Miles looked at the green crystal with his guard up. He activated elemental vision and confirmed his suspicions. The crystal indeed had the poison element.
“Elemental Mineral?” He looked at the stone dumbfoundedly. “How can there be elemental minerals here?”
Elemental Minerals were miracles of the Portal World. They contained elemental energy within them and could be used to forge weapons, arrows, or ammunition… Anything really. Ever since he learned how to forge he was curious about these wonders, but they were rarer than phoenix feathers, and could only be found in the D-circle and beyond.
Ever since he first read the documents Evelyn stored in his mind and cross-checked them with the information he acquired in the mysterious room where he found the double elemental orb, a discrepancy had bothered him. The point that interested him most was the difference in difficulty in forging. The documents in the mysterious room pointed out that finding elemental compatibility was easy, but in the information his mother sent, it was the hardest factor.
Miles thought about Elemental Minerals when he saw the text, but he shook the idea off after some thought. After all, the mysterious room was on the edge of the G-Circle, and even in the F-Circle, it was impossible to find Elemental Minerals. But now at the outmost perimeter of the G-Circle, in a strange cave, he found an elemental mineral. Miles only now understands that the owner of the mysterious room could also access elemental minerals.
Miles looked at the toads and the elemental mineral. It wasn’t strange for a giant toad to build its nest here, after all, monsters could increase their strength with the help of the minerals. In the D- and C-circles, there were lots of casualties when humans were trying to loot the minerals because most of the time those minerals would be monster nests and those monsters were all strongest humanity ever faced. But here in the outermost periphery of G-Circle, there were elemental minerals!
If the word got out, it would cause so much frenzy that people would swarm the place. Unfortunately for them, this cave was his and his alone. But since there was a giant toad guarding the minerals, he couldn’t dare to touch them for now. But he was still curious why Jelly brought him here.
Miles looked at the jelly monster, and their eyes locked for a few seconds. An idea formed in his mind.
“You brought me here because you think you prevent me from going to the lake to hunt fishes, so I couldn’t practice forging because I don’t have their monster cores?” Miles asked and Jelly confirmed.
“Can you read my mind?” Miles asked with surprise. He thought it was unfortunate for him to not be able to go to the lake, but the idea flashed in his mind only for a few seconds a few days ago. So, Jelly has read his mind and compensated him with these minerals?
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Jelly looked at Miles and he understood that the creature in front of him really could read his mind. It was scary but understandable. Even the puny Grunt-Rank vampire could read humans' brains to learn. It wasn’t surprising to see a monster reading minds without getting in contact.
Miles has long predicted Jelly to be a Psychic element monster. It could remove the aggro from humans and monsters alike, and it must have been related to Psychic elements. Reading minds was probably an extra perk.
Miles looked at the poison elemental mineral and the giant frog. “I cannot take it now, can I? That toad would eat me if I were to do so.”
“You sure?” Jelly told him to take it. The frog wouldn’t cause him any problems.
“If you say so.” Miles approached the mineral and baby toads looked at him pitifully. Seemed like they understood what the intruder would do. “Don’t mind if I do.”
Miles wouldn’t skip this chance just because a few pitiful frogs looked at him with tears in their eyes. He approached the mineral reaching to his knees and pulled it out of the ground. He pulled out an isolation container from his bag and kept the mineral. It would be worth billions if he were to sell it, but it would also cause too many problems for him. In the end, he could even be forced to confess the existence of the cave, so without making sure, he wouldn’t sell it at all.
RIBBIT!
The giant toad roared to Miles but didn’t take action. Miles bagged the mineral and hopped off with Jelly. On the way, Jelly led him to a few more monsters and had similar conversations with the other monsters as well. Because conversations were always silent, Miles made them up in his mind to amuse himself.
After each one, Miles got himself a mineral. So far he had got a poison mineral, a fire mineral, and a light elemental mineral. Light elemental orbs and crafts were super rare, and even their practitioners were rare. So just the mineral would be worth tens of billions.
Light elemental crafts had great demand in the market but no person with this element would lower themselves to work for others. Especially after the Mihr family took over the government by glorifying the element by claiming them to be chosen ones that will vanquish the darkness. Besides the family, there were maybe a handful of other people with the light element among the billion people, and all of them worked with the Mihr family.
Since it was so, the monopoly was in their hands, and that made the family quite rich. But now Miles had a source too. Although limited, the mineral would allow him to forge a set of equipment with the light element and sell them. He may not have been able to sell the minerals, but he could sell the equipment with the said element.
“What should I forge with this mineral? Arrows wouldn’t be much use to me if they are brighter, and the same goes for ammunition. There are better ways to blind monsters or humans. It would be a waste of heavenly gifts. Armor on the other hand would sell pretty good, but would only be decorative.
I will think about it after I come out of this cave. Maybe I can find even more minerals, then I could forge them all.” Miles thought to himself and smiled ear to ear. His mood was great and he was glad to follow the little bouncer. After all, not only did it help him with the minerals, he even helped with the plants from time to time.