Still, hundreds of meters below Malik’s feet, the sounds of pickaxes striking the thick mountain stone rang out.

Naveck Runeheart rhythmically struck the stone, trying to ignore the anxiety he felt beneath Garok’s judging gaze.

Since finding the mithril vein, Garok had been driving them past exhaustion. He had already murdered two of his mining mates for being too tired to swing their pickaxes. One might think that the miners should revolt against such leadership, but Garok Grimfury was a level 49 Berserker. What could a group of middling-level miners do against someone like that?

Not to mention, Garok had a powerful family. Renowned for being the best warriors the Runesmith Clan had to offer. It was said that they had been the stone that tipped the scales in the dwarves’ favor during the decades-long Kobold War. Getting on their bad side was a death wish for any miner and their families.

Sure, Naveck came from an old family that was once well respected within the clan, but they had fallen from grace generations ago. No dwarf would bat an eye if Garok Grimfury hacked Naveck to bits. The royal council had been scared of the Grimfury family for as long as Naveck could remember. Now, it was only made worse as Gerald Grimfury had found a seat at their table as the Master of War.

Naveck had only signed up for the expedition out of desperation. He knew that the Grimfury family was full of bloodthirsty animals, but they paid well and ventured far. His only son, Nero, was a talented Rune Crafter but was at risk of being drafted as front-line fodder for yet another kobold skirmish if Naveck couldn’t pay for his apprenticeship within the next year.

This expedition was expected to take around six months, but they had enough supplies for eight. They had already been working for four months and the reinforcements wouldn’t arrive for weeks.

Heat flooded Naveck’s face as his anger grew, thinking about his situation and the overbearing aura of Garok’s watchful eye. He daydreamed about burying his pickaxe in the smug bastard’s skull. The miners would certainly be better off for it, but that’s all it was, a daydream. He doubted his pickaxe would even leave a bruise on the Berserker.

Setting his pickaxe down, Naveck began to extract some of the precious mithril when he heard an odd noise. There was a scratching sound coming from the other side of the wall, which should have been impossible. But he had a skill, Prospector Perception, that allowed him to hear through several tons of rock. This was typically useful for avoiding digging into an underground water source, and flooding the mining operation.

Garok’s voice rumbled behind Naveck, “It’s not break time. That mithril won’t extract itself, runt.”

Naveck clenched his jaw and kept extracting the mithril, straining to hear what the scratching was. At first, he thought it might be a kobold mining operation, but threw that notion aside as he listened more. It was an incessant sound, like a thousand knives scraping against a whetstone.

All he could do was ignore the sound as he felt Garok looming behind him, watching his every move. He could warn him perhaps, but only he had the skill as far as he knew. If Garok decided not to believe him, Naveck risked being made an example of. So, he continued to pick away and extract the mithril.

Hours later, the other miners started to hear the noise and exchanged nervous glances.

Garok narrowed his eyes and held up a fist, “Halt!”

Some dwarves instantly collapsed, uncaring of what was making the sound. Sauntering over, Garok casually shoved a miner to the side and pressed his ear against the wall. Seemingly satisfied that he had heard enough, he turned to face the rest of the miners, “Why didn’t any of ‘ye tell me about this?”

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The miners and Naveck suddenly found their own feet very interesting, not daring to meet Garok’s eyes.

Garok scanned the faces of the miners, “Go take your rations and get some shut-eye. We start back up in three hours.”

Tears escaped the eyes of a few miners at the unexpected promise of rest. Naveck wasn’t as relieved. If Garok was calling for a halt, perhaps he knew what was on the other side. The answer was surely dangerous if it gave him pause. However, he wasn’t about to turn down the rest. Whatever was on the other side, he needed to be as alert as possible.

— — —

Malik had begun his project of building the Incubation Chamber. With exactly 100 palm-sized stones that were scattered near the water, he had made a circle with them for the materials to go in. He also repurposed the extra beetle shell to hold the beast cores and placed it in the center of the circle. He still wasn’t sure that he wanted to use the junk tier cores, but it was important for him to experiment.

Wanting to check his progress, he went back to the altar and flipped open the Founder’s Log. A new page had made itself accessible to him.

Building Progress

Level 1 Incubation Chamber

Stone:

3.60%

Beast Cores:

20%

Blood of First Child:

0%

He was a little surprised by the progress. His circle of 100 stones did not look very large, even if it had taken him a while to gather them. Yet, he already had 3.6% of the task completed. Perhaps the directions were incorrect. Even another 96.4% didn’t feel like enough stones to erect an entire building. Malik could only shrug, continue the task, and await further directions.

In his peripheral, he saw something small and brown dart toward his circle of rocks. It was the creature with incredible dexterity again. The squirrel. It poked its nose at the beast cores and plucked one up in its tiny hands.

Baring his teeth, Malik raced after it, but the squirrel was too fast. It popped the beast core into its mouth and scampered off like a bolt of furry lighting. Squirrels are vile creatures, Malik thought and lamented that he only had two more beast cores left. Maybe he could find a safer place for his valuables. Somewhere where even squirrels wouldn’t dare to go.

That was a problem for later he supposed and began searching for more stones. He laid eyes on a decently sized rock, about the size of his head, and thought he could cheat a bit. If he put larger stones in the circle, it would take him fewer trips. The larger rock proved to be much heavier than he anticipated and he struggled to carry it all the way back. However, even with the extra strain, he felt that it was worth it to cut the gathering time down.

Malik found more stones of a similar size and began fetching them for the circle. After the third stone, he felt his muscles ripple and firm up. Confused, he checked his stats. He didn’t gain an actual level, but his strength went up from three to four.

This was a groundbreaking discovery for Malik. He wondered how he could do this with his other stats as well. Reinvigorated, he darted around the small valley, breaking a sweat on his leathery skin, carrying the heaviest rocks he could, and drumming up ways to increase his other skills without burning free points.

For hours, Malik did this, only stopping to get a few gulps of the clear, frigid water. One of his favorite things to do was plunge his face into the spring. The coldness would send a jolt through his body and make the skin on his face tighten.

Finally coming to a rest after working up an appetite, Malik checked his stats again and was elated to see that his strength was now all the way up to six. He had noticed that it took more time between stat increases. At first, it was carrying three stones, then thirty. Finally, he was able to practically run with them as he had with the hand-sized rocks.