“How long do we have?” asked Min.
“A month, maybe two before it becomes significantly harder to find good crystals.” Ren stored another crystal in his bag, feeling the weight of time pressing down on them. “That’s why we need to take advantage of every moment now.”
“Well, I can take my time,” Min shrugged, his water snake coiling lazily around his shoulders. “I prefer to study more before trying to evolve my snake.”
“But Taro needs the crystals soon,” Ren reminded him, thinking of their upcoming demonstration. “And it’s not just cultivation crystals, we need enough to buy processing and sealing materials. You’ll need them too, and it’ll be good to have crystals saved up.”
“At least it will be cheaper for me with your method,” Taro smiled, his digger beetle creating faint patterns on his skin. “Hope you are right too… After all, you have a bet to win.”
Ren nodded, though his thoughts went much further. A hundred bronze crystals… equivalent to a thousand of these small ones if exchanged at school.
And that was just the beginning.
The Bronze-rank beast parts he’d need for his own evolution would be even more expensive.
Not to mention the poisonous fungi of the same rank… The numbers were staggering when he really thought about them.
“Ren?” Min waved a hand in front of his face, his snake mimicking the motion. “We lost you for a moment.”
“Just thinking,” Ren refocused on the vein. “We should organize better. Work in shifts, take advantage of every free hour.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a bit…”
“It’s not just about the bet,” Ren interrupted, his voice carrying the weight of knowledge he couldn’t fully share. “Sealing materials are expensive, and once these veins are depleted, getting enough crystals to buy them will be much harder.”
Taro looked worried, his beetle’s markings darkening with his mood. “How many will we need?”
“For the final sealing…” Ren made mental calculations, remembering the precise requirements. “Probably equivalent to 10,000 iron rank mine crystals, just for the basic materials.”
Min whistled, his snake curling tighter around his neck. “And that’s just for Taro’s beetle. What about your evolution? Are you thinking of cultivating that expensive fungus they say isn’t worth it?”
Ren pretended to concentrate on mining to avoid the question. That variation they created with strength runes was terrible, but…
How could he explain that he needed ten times what Taro needed but for something else?
Better to keep that worry to himself for now.
“Let’s focus on one thing at a time,” he said finally, watching the mana patterns swirl in the rock. “For now, we need to take advantage while the veins are still rich.”
“We should explore deeper tomorrow,” he suggested, pointing to another promising pattern that shimmered just at the edge of visibility. “Where fewer students dare to go.”
“Liu warned us about going too far down,” Min looked nervous, his snake’s scales rippling uneasily. “He said tunnels can become unstable and there are… things moving in the darkness.”
“Just a little deeper,” Ren insisted, the mushrooms in his hair pulsing with reassurance. “Besides, we’ll be together.”
His companions nodded and returned to work. The rhythmic sound of picks against rock filled the tunnel while each considered the challenge ahead of them.
To evolve a beast, you needed three things: crystals, processing materials, and sealing materials. And getting them all before the veins were depleted…
‘One step at a time,’ thought Ren while extracting another crystal, watching the mana flow through the stone. ‘First help Taro, then…’
His gaze drifted toward the deeper tunnels, where mana was denser. There, where few dared to go, perhaps he’d find what he needed for his own evolution. But for now, every small crystal counted. Time was running, and the veins wouldn’t wait for anyone.
♢♢♢♢
“Sixteen crystals today!” Min proudly dumped his bag on the desk, the crystals catching the light like trapped stars.
“Eighteen,” Taro smiled, showing his collection arranged in neat rows.
“Three bronze and nineteen iron,” Ren added his to the pile, each crystal carefully extracted from the precise spots where mana lines converged. “Not bad for beginners, eh, Liu?”
Liu observed the crystals with genuine surprise, his night bat fluttering closer to inspect them. “Not bad at all… though I don’t understand how you found so many bronze crystals.”
Later, after night training with Lin, Ren barely managed to drag himself to bed. Every muscle ached with the day’s efforts, but it was a satisfying kind of pain.
“You know,” Liu spoke from his desk, his bat casting shadows in the lamplight, “I admire you. With such a terrible beast, most would have given up by now. But you keep pushing… Even harder than the rest.”
Ren smiled in the darkness.
If Liu only knew that his spore wasn’t as terrible as everyone thought…
♢♢♢♢
The days began to blend into a routine, each one building on the last.
The mornings Wei left free became torture sessions with Lin, each exercise pushing Ren’s limits further than he thought possible.
Battle classes with Yang were another kind of pain, but Ren could feel his body gradually strengthening, the 10% boost from his spore becoming more meaningful as his base strength increased.
Professor Mei alternated between history, economics, and “Life,” a surprisingly useful class about everything from paying taxes, making fire, and etiquette, to negotiating with merchants.
Crystal class became more technical, but the real learning came afterward, in the deep parts of the mines where the mana patterns told stories few could read.
Liu began joining them after classes, apparently intrigued by their success in finding good deposits. His experience added another layer to their mining expeditions, though he still couldn’t quite believe some of Ren’s “theories.”
Nights ended with more training with Lin, though now Ren could stay standing a bit longer before collapsing, each day bringing small but noticeable improvements.
Thus passed almost a month.
The routine was exhausting but productive, his muscles strengthened, his crystal collection grew, and slowly but surely, the respect of his companions grew with it.
But tomorrow… tomorrow was different.
As he prepared for sleep, Ren mentally reviewed the necessary steps. Tomorrow they would process Taro’s crystals. The lunar phase would be perfect, and everything they’d worked for during this month would be put to the test.
He just needed to bring the processed Bronze-rank crystal he’d gotten from the school’s exchange shop and make the most of the time window.
Tomorrow would truly begin his demonstration that the knowledge he possessed was real.
“Nervous about tomorrow?” asked Taro from his bed.
“No,” Ren smiled in the darkness, the mushrooms in his hair pulsing softly with certainty. “Everything will go exactly as it should.”
Liu snorted from his corner, but said nothing. Soon he would see that some “crazy theories” held more truth than he believed.