"Williams! How has my old buddy been?" A man around Mr. Williams' age called out. This man had brown eyes and curly hair, he seemed like a very outgoing person.

Mr. Williams stared at him coldy, "Are we even still friends?"

The man didn't seem bothered by Williams' attitude. He simply chuckled and asked, "Blake, why are you being so cold? Come on, you aren't still mad at me?"

"Arthur, you knew that crystal was mine, yet you still stole it from me."

The man named Arthur acted embarrassed, and asked, "What can I do to make you forgive me?"

Williams looked Arthur directly in the eyes, "You could give me the crystals you gained from it, anything else isn't enough to compensate."

Arthur shook his head before Williams even finished, "You may have found it first, but I'm the one who mined it. I can't give it to you."

Williams' brows furrowed, he said, "It wasn't you who mined it but your formation that stole it!"

Arthur signed, "Blake, in the end, all that matters is the one who turns it in, not how they got it. But I have a simple solution, we could have ourselves a little mining competition, if you win you get the crystals."

Williams narrowed his eyes, "What happens if you win?"

Arthur smiled, "Simple, you get me a new formation."

"A formation! Those can go up to 250 crystals in the market!"

"Blake, relax all you have to do is win, and you get 250 crystals, so it's pretty even."

"I guess that's true, but a mining competition mostly favors you, doesn't it?"

Arthur wasn't surprised by what Williams said, but he retorted with, "Blake, I don't have to do this, I could just keep the crystals and buy myself a new formation."

Williams thought about what he said for a bit and ultimately had to agree. They set the time for the competition to start in a few hours and it'll take place in the eastern mine.

The whole bet wasn't really concealed, so it didn't take long for it to spread, and a crowd to form in the fourth level.

...

Cronix was in the forest near the mines, on the ground in front of him were a couple gallons of green paint and in his hands was a paint roller.

It took a few days for Cronix to take these gallons of paint here, since there was only so much space Cronix's magic bag had.

Cronix actually had a specific reason for getting green paint, it was to blend in with the grass, so no one would notice it as much if they were to pass by,

Cronix dipped the paint roller in the paint and infused his mental energy inside the paint. He started moving the paint roller through the grass, drawing a curved line.

It's been two months since he tried drawing the teleportation array, and after a couple of failures, he finally decided his house wasn't the appropriate place to practice the teleportation array.

So he chose the forest near the mine in case it worked, so he would always have a teleportation array here.

This new teleportation array was going to be the biggest formation Cronix has ever made, and if it failed, which there was a big chance it will, there was going to be a huge explosion, that Cronix was not going to survive if he was caught directly inside.

Just one line of this formation would be equal to three of a normal teleportation array lines.

After several hours Cronix was able to draw three of the fifty lines in the formation, this was the improvement he made after two months.

I think it would be best to end it here, I still have the agreement with Ryan, if we still have time after everything I would come back to draw the fourth line.

Cronix left the forest and entered the mine, but when he entered the fourth level he gasped.

There was a huge crowd in front of him, surrounding from what he could see, two people. One was talking to the other miners and the other was leaning against the wall of the mine.

Cronix frowned "What's happening for there to be so many people here?!"

Cronix didn't say this to anyone in particular but that didn't stop a young voice from answering.

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"Didn't you hear? Blake Williams and Arthur Mott are having a mining competition to see who could get the most magic crystals in three hours."

Cronix recognized the voice, it was the young miner that Cronix sold his formation to, two months ago, or in other words, Ryan.

Ryan has so far been Cronix's only customer, very few young miners ever came to the mines.

A gleam appeared in Cronix's eyes,

"Mr. Williams and Mr. Mott are competing? I guess that's pretty understandable after what happened last week."

But, I could probably use this to my advantage if I play my cards right.

"Ryan, I'll be right back!"

Mr. Williams took out a pocket watch from his pocket and said, "we'll start in five minutes." Arthur simply nodded and continued to interact with the other miners.

For the time being Williams closed his eyes and waited for the time to pass, but...

"Mr. Williams!" A young voice called his name, disturbing him from his wait.

When he opened his eyes, he saw a youth wearing a cloak that covered most of his body, and icy blue eyes with cat-like pupils peeking out.

The young man continued speaking, "Mr. Williams, I don't know if you remember me, but I had tried to sell you an item that would increase your mining five fold, I'll just like to remind you that the offer still stands."

Williams sighed, how could he forget about this person who he still couldn't determine if he was legit or just a little scammer.

"Not interested." Just like before he still didn't take the offer but this time, he didn't say anything harsh.

Cronix didn't give up, "Are you sure? This could be very useful in your current situation."

Williams merely nodded his head.

Now it was Cronix's turn to sigh, "Fine, but please take this for good luck." Cronix took out a piece of paper with a complex pattern and a red mark, he then pushed into Mr. Williams hands.

Cronix really didn't give Mr. Williams a chance to refuse the gift, so once it was in his hands Cronix left to rejoin Ryan.

Now all I have to do is hope he will need it.

Williams looked down at the piece of paper and what he saw made his hands tremble.

This is a formation! It now makes sense how he was able to mine all those crystals, but this isn't like Arthur's formation, so what does it do?

Mr. Williams looked at the direction Cronix went with a complicated expression, eventually he put the formation away and approached Arthur, who was surrounded by a crowd of people.

"The five minutes are up." He told him.

Arthur nodded and the two both went to the eastern mine.

While most people were neutral between the two parties, most people thought Arthur was going to win, some even dared to say Williams had no hope in winning.

The reason was simple, Arthur was the one who usually ended up collecting more crystals in the average day, so much more that it was twice the amount Williams usually collected.

Cronix watched all the commotion, and had to force back a sneer.

If things went according to plan Williams would get desperate and use the power of the formation, and once he does, it would be great publicity.

Cronix was also in the opinion that Williams was most likely going to lose, and that's why he gave him the energy sensing array instead of Arthur.

Arthur picked a random miner to start a countdown, and when the miner finished the countdown the two started.

But neither of the two started moving at all, instead they both closed their eyes and simply stood there.

Everyone was surprised by their movements, they didn't understand what they were doing.

A few minutes later, Arthur opened his eyes and started moving towards a wall of the mine. A few seconds after him, Williams did the same thing and moved to a different wall of the mine.

They both destroyed their own wall, revealing the magic crystals inside of them. The other miners were awestruck, they didn't know how the two did what they did, but it still amazed them.

Each miner had their own theories on how they discovered the crystals, but Cronix's was the closest.

Having used the energy sensing array before, he had a bit of understanding of sensing energy, and he could tell that's what they were doing, although it was inferior to the energy sensing array.

Arthur was moving a lot faster than Mr. Williams, and now seeing how they found their crystals, he understood why.

Using mental energy, Cronix had a better time sensing the magic elements, and he could sense the elements around Arthur were the earth elements, which would make discovering crystals much easier than Williams' water element.

In about thirty minutes, Arthur had 30 crystals while Williams had only 14. The gap in their abilities became apparent, as Arthur was increasingly pulling ahead.

Williams' expression became more and more grim, he felt like he'd been wronged.

His problem with Arthur stemmed from a dispute they had a week ago, Where Williams found the location of an advance magic crystal.

An advance quality magic crystal is equal to a thousand high quality lower magic crystals and if he turned it into the M.M.C, he would get 250 high tier lower grade magic crystals.

Unfortunately he made the mistake of telling Arthur about it.

Arthur went behind his back and used a formation to gather the surrounding crystals to mine the advance crystal and turned it in. This understandably damaged the two's relationship.

This wasn't the end of it either, Williams used a magic method that gave him the ability to turn his water into ice, but since it was an incomplete method and not the original it created a flaw.

Williams didn't notice it at first, but this flaw did cause some hidden problems. One of the problems was that it changed his personality, slowly making it cold and aloof.

He had to keep his mental state in check or his personality would only worsen, and what Arthur did messed with Williams mentality, resulting in his emotions becoming less prominent.

Williams had to win or at least come out with something in this whole scandal, so he forced his magic to the max, producing the aura of someone in the Core Creation stage.

He closed his eyes and sensed all the nearby magic crystals. His efficiency increased tremendously causing his magic crystal to double.

Arthur, not willing to be out done, also started using all his magic power to the max revealing that he was also in the Core Creation, although he was obviously behind in power compared to Williams'.

Regardless, he also grew in efficiency, and the advantage Williams gained was half-buried in the dirt.

Time passed by quickly, and Arthur's amount of magic crystals was still more than triple the amount Williams' had.

Time was running out and Williams was getting more desperate to win, yet he didn't know what to do. At this rate he was going to lose, and lose badly.

Williams was at the end of his rope and he was about to give up when he remembered something in his magic bag.

He took out a piece of paper with a red mark and looked at it with a complicated expression.

He hesitated whether to use it, but when he looked at Arthur, he made up his mind. He stopped hesitating and activated the energy sensing array.