Ripley still had questions. Questions that needed answers.

He was going to ask their guide Hoen Termina everything he had wanted to know, but she was busy rattling about the city, as she had offered a tour for the new people.

According to her, Refinery City prides itself as the largest industrial complex in the known lands, its size rivaling that of the Capital's. With mana being its top commodity, it's no secret that Behemoths of all kinds gather around to be maintained and dismantled. The cave, she had said, was only the entrance, even though it was large enough for at least six houses. Its walls were lined with a few archways, which were additional entrances that led to different areas.

"That archway leads to the residential area," the tour guide gestured towards their left, "and opposite that leads to the worker's lounge. Right next to it is where we keep our machine tools. Oh, I don't mean the Behemoths, by the way. They're kept outside because we just don't have enough room for them."

"Speaking of which," Lou interrupted. "Silt's is in dire need of refurbishing. Can you have it taken care of?"

"Well, of course," the tour guide replied. "Come to think of it, you two always turn up in a beaten transport type. Not that I mind, considering the kind of work you do."

"Oh, Hoen, you tease," the mercenary waved his hand as if to swat away a fly.

"Nevermind that!" Silt insisted. "Let's just go to the Chief and tell him what we know. It's better if we share our knowledge in order to see the bigger picture. Where is he, anyway?"

"Busy down at the lower levels, and he won't be back until sundown" Hoen's shoulders slumped. "I meant to tell you sooner, but oh well. Let's just continue with the tour."

They arrived at a space that appeared to be larger than it looked, a hollow opening inside a mountain. A giant chasm seemed to reach forever, multi-colored lights swarmed the walls, giving the impression that nighttime arrived early. Rather, it looked like the night sky pooled along the surface of the earth, or in this case, under it. Civilization lined along its rim, busy with everyday happenings. But unlike the scenes from Outpost, the scenes from the Refinery City have an industrial feel to it.

"I've never seen so many star lamps in one place," Ripley breathed in.

"Oh, but that's only a fraction of the lighting," boasted Hoen. "You should go down the base of the chasm, which is thirteen levels down. Best be careful around the edges. There's a reason for those handrails."

"So it's like a reverse Palmetto, only bigger," Marlowe thought out loud.

"A reverse Palmetto?" she wondered. "What's that?"

"Oh, it's just this very tall building in Outpost," he replied immediately.

"Outpost? But this is an outpost, silly! Outpost 17 was its old name before it got changed to Refinery City."

As the group of five rode on one of the elevators that ferry people from one level to another, Hoen began to talk about how the city had started from a small military outpost during the earlier times of war. After the Goddess' sacrifice and the miracle of mana spread throughout the planet, some of the mana particles pooled in select spots on earth, and the outpost happened to be on one of those spots.

It was also here that the usage of mana began to be discovered, and so the people harvested this strange new particle. Over time, as people harvested the mana and gave it various uses, they built residential areas around the large hole that they have dug, until the outpost grew into what it is currently.

"Wow," said Marlowe. "But still, this mining shaft is kind of like a reverse Palmetto."

"There he goes again! What's this Palmetto you speak of?" the tour guide asked.

"Like I said, it's a tall building where I'm from. And in case you're gonna ask, I'm from Outpost!"

"But what are you talking about?! Refinery City IS an outpost!"

Seeing that they weren't getting through, Silt stopped the stubborn people and explained the situation clearly.

"They're from a desert outpost that we didn't even know existed."

"Really? Then we must put it in our maps! I better tell Dad about this," and she scrawled on her trusty slate. "Tell me, is it a neutral camp? Where is it located? How many clicks from here?"

"Hoen, you just switched roles," Lou pointed out. "You were supposed to give us the tour, weren't you?"

"Oh, right," she composed herself. "Sorry. Where was I?"

"The origin of Refinery City's name?" Ripley suggested.

"Ah, yes. True to its name, Refinery City is where we refine most of the world's mana, but we don't just refine. We also mine for it."

"Excuse me, but you can't mine mana," Marlowe went in, arm raised in objection.

"I'm sorry, what?" Hoen took the bait. Her face seemed to tremble as she was trying to hold her temper.

"You need to extract it first from aether, but that takes some effort. The best way to do it would be to extract it from living beings. I should know, and you should too. How are you supposed to mine something gaseous?"

Ripley knew about mana's multiple states in his magical studies. Theoretically, mana behaves a bit like molecules, meaning to say that it can exists in solid, liquid, and gaseous forms. Mana exists mostly like a gas, and with his experiences with Marlowe, liquid mana can take weeks to refine. Solid mana is unheard of.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"Well, I didn't expect you to know so much about mana extraction," Hoen said, the anger from her face dissipated. "But you're right, for the most part. It's true that we also gather mana from the air, but only during certain hours of the day."

She approached a small vein of crystals that gave off luminescence and chipped off a shard, the stump giving off vapors as it shattered from its base, and gave it to the two youths. Marlowe's eyes glowed like the crystal piece he was holding.

"See this crystal? It's the result of high concentrations of mana gathering around the surroundings, coalescing into these crystals over time. And it's these crystals that we mine for mana."

"I never knew that," he said with wonder, then regret. "I shouldn't have done it the hard way."

"But mind you, we don't mine all of it. We let some veins grow when they're depleted, and we come back when they're large enough. Of course, we also mine for the usual metals, and we refine those in here, as well."

"Hear that, Ripley? They probably have stuff you deal with. You know, smelters and whatnot. You don't have to worry about getting scrap metals."

Ripley simply nodded. He was entranced at the piece of mana crystal Hoen gave them.

"Oh yeah," Hoen suddenly beamed. "Why don't I show you guys how to refine mana from that crystal you're holding?"

"Well, that's our cue," said Lou. "I'm gonna leave those two to you, Hoen."

"But where are you going?" Ripley asked.

"We're gonna look for the Chief ourselves," said Silt.

Ripley wanted to protest, as they have stuff to tell him beforehand, but someone already beat him to the punch.

"But you can't leave!" It was Hoen who said that. "At least, not yet! I don't even know these two! I'm a tour guide for today, not a-."

No sooner than she had finished complaining, the two mercenaries had already left for one of the other platforms.

"Well, there they go again," she heaved a worried sigh. "They never stay in one place, but I shouldn't complain. Come on."

She led the two people, dismounting from the elevator into another ring-like chamber like the upper levels. Workers can be seen with tanks on their backs and masks on their faces unloading a familiar glowing liquid to canisters, which were loaded onto crates and delivered to the surface.

"Look, Ripley!" Marlowe pointed excitedly. "That must be one of the miners Miss Hoen was talking about!"

Hoen approached one of the workers, talked to him for a bit, and took one canister of mana.

"Follow me, you two, and I'll show you how the refining process works."

"But don't we have the crystal for that?" Marlowe asked.

"Oh?" she widened her eyes, and then shouted, "Ah, I forgot!" She blushed with embarrassment, but laughed it off soon after. "But we still need this canister, though. For comparison. Could you hold this for me?"

Ripley offered to hold on to the canister, which was the size of a small barrel used to store alcohol. Unlike those, however, this canister was made of metal, and it had a capsular shape, with a glass window that allowed the liquid mana to shine through it. He could also hear a low, humming sound coming from the canister, but that's probably from the nearby elevators.

Hoen stopped at one of the rooms labeled "Refining Station #3", which was filled with all kinds of industrial salvage. Empty canisters lay strewn across the floor. A large Behemoth-like contraption occupied most of the room.

"Sorry about the mess," she said. "We're shorthanded, you see. Most of the experienced people left for the Capital."

"Maybe we can help," Marlowe suggested.

"Oh, no! You don't have to help out. After all, you're still-"

Before she could finish, the goggled youth had already taken one of the empty canisters and started cleaning.

"Young? We're already of age, Miss Hoen! This is nothing compared to what I do in the desert."

"Marlowe's right," Ripley added. "Consider this our thanks for accepting us."

The tour guide was left at a loss for words as the two youths began the cleaning operations, placing empty canisters on one corner and the rest of the waste on a rusted minecart. A table held some of the salvageable pieces, including the various equipment needed to refine mana, and Hoen was about to show them.

"So, uhh," she stopped for a bit, taking a huge breath to calm herself. "We have here this piece of mana crystal. You can see inside there a glow. That's the core of what we'll extract, and to extract it, there are many different ways. The most common way is to grind it into a fine powder, mix a little bit of water, and blend it."

She demonstrated it in front of the two, breaking the crystal using a hammer and grinding some of the little pieces using a mortar and pestle. The fine powder was funneled into a bottle of water and shaken. When she presented the resulting solution to them, Marlowe wasn't impressed.

"And that's it? That's just some blue rock slurry you call mana! And to think you're the largest importer of the product, but it turns out you're selling fakes!"

"B-but we're not done yet!" Hoen bleated. "T-that's still part of the process. Usually, we let the minerals settle and filter the water out, but that takes a long time. Where's the centrifuge?"

"Wait, a centrifuge?" Ripley repeated.

"We need it to separate the particulate mana from the minerals. It's easier to separate when you have a mix like this, and it's also faster. Ahh, there it is!"

She took a crude-looking mechanism, a small table with holes attached to a handcrank, and placed the bottle on one of the holes. She then furiously turned the handcrank until she gave out. After catching her breath, she poked a hole on the topmost part of the bottle, took a small, empty vial, and filled it with the dripping liquid.

"And here," she waved the small vial at the two, "is the result of a painstakingly laborious process of extracting mana. These days, we use Behemoths to do the job."

"Wow, it's awfully small compared to what you get on a daily basis," remarked Marlowe.

"With all that mana, I don't think the city delivers all of it to various places," Ripley wondered. "They must use at least some fraction of what they harvest for their own. Right?"

"Funny you should mention that," Hoen answered. "The city actually uses up more mana than it ships out. The entire floor below this is comprised solely of large Behemoth hearts, which power up everything in here. Pumps, conveyors, filters, smelters, even the star lamps. You could say that the entire city is a Behemoth in itself."

"In the truest sense, most likely," the young smith mused.

And then, it hit him. He had forgotten about it while he was captivated by Hoen's demonstration, despite Hoen suffering in the process. What if the entire city was actually a Behemoth, and that's the reason why the city is sought after by the Blue Army, not as a fuel station, but as a large weapons facility?

With the demonstration done, Hoen escorted the two guests back to the upper levels and were surprised that Lou and Silt were already waiting for them, alongside two older people. One of them was a burly man wearing the typical industrial gear: a hard hat, overalls over a shirt, and working boots. His bearded face shone as he saw the three got off the elevator.

"Dad!" Hoen rushed and hugged her father, who caught and twirled her in the air. The young smith's heart festered with envy as he saw this sight, but he thought of this action as a bit immature for the tour guide, who was about the same age as that of the two mercenaries.

"There she is! How's my little girl doing with the various checks?" the chief chuckled as he greeted Hoen.

"Before that, could you two stop it with the cheesy exchange?" Lou interrupted. "I know how much you think of your father-daughter mechanics as inseparable, but we've got more important things to talk about."

"Ahh, yes. You're right. As expected of you, Sir Knight."

"Again with the 'sir Knight'! I thought I told you to stop call me that!"

"Sorry, force of habit. I just didn't expect you to return so soon, and with one of our scouts, to boot."

As for the other man, Ripley couldn't see him clearly, as the shadows helped obscure his figure. He said to the other man,

"Some old habits just don't go away, don't they, Joe?"

"Come off it, Earl!" he replied. "Unlike you, I didn't leave the army and desert the kingdom for his family!"

"But you still did it anyway! I mean, look at you, doting on your daughter like that."

The moment Ripley heard this other man's voice, his heart leapt out of his chest.

"Is that you, Father?"