Chapter 54: It's Mine's time in the Mines

"Is this not the coolest thing?!" Drake shouted with glee, swinging the makeshift lightsaber back and forth with a satisfying whoosh.

Natto still had not recovered and looked up from her kneeling position, "Why must you do this to me, my mind can only take so much!" she wailed.

Ignoring her Drake held the saber in one hand his other on his chin, as he looked at it thoughtfully. "Now all I need is a force choking ability…. If only I had a skill from that Force Mage class!"

"Please spare me!" she shouted.

Drake smiled, "What? Kuuuhhh, haaaaaa. Natto! Kuuuhhh, haaaaaa. I. Am. Your. Father," Drake joked.

Natto's face filled with internal dread as she looked on at the display, "Make it stop!! I never even watched those movies, this isn't fair!!"

Drake began laughing uncontrollably, but quelled the lightning in his hand, with a flex of his hand cutting off its supply of mana. Before walking over to sooth Natto, he quickly checked his mana pool from the experiment.

Hmm down to 35%, that small bit really took that much huh? Maybe I should consider putting my free points into intelligence right now instead of waiting for my next level… Drake mused, walking slowly over to the curled up construct.

"Hey enough of that, I know you love the Galaxy Far Far Away. It's time to help me out a bit, and how did it go with Theodore?"

"How would you know anything!" Natto looked up, her face in faux pain, a single tear struggling to hold on to her batting eyelashes.

"Because I love it, and that means you love it. Now, help, and Theodore," Drake chuckled, holding out another bag of Roasted Nuts from his dwindling supply within his inventory.

Natto stood ramrod straight and placed both hands on the bag, her hurt demeanor gone with the wind, much like her solitary tear that flew with it, replaced by starlike sparkling eyes.

"Certainly, if you insist. Dear Theodore's skill progression went nicely, he apparently had a Epic Descent Sub-tree stone that he had not used for some reason, but he was surprisingly agreeable as I barked orders at him. We filled his Main Class tree with mage and body stones for stat multipliers, then used the Descent Sub-tree stone as well as a Soul Mastery Sub-tree stone leaving the latter empty. The Illusion stone you gave him certainly came in handy for his current task as well. But we will need more of those, and of course any high grade stones we can spare if you wish for him to become a more reliable stealth mage," Natto told Drake spitfire, her hand moving furiously through the bag of food.

"Well that will just have to wait until we come in contact with more Red Caps then. What about his stats, anything you find lacking?" Drake asked.

"Dibacbufao, dacbyyywcd. bvibfaw!" she mumbled.

"Don't talk with your mouth full, that's so unladylike, where are your manners?" Drake said, cringing a half smile on his face.

"I said. No, he is a standard mage class for the most part, but specializes in stealth and illusions instead of offensive spells. So if he could use anything it may be some vitality to prevent him from dying in one shot," she corrected.

Drake nodded, making sure to take note of eventually giving Theo a vitality accessory if he could manage to make one, or find one. And also making sure Natto met his mother to straighten out her manners.

"Then, about the mining, you said before I just need to throw a pickax at the wall basically right?" he asked.

Natto nodded but also clarified after finishing her current snack, "You need to just find a proper gem or mineral while mining, then a profession quest should pop up. The gathering professions are usually quite straightforward as such, but crafting quests are much more arduous."

"Simple enough," Drake replied, picking up the small construct and moving back outward in the mining shaft towards some of the mineral veins he passed before. A few short moments later sparkling colored crystals and veins were reflected in the light of his fireball.

Natto hopped off and found a nearby rock to situate on with her bag of food, as Drake moved from torch to torch in the area lighting them.

"While I do this you can also use this time to rank up, we have about…" Drake trailed off looking at his debuff.

Divine Frailty

Lasts: 11 Hours 58 Minutes 45 Seconds.

"10ish hours give or take," Drake finished.

Natto's eyes glistened in a greedy sheen at the mention of the cores, quickly putting her food away, and trotting over to Drake.

"Splendid idea for once. I am thrilled I thought of it!" she laughed, sticking her nose up in the air, her hands on her hips.

Drake didn't say anything but gave the small squirrel girl a knowing gaze, dropping the tub of cores next to her with an audible bang.

Natto grinned at the mountain of treasure that was now finally clean, and immediately tried to pull the tub to her makeshift seat she had been on before.

And after a few minutes of failing to pull the larger than life tub, she huffed over to the cackling Drake, kicking him square in the shin, "Hey you brute! Will you not do your civic duty and move the stupid thing over! How dare you sit there and laugh at me in amusement!"

Still laughing, "B-but it's.. It's so funny! Wa-watching this small girl in a miko outfit trying her darndest to pull a tub probably 5 times her weight. Because she's too stubborn to ask for h-h-help…!" Drake said, almost curling over.

"Be a proper man and help me, you dolt!" she screamed, her face going red.

"Ohhhhh so now I'm a failure as a man because I didn't help you move the big heavy thing huh. Well at least it's better than being one because I'm not a doctor," he laughed, rolling his eyes and picking up the tub and walking over to her seat.

"Hush you, and go play in your dirt, real work is being done here," she dismissed him, picking up her first monster core in both hands.

Drake chuckled again, "Oh I can't wait until the snow needs to be shoveled."

Drake walked up to the shaft wall and put mana into his eyes, swiftly glossing over in a blue sheen as he used his Mage Sight to inspect them.

He was unfortunately unable to glean much from the stones other than see some of the natural mana affinity hovering in the air around the gems and veins.

"Well that's wildly unhelpful… I guess it's just hard work, spit and sweat from here," Drake grumbled pulling a pickaxe from his inventory.

Rearing back the pickaxe he aimed for an exposed blue crystal like stone that was slightly protruding from the wall of the mineshaft, striking it with a distinct clang that resounded through the shaft.

The crystal stood firm in the wall, Drake's pickaxe only chipping lightly into the wall.

"What the? I have like over 200 strength how the..?" he cursed aloud.

"No, shu du nawt!" a jumbled voice said, forcing him to turn and see Natto with her mouth full of cores, "You hash a deboof remember?"

Shit I forgot.. Damn stupid reduced stats. But that shouldn't be preventing me from breaking the wall… is it maybe something to do with proficiency? He wondered.

Drake shrugged off the surprise and again brought his pickaxe down on the wall several more times, each one with a loud clang of metal on stone ringing in his ears.

A few sweat filled grunts later he finally exhumed the blue crystal with some sediment around it.

[Sapphire Gemstone [F Grade] [Uncommon]

A raw magic gemstone.

A magically infused gemstone that can be used in crafting to create accessories that increase Intelligence by a small amount.

"Yes! Finally! Why is this so god damn hard," Drake huffed.

"Certainly it is because you are a failure!" chimed the peanut gallery.

"Shut up fat ass! Eat your cores and let me play in my sandbox in peace!" Drake spat back.

Drake pulled up his notifications hoping to see a new quest but there was nothing. Just the timed Goblin Quest along with the others.

Drake turned back and asked," Hey I think the system is broken, I didn't get a new quest."

Natto silently looked at Drake. Chewing on her monster core with an irritated look on her face, one eyebrow cocked upwards as if saying, 'so what dolt?'

"Ok, I'm sorry. You aren't that fat. But you should really slow down on those roasted nuts, my shoulders are starting to get sore car- OW!" he was cut off, a half eaten monster core crashing into his cheek, falling to the ground and echoing in the mineshaft.

"Hey, these were hard to get!" Drake admonished.

"You did not even retrieve them! And have you no tact? Talking about a lady's weight?!?" she screamed indignantly.

Drake's jaw dropped and he looked around seemingly searching for something.

Natto's face turned questioningly, "What are you looking for ape?"

"The lady."

The tang of metal embedding itself into the wall next to Drake's head rang in his ears sharply as he turned to look at the small dagger placed there.

"Susmaryosep, take a joke won't you?" Drake grimaced.

"Hmph!"

After some consoling and Drake pulling out an ever shrinking supply of roasted nuts he finally got the answer he was looking for.

"The quest may take several discoveries of the required material, this isn't a real game, you are not going to obtain new skills just from doing regular tasks…" Natto explained a tired look on her face as she bit into another core.

"Oh.. really? Even with all this system stuff?" Drake asked.

"Yes you dolt, think about your own skills. Even with the subsumption of those stones did you really obtain any extreme knowledge out of them?" she said, turning back the question on him.

He took a moment to recollect the moments he consumed the stones, and found some inconsistencies in what she was saying, "Yeah but there were some skills I did learn a few things, like Mana Manipulation and my ocular skills," Drake said.

"That is completely different, those are skills that have intrinsic uses in them because they have no concrete activation procedures. And even then you only receive the most basic of inklings of how to use them. Let me put forth the question. Have you even gotten used to your Mage Sight skill? Most other people would have it active indefinitely by this point," she told him.

Natto was correct. Drake had gleaned a small amount of instruction from the skills upon obtaining them but nothing substantial. And Drake had actually forgotten the most vital part of skills in all the chaos.

Proficiency in use.

Drake cursed himself when he realized. His inner gamer admonished him for forgetting such a fundamental part of any skill based system that was based on use and efficiency of use. To gain familiarity in the skills and eventual master, you have to actually use the skill.

He looked at his Magic Sight.

Magic Sight P1(9%) [F Rank]

It was abysmally low for a skill that you would think he would need nearly all the time. And It was not as if the skill was taking longer to increase like his level has been as a result of his Dual Class title. So in theory if he was on top of his skills he could gain mastery for his rank in record time compared to a Singular class.

"Damn it. I hate when you actually point out things I've missed… Guess it's time to work even harder," Drake sighed but put power into his eyes as they cascaded in blue, red, and yellow.

"Then you must live in perpetual hate, because you miss quite a lo- Wait! No! Give those back!! I'm almost F Rank! You brute!!!" Natto shouted at Drake as he picked up her tub of cores, smirking at the distressed little construct.