“That, that can’t be possible.”
“We can't survive that.”
“Isn't that stronger than the grand ancestor!”
The people in the map room of the mine muttered. Tristan was in a state of shock. Tier seven, that was ludicrous, what kind of civilization was living here in the past? More importantly, what kind of beast could wipe it out? After all, if there had been one tier seven, why not two or even a possible tier eight that had not created an elemental upon death?
The capabilities of the human body went up by about fifty percent at every tier. A tier seven would be around seventeen times better than someone with a tier zero kern. With around sixty percent of the caldera’s residents being tier zero, this thing could decimate the Forest Caldera all by itself.
Conni made gestures for everyone to settle down, “Quiet down everyone,” he waited for a few moments to let everyone calm down, “There are precautions to stop this, all dangerous tunnels are marked with a red X so you should know before you ever enter it. When we break open a new deposit, there will be at least three warriors here to handle it if there’s one inside the deposit.”
A hand went up, it was Luke, “So, why would there be one in a piece of metal we excavate?”
Conni shrugged, “The ancient civilization had an odd habit of building their living structures out of metal. Most of the pieces we find are indeed sheets or chunks of steel, however, every once in a while, we come across a home that is still whole and those tend to house elementals,” Conni looked over at Tristan, “I am hoping to use this kids metal affinity to alleviate those issues.”
Tristan frowned, from the stories told about those with a metal affinity, he was supposed to be ostracized and shunned. However, he didn’t get any of those feelings from the people around him. Even Conni the leader of the mine thought he held promise. The only ones to be horrified were the elders and his parents. No one else seemed to really care. With the threat of a tier seven elemental hanging over one's head, people can be surprisingly willing to compromise cultural prejudices.
“Alright, we are going to split you up into several teams,” Three burly men stepped out of the dark tunnel and stood beside Conni, “These people will show the ropes and how to safely and efficiently accomplish tasks. I know the people on the surface like to call this a slave mine, and that’s because about three-quarters of you are here for being some sort of public nuisance. That doesn’t mean that I want you to throw your back out or send a letter to your family saying you got killed by a falling rock.”
Several people, including Luke, chuckled. He knew that Luke was probably here due to being a public nuisance. Tristan had to pause at that thought, he was probably considered a public nuisance now. He shook his head, no way people thought he was a nuisance right?
Conni started separating the two or three dozen newcomers into groups. There were three main ones, a mining one, the most muscular people were sent with the biggest guy. They were the team that actually pulled the metal out of the ground and cut it to a size that could be transported out of the mine. The tunnels were not small, however they weren’t designed to haul an entire wall of a home through.
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The second team was for transportation. They would use wagons to haul the metal out by hand. The wagons themselves had axles that were able to directionally lock. This meant the wagon only rolled forward, so there was very little chance of a runaway cart flattening anyone.
By the time the time everyone was off in the first two groups, everyone left knew who they would be going with. Tristan inspected the last man. He was well built, but he wore a robe in place of a yellow leather work jacket and pants. The robe was still yellow, so he didn’t look too out of place. His hair was cut in a buzz cut and he had a short beard with white streaks at the temple and jaw. This made him look harsh, however, he had smile lines around his eyes, so Tristan believed him to be good-natured.
Conni introduced the man, “This is Sir Ren, though we call him Siren. He is in charge of security here, if he tells you to do something, do it. He is a peak tier three with shadow and earth essence, and he leads a team of five other warrior caste protectors.”
Conni gestured for Siren to step forward. The crowd was looking at him with respect. Peak tier three was about as strong as you could get without being a once-a-generation talent. When someone pulled in an artifact's essence while their kern was full they would stretch their reservoir and the result was an increase in their maximum essence. The only downside was that artifacts of one's own level could not be used, they had to be of one level higher to be used like this. Siren needed a tier-four artifact, and those were both very rare and very expensive. It was actually easier to find tier five, than four, as most of the artifacts from the age of the grand ancestor were at that level. This left a one tier gap with the only other place to find tier-four artifacts being in forgotten ruins, like this mine.
Siren stepped forward and smiled at everyone, “Good whatever time it is,” he seemed to be waiting for something, “Sorry, dad joke. Uh, well I am in charge of keeping you people breathing, and that involves much more than just fighting the random elementals that lurk down here. You may notice that your group consists mostly of light and wind essence users?”
When he got a round of nods he continued, “As we have two youngsters here I will explain a few things that are common knowledge to the rest of you. The word kern literally means heart or core, however, your essence is not stored there, it is instead in your blood,” Siren drew a knife and cut his palm, then held it out, “As you can see the earth essence in my blood stops me from bleeding all over everything. The shadow essence running through the capillaries in my eyes allows me to see through the darkness.”
Blood dripped from his hand forming into a duplicate of a knife, “We can extract the essence from our blood and make use of it in many ways as you can see. The corporeal elements are vastly more useful in most cases, however, down here, having a light source at all times is invaluable.”
Tristan knew the blood of light elementals was luminous and that it did not produce heat as fire essence did. It was not quite as bright, but it did not flicker. Harp’s mother used to do things like glow or make strobe lights during some of the games that the two of them played when Tristan went to his friend’s home.
“Those with an air kern are arguably more valuable, as you don’t need to breathe anywhere near as much as the rest of us, and your body processes harmful gasses into breathable air,” Siren grinned, “Having an air kern is probably better than having an earth kern in this job. The air essence extracted from your kern is also breathable for others. In the event of a cave-in with limited breathing air, having a partner with an air kern will save your life.”
Siren clapped his hands, nodded to the two men beside him, and said, “All of you split into two groups and follow each manager, one of my subordinates will follow you around and explain your responsibilities on the job.”
Tristan was not sure which group he should go with. He had neither light nor air essence so he was not sure how valuable the instructions would be for him. Most likely his kern worked like a more limited earth kern. He wasn’t sure where the division between stone and metal was. How hard did a rock have to be before it was considered a metal? Maybe it was measured in shininess?
He started to follow Luke of all people when Siren called out, “Not you Tristan, we need to do some experiments, to see how you can be useful.”