CH-24: First Missions

"Come on, I asked seriously. Sigh, never mind. I'm the one at fault for trying." Then I looked at the mission board. It was a huge wooden board that was divided into several types of missions such as hunting, gathering, tending etc. Since it was just the first week there were no hunting missions or gathering missions that were out of the Institute. 

"Hah, so you couldn't find a mission that would let you out and are taking it out on me?" She just left instead of answering. 'How did I end up with such a moody person again?' 

I started looking at the missions in the Gathering Section, ignoring the Tending section. 'I won't tend to some spiritual plants or gardens, it's not something I can cheat anyways.' I looked for quests in which I could use my body strength. Since hunting was out of the question like other missions that required to be out of the Institute, I was left with gathering. There one of the missions caught my eye, it's paper longer than the others.

[Mining In The Myriad Ores Cave]

-In the outer peripheries of the Myriad Ores Cave exists a myriad of ores of early ranks. Most have been dug through but there are still residue ores left. Contribution Points according to ores found and their weight. Those who are below Qi Refining Stage 1 or Refinement Revolutions Stage 1 can't take this mission.-

The remaining was a list of ores and how many Contribution Points they would give. 'Hm, I can cheat with this.' Making up my mind I held my tablet on the mission, copying its barcode type of runes. With that, I went to the official who was dozing off behind the desk, clearly not expecting someone to take missions from the second day. 

"Excuse me, I am here to take on a mission."

"Aah, don't eat me! Ah, ahem. Please hold your tablet here." I did as he told me. "This mission has no time limit, you can actively continue it whenever you want. You can submit the ores to the official at the Resource Hall if you find any. Don't forget to show your tablet and scan your mission code. There will be mining equipment ready at the mine so you won't have to worry about it either. Good luck!" 

After confirming the mission it was time to go to the mines. On the way, I had some serious questions in my mind. 'Does this count as child labour?'

Myriad Ores Cave was a mining site at the Dragon Resting Gorge, to the east of the Institute. As it was far away from educational facilities I used the teleportation platform to get there. There were different types of teleportation platforms all over the Central Continent, but one thing they shared was they were expensive. To make it more accessible they were scheduled according to their types. Continental Teleportation Platforms only worked every three months, those between big cities worked every two weeks, and the ones like in the Institute worked every two hours. The ones that were not for public use were used whenever they were necessary by the noble clans.

Finally arriving at the mining site I showed my tablet to the official there and grabbed one of the pickaxes hung nearby. I did not need either a pickaxe or a helmet but took the pickaxe anyway. There was no reason to not use a tool made for mining. I walked deeper inside the cave, looking for an appropriate position to start. After a few minutes of walking, I finally found a place with relatively cracked walls. 

'This place is good, let's get started.' Normally someone with Heavenly Grade Metal Roots would have to wait for their Divine Sense to open before they could cheat with this. And even if they could cheat, Divine Sense would not go deep enough thanks to the dense natural Qi in the stones. They would also be looking for cracks in the walls like me, but they would have better options to earn contribution points than to waste time here. I dropped the pickaxe to the side and hit the wall as hard as I could.

-BOOM!

The walls of the cave shook and dirt fell off the ceiling, I had even left a fist mark on the wall.

'Nothing at the first try, here comes the second.' I was not mindlessly punching walls, I was using my Pseudo-Divine Sense to feel the vibrations I caused. As ores would have higher concentrations of Qi, they wouldn't vibrate as much as stones and dirt. I was looking for spots where vibration was less impactful. I could not send my Pseudo-Divine Sense too far, so I had to go through everywhere methodically. 

-BOOM!

-BOOM!

I stopped after the last one, as I had found a lump of ores. 'This one is quite big, let's get to work.' ~picked~ up my pickaxe and started digging. The lump of ores was quite far away if it was a mortal who was doing the digging but as a Refinement Revolutions 2nd Stage body cultivator I had no problem digging a few meters of stone in less than an hour. It was also helpful that I caused more microcracks, making my life easier for the next rounds. 

"There it is!"

Using my pick to finely remove the lump of ore from the wall, I put it inside the cart. The lump was heavier than it looked and had a slight luster to it even in dim light.

'Is this Lustrous Hard Nickel? What a great ore to start!' 

Lustrous Hard Nickel was one of the 3rd Rank materials used for refining tacky carriages that were capable of going through water, air and difficult landscapes. When coated or alloyed with it you would get corrosion-resistant material that was also shining on its own, perfect for things like that. Rich liked to show off, after all. I kept going with my punches and sonar-like scans for 8 hours straight. I would've continued if my head wasn't killing me at that point. Before going back I dug some more, to hide so that I could pinpoint ores. I also left some of the ores I found, especially the ones that were with higher concentrations of Qi. Finding that many 3rd Rank materials would be suspicious. One or two could be passed off as being lucky, but any more would raise questions.

I took the cart and gave it to the official, he inspected it and gave me the list of ores I had found. Although I did know which one was which, I didn't know their weights. All of them were featherweight to me. After getting the full list I put the ores in a storage pouch and went to hand them in. I would get a good amount of contribution points this time around.

"So you are here to hand these over? Was it a mission?"

"Yes, here is my tablet."

"It's been 10 hours since you took the mission, and you have quite the load from what I see. You better use this luck in Jade Shattering, kid. You could get a few nice treasures."

"Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't think I will be that much lucky in that." I had tried Jade Shattering once before, but it did not go well. 'Maybe if I make the protagonist pick for me I could get some goodies.' 

"So, you have 1.392 kilograms of Lustrous Hard Nickel, 8.324 kilograms of Black Tungsten, 12.176 kilograms of Azure Copper, 0.673 kilograms of Heart Gold and 0.435 kilograms of Blood Soaked Iron. Among these Azure Copper and Black Tungsten are 1st Rank materials, Heart Gold is 2nd Rank, Lustrous Hard Nickel and Blood Soaked Iron are 3rd Rank materials. Heart Gold is quite popular for jewelry and Blood Soaked Iron is used to make some nasty weapons. Quite the haul I must say. Everything in total will give you 1428 contribution points. 3rd Rank materials alone make 936 contribution points, Heart Gold 312 contribution points and the rest are 180 contribution points." 

I received my surplus of contribution points, mostly thanks to the high-value ores I had found. If I did not have my Pseudo-Divine sense I would likely not earn a tenth of what I had just earned just now. Even over 20 kilograms of 1st Rank ores did not give 200 contribution points.

'It seems like I can't dig those for a while. Sigh, is this suffering from success?'

Before going back to my cave or the auditorium I went to the bath house. My body was sore from mining for hours and dirty. 'How good would it be to have a massage, unfortunately, I won't have the time for it.' The alchemy lesson would start soon and I did not want to miss it. Being absent in the first lessons would surely make a bad impression and could end up affecting me later on. After washing up thoroughly I put on clean clothes and went to the auditorium. There was a little commotion going on when I arrived there.