Howling Mine

This time, Ina returned to the capital at Lusen's invitation to attend an invention exhibition held by a newly formed club within their circle.

It's worth mentioning that in the past year, Lusen had experienced some adventures. with his new magical machinery mentor, they ventured into an underground mine. This was nothing unusual; when studying potion-making, he would often accompany Professor Derick into various swamps and forests to collect magical herbs. This time, they were collecting a rare accompanying ore called Star Pattern Ore, only found deep within the Duya Mines where the goblins reside.

The Duya Mines are a vast natural mine, often referred to as an underground continent, a forest of ores. It used to be a habitat for goblins who would collect various ores to create magical machinery to sell to all the different races on the continent. However, after the goblins left the Moro Continent, mages had to mine the ores themselves.

Natural mines are undoubtedly dangerous, with countless crossroads, mysteriously disappearing markers, and creatures lurking in the depths. Therefore, Lusen's mentor only led Lusen down a shallow vein, the only tunnel he had traversed numerous times before.

Despite their thorough preparations, they still encountered some unexpected situations. Lusen got separated from the others and wandered alone in the deep mine for seven days before finally finding a new exit.

Anyone could see that Lusen had encountered some adventures. He jumped from a junior mage, who was still one step away from becoming an intermediate mage, to a senior mage with powerful magic. He also seemed to have acquired some knowledge of goblin magical machinery.

Looking at Lusen's experiences, his life story also seems quite legendary. Though not noble, he was admitted to Star Academy during a period of expanded enrollment, with considerable preferential treatment for civilian students. During his third year, he met Professor Derick, who treated him like his own child, not only teaching him about potion-making but also taking him on tours across the continent. Due to an accident, Lusen worked at a restaurant and got to know the most powerful professional on the continent, who is also the only black dragon, and the ruler of the Silver Empire, Duke Elvys. Upon returning to the academy, Lusen switched to magical machinery due to the influence of Dragonflame Restaurant. During his travels, he encountered numerous adventures, skipped several levels, and received a heritage.

oh, and most importantly, Lusen is an orphan!

Congratulations to him, he already has some basic settings of a protagonist.

The club Lusen newly formed is called "Practical Magic." The participants are almost all familiar with Ina: Eulanda, Lilith, Vila, and Gwendolin. There are only five people in total, all from potion-making and magical machinery.

Seeing their small inventions, Ina immediately realized that instead of simply inviting her to inspect these research results, they probably wanted to secure her sponsorship.

"These are basically considered trash in the world of magic," Ina thought.

but, she never mentioned these discouraging aspects. Instead, Ina showed great interest, meticulously examining each item.

The first to present was Gwendolin, one of Professor Derick's students and a former classmate of Lusen's. Gwendolin had graduated from Star Academy and become Professor Derick's assistant.

She held an ordinary potion bottle in her hand, containing a colorless, viscous liquid. Gwendolin uncorked the bottle, took some of the liquid, and applied it to two pieces of wood. The wood pieces were swiftly glued together. Then, Gwendolin washed the glued wood pieces with running water and even tried to bake them. Before the wood caught fire, they remained firmly glued together.

Clearly, it was a powerful glue.

Gwendolin explained to Ina that this strong glue was a waste product from the manufacture of several common potions. After completing the complex refinement process, potion makers ended up with a pot of viscous liquid. They carefully separated the effective part, which was filled into potion bottles as successful medicine.

The remaining part, devoid of any medicinal effect or practical value, was simply tossed into the garbage.

Potion-making departments continuously produce this type of "waste." Gwendolin saw this as wasteful. Professor Derick agreed with her. He occasionally made potions to get the glue for personal use and even shared some with friends. However, the amount of "glue" produced by an entire department of potion students was too vast, and most of it ended up wasted.

"Gwendolin, are you planning to buy this potion-making by-product from the students and resell it?" Professor Derick asked after hearing Gwendolin's idea.

"I don't have a definite plan yet, but it's not hard to get this glue from the students. They worry every day about how to deal with this sticky liquid," Gwendolin had never done business before. She only had a vague idea, which Lusen recruited into the club and presented it to Ina.

"Glue..." Ina pondered for a while. It indeed was a nearly blank industry. On the Moro Continent, the gap between classes was large. Commoners used fish glue, beeswax, and some other adhesive substances extracted from animals in their daily lives. Nobles and mages didn't use these, they had their methods. There isn't a single component of magical machinery that was glued on. Magic could solve most of life's difficulties.

"It's a huge business. Is this glue more suitable for daily use, or can it replace fish glue as a waterproof material for ships and buildings? Is the glue toxic? How should it be stored under normal conditions? If you can figure these out, feel free to seek collaboration with me at any time."

The next invention came from Eulanda, and Ina couldn't help but stare: "Did you actually replicate a laser motorcycle?"

Eulanda smiled somewhat awkwardly: "I'm still far off. This is just a flashy model. At first, I thought all I needed to do was make the motorcycle move to carry people forward. But as the experiment went on, I realized how naive I was."

Eulanda led Ina to another motorcycle that looked much simpler. It resembled several supporting frames embedded with an engine and a stool placed on top. This was the skeleton of the lavish model from earlier.

" I encountered so many problems, I had to invite you over."

When Ina heard this, she felt a bit guilty. Her understanding of motorcycles was limited to the in-game vehicle, with no knowledge of its internal structure. But after listening to what Eulanda had to say next, she could only marvel at the girl's genius.

"The first issue is energy, undoubtedly, I use magic crystals. The motorcycle consumes fewer magic crystals than I anticipated, but it's still not a small amount. Especially if you want to achieve higher speeds, you must use larger magic crystals. Another issue is the comfort of driving this motorcycle. For the sake of testing, I drove it a few times myself. If the road condition is even slightly bad, the pain in my waist and buttocks is unbearable, nothing like the ride you gave me."

Ina inspected Eulanda's simplified version of the motorcycle, noticing that she had already solved the fundamental issues of power and gear changing. Only two problems remained: endurance and shock absorption. However...

"If you do manage to produce a successful motorcycle, what are you planning to do? Ride it yourself?"

Frankly, motorcycles are rather unattractive on the Moro Continent. Not only are they costly to operate, but the road conditions also hardly allow for it. Unless it's an off-road motorcycle, it would be a punishment to ride one.

Ina shared her thoughts with Eulanda, but the latter disagreed. Eulanda had conducted legitimate market research: "I previously studied mechanical wind wolves. They aren't cheaper than motorcycles. Not only do they consume magic crystals when starting, but they also need precious materials like gold and mithril to achieve sufficient attack power. If mechanical wind wolves are needed, mechanical motorcycles will only attract more enthusiasts. No one can keep up with them when it runs."

Indeed, Ina had been thinking in the wrong direction. Eulanda's mechanical motorcycle was obviously not affordable for commoners. Its target customers were still mages and warriors. Some aggressive professionals would definitely love this efficient means of escape and chasing runaways.

Ina began to answer Eulanda's questions: "Regarding energy, I can't solve that either. Unless new magic crystal mines are discovered on the continent, the cost will only increase. But for comfort, perhaps some soft, cushioning material could be added to the wheels and seat."

After thinking for a moment, Ina added, "If the strength of Gwendolin's glue is sufficient, it might be able to replace rubber to make tires."

Next, Ina watched the test drive of the Eulanda-brand motorcycle. Honestly, it was like riding on a rampaging bull, there was a kind of stunningly violent beauty in the rush.

Lusen was still on the side, saying, "I told you my senior sister is good at making magical machinery move!"

Ina could only pray that when Eulanda got off, her internal organs were still where they were supposed to be.

The last invention to be shown was Lilith's charging solvent. The name was interesting, and the effect was surprising.

As is well known, magic crystals are rich in energy and are an indispensable power source for all magical machinery. They are like a battery, they can release electricity and they can be charged. However, the threshold for charging magic crystals is high. Only a high-level magician can do this. And professionals with enough level are wasting their time on this meaningless charging work.

But with Lilith's solvent, you only need to immerse the energy-depleted magic crystal in this solution. The solution will form a thin golden film on the surface of the magic crystal. With this film, even apprentice wizards can try to infuse magic into the magic crystal. Moreover, the magic crystal with this film will absorb the free magic in the air at a very slow rate even under natural conditions.

The reason why Lilith developed this solvent was that she persistently wanted to bring sunlight to the mist town. Therefore, she hopes to introduce light elements into the exhausted magic crystals. Although it was ultimately found that pure light elements could not be screened out from magic, a solvent that can assist magic crystals in absorbing energy was accidentally produced.

"Phosphorescent stones? Where did you get the phosphorescent stones for the solvent?" Before Lilith could answer, Ina had already remembered. "You used the phosphorescent daisy I gave you, didn't you?"

Lilith smiled and nodded. Ina knew about Lilith's obsession with the lack of sunlight in the Mist Town. After she had obtained the opportunity to exchange achievement points for prizes, she exchanged some extra phosphorescent daisies in order to expand the tea tree forest in Mist Town. At that time, Ina also gave Lilith one.

How to put it, if this solvent doesn't require expensive materials to make, then every magician could become a money-printing machine, charging magic crystals would be equivalent to printing money, the only difference would be the speed of printing. But if this solvent requires phosphorescent stones as raw materials, it would be equivalent to grinding diamonds to make batteries. While batteries can indeed be reused, when would the cost of the diamonds be recovered?

but, this was still an astonishing discovery. Ina was amazed by everyone's amazing creativity and initiative and was willing to fully support their research.

Before leaving, Lusen suddenly pulled Ina aside mysteriously to tell her about an astonishing secret he had discovered in the underground mines.

Since the Duya Mine was discovered, it had always been occupied by the Goblin clan, and no one knew more about underground life than them. But they discovered a horrifying thing- the underground mines were becoming increasingly unfamiliar.

The tunnels that were clear in their eyes became elusive, strange howls came from the depths of the dark mines, the veins they used to exchange for food and money were depleting, and the caves they lived in were becoming unbearably damp.

"The howls coming from the earth's core tell us to leave! The mines are no longer a comfortable home, but a terrifying purgatory. But where can we go?"

"We are losing companions every day, the mines are collapsing!"

"There is no hope, maybe we should indeed leave."

All of the above comes from the diary of the goblin mechanic who inherited it from Lusen. The reason he told Ina this was because Ina had previously shown concern for the different races who were deceived into the relics of the old gods. Instinct made Lusen think this information was important to Ina. After all, Lusen already knew that Ina was not a human, and wondered if her people might also be trapped in the ruins of the old gods.

"When was the time of the diary?" Ina asked with a serious expression.

"The timeline is quite wide, between the years 1250-1252 of the Moro calendar."

"I see, if you get any more information, please let me know." Ina was very grateful to Lusen.

Lusen laughed, "No need to be polite with me, Miss Ina. You're my boss, both in the past and now. Our 'Magic Pragmatism Club' wouldn't survive without your support."

Walking back to the restaurant, Ina stepped over the long shadows cast by the whale-oil lamps atop the street posts. A series of events began to link together in her mind.

Around 1250 of the Moro calendar, the goblins discovered terrifying changes in the Duya Mine, their ancestral home, which was no longer suitable for habitation.

In the Moro calendar year 1252, the goblin mechanic wrote in his diary "There is no hope."

The timing... Ina's expression hardened, the year when the Old God's relics were discovered was 1252 of the Moro calendar!

[You have acquired a clue: Howling Mine]

[You have triggered the main quest: 'Collect four clues to unlock the restaurant upgrade'.

Clues (1/4): Goblin - Howling Mine, -, -, -]

Ina suddenly had a bad feeling. "Why is it such a big deal just for a restaurant upgrade task?"

The system kept silent. Recently, the system had been appearing less and less frequently, unnaturally quiet.

This ominous feeling deepened.

Although the system was unwilling to come out and explain, it was clear that Ina would not give up on this task. Moreover, with the remainder of the first clue, she already had some idea of how to complete this main task.