks to finish this mineral gathering task as soon as possible. While doing this, he actually couldn't help but sotis think he was being labeled in the others' mind as the weakest mber of the group. Still though, as he gave more consideration in this line of thinking, this 'weak act' might have its benefit in the future. Therefore, he decided to stay quiet and went along with it. Also, after more mining occured, it was confird that he really was the most efficient miner compared to the others. In a way, he was contributing a lot and was benefiting everyone, including him, to get this task done faster.
Occasionally, Ery took a break by sitting and observing the others. From what he had inferred so far, among the eight of them, Thrax still seed to have the highest battle power. This was evident by him being able to break the hard black rocks almost as fast as Ery. The difference between them, however, was that Thrax seed to be expending a lot more effort than Ery. Thrax was probably venting out since he had always complained how he wanted to be on the front, fighting with the beasts rather than mining.
As for the three acolytes from Zaiueo, Ery reckoned they were a bit lower than Julian in terms of battle power, again based on how fast they mined. Therefore, Ery figured that in terms of raw strength, they were probably on the 'okay' side of things once the magus ga started, assuming Ery and his friends decided to let the three join.
In regards to the spirit force, Zuna, the one who had thrown the tier 3 [Wind blade] spell, was the person who had the sa rank as Klea. His windblade spell wasn't much stronger than Klea's, according to what Ery had seen so far, hence, Zuna most likely had an equal or lesser spirit force in comparison to Klea's. In fact, Ery hadn't seen Zuna use other types of elents except for the wind one. He probably only had one elental affinity while Klea, on the other hand, had three elents, wind, water and lightning. In so way, this made her a better magus than Zuna.
The other two acolytes, Zaku and Zidi, are rank 5 acolytes. The two of them stored their firearms and started using spells. They had ice and tal affinity, respectively. When Ery watched them throw their attack spells, Ery felt they had a similar spirit force compared to him or Chumo, Therefore, Ery concluded there wasn't much special about them. Still, the three of them gave the team a more balanced strength with their long range attack and good coordination, they were a good addition to the team. Ery just wasn't sure if they could be trusted.
One more advantage of these Zaiueo acolytes was their better equipnt. The firearm was surely impressive but their lee weapon also seed to be made of material that wasn't steel, the strongest tal he had encountered so far. Which couldn't be compared to the weapons used by Julian or Thrax or any of them, actually.
Ery had seen Julian's sword and Thrax's spear. The weapons they had been wielding seed to be made of the sa material as the old knight's. That wasn't surprising though, considering the old man had ntioned the chains and the sword he had been using were Roman steel. As for Chumo, he had been using bow and arrows. That seed to be the weapon he was most proficient. And regarding Klea, she wasn't using any weapon, rather she kept using [lightning bolt] as her main offensive spell.
Thrax was no longer Ery's partner in mining. He was replaced by Julian, who sat beside Ery, taking a break as well. Currently, Thrax no longer summoned another pila, he was using another spear, which looked a bit different from the first one. This spear was actually sothing Thrax had received as a reward before they went back to their own world. As he fought, he refrained from using [Fire Infusion] since the one he had used against the duma earlier had lted and most likely wasn't sure if this spear would et the sa fate.
Ery asked Julian why didn't Thrax try to retrieve the pilas he had thrown. According to Julian, the Roman pilas that Thrax had used were a one ti use weapon. It broke at the mont of impact so that the enemies of Ro wouldn't be able to throw it back in case they had the idea of pulling it out.
Once Ery felt he had sufficient rest, he went back to mining and the whole cycle of finding new deposits, fighting off the attracted skyglazers, repeated countless tis. Eventually, the skyglazers carcasses were piling up and started to attract the dumas. Hence, the team moved to a farther area once more.
Several hours had passed, and only now had the group noticed this planet's ti cycle was different from the Magus Academy. It had been more than twelve hours since they had arrived here, and this planet's sun was still striking high above them. Eventually, at the eighteen hour mark, Ery and Chumo threw away their pickaxes and smiled at each other with great satisfaction.
Inside Ery's inventory, they confird they had eight tons of the titanium. They also had recounted the spirit stones, and the final result was they each received 150 spirit stones.
The group once more rested for another hour at the foot of the treeless hill where they had hid earlier. After resting, the group jogged back to the two erect structures, where the portal was, and got transported straight to the hub.
They had been fighting and mining for the last 24 hours, it wasn't surprising that they returned looking exhausted. Klea was asking if they could do this tomorrow instead, but when they arrived at the window counter to report to the beautiful lady taskmaster, she ntioned she could hold the item and deliver it to the person from the blacksmith institute who had made the request. However, it could take a day or a week for her to do that, since the people who were doing the delivery of items had a lot of pending requests. Regarding their reward, it would only be given once the blacksmith had confird the receipt.
The first magus ga would be held in nine days from now. Only then did the lady behind the counter ntioned to the group that they could deliver the requested item to the person who had requested the task.
Not wanting to put this off for another day, the group unanimously agreed they'd do it and on the way, they would inquire about upgrading their equipnt. Hence, the group decided to tell the lady they would deliver the mineral personally.
The taskmaster bowed and once she received confirmation that the blacksmith was willing to et with them, she gave them the location of the eting. The place of eting? It was the Blacksmith Institute inside the Golden City.
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Written and Directed by Avans, Published by W.e.b.n.o.v.e.l,
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