"Number 3002, get back to work!"

Startled, I jolt awake, my mind in turmoil. 'What? This isn't supposed to happen. Why am I a slave even in the afterlife?'

I fear the worst as I slowly come to and realize my surroundings.

'This is...' a familiar sight greets me as my mouth gapes in surprise.

It's the place where I was first transported, the Clear River Mine.

I look toward the source of the sound, only to see a whip flying towards me. Unable to react in that split second, I get knocked onto my back.

Looking back up at my assailant, I see the familiar face of the warden. The warden is a small, lizard-like creature, which is the dominant species in the Clear River Mine. Even though his stature is that of a small child, when he whips you it's akin to being tackled by a football player.

Not that I would remember how that felt after all these years.

I shudder to think of what would have happened if I hadn't regained my youthful body. Getting whipped the first couple of times, I knew better than to go against the warden. As a result, the number of times I was on the receiving end of the whip could be counted on one hand. Even if I was a young man from earth, I was nothing but an average young man from earth. I could not bear to do anything except what the slavers wanted me to do, for fear of that whip.

Getting back up, I picked up my pickaxe and fumbled a bit, still reeling from the pain. I then started mining. As one may expect, the work that the slaves in Clear River Mine do is simply mining the ores in the walls of the tunnels. It sounds simple, but after years of swinging the pickaxe, your body really takes a toll.

I was one of the lucky few to live as long as I did.

Swinging the pickaxe mindlessly, as I have done for the past 50 years, I begin to wonder. 'Why am I still alive?' I vividly remember dying in a crumbling old hut, and even if that was just a dream, I would have woken up in the real world. So, what was happening right now?

And then it clicked. Not only was I reborn after dying, but I had also returned to my youthful body, to the same spot I had been transported to when I first came to this world. After 50 years of being a powerless, mediocre slave, I had trouble wrapping my head around it but... was this not what I had waited my whole life for? Was this... regression? The cheat ability that all xianxia fans dreamt about?

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

At first, I was excited, but as the reality of the situation truly dawned on me, I took on a somber expression. Even if I was less naive than I was when I came to this world, if the only ability I had was regression, doesn't that mean nothing would change? Would I not just suffer another 50 years of pain as a slave? But at the same time, it gave me a new chance at life. Truly, I was unable to tell whether it would have been better to just have died in peace or not.

After considering suicide, I decided against it. After all, this was the gift I had been waiting for all my life. Even before coming to this world, I had wished for such a situation to happen. I couldn't just give up on that dream the moment it was presented in front of me.

After mining for a couple of hours, the day finally came to a close. Observing my surroundings, I see the warden in the distance walking away, presumably back to his house for the night. Or her house, as I had no idea of the anatomy of such lizard-like creatures. I also noticed that the many slaves surrounding me had disappeared as well, which doesn't seem that out of place until you consider none of them have houses. Aside from a large, dome-like cave at the beginning of the tunnels, us slaves had no homes or belongings. Considering this, it's not rare to find a couple of slaves sleeping in the tunnels, as it's less cramped.

After making note of my surroundings, I turned back to the wall I was just mining. Even though I had worked in the mines my whole life in my 'previous life', I had never truly been able to observe what we were mining. Sure, I knew what it looked like, but there was no such metal on earth before I came to this world, and us slaves were never told anything aside from orders to work.

Even if it seemed obvious to take and experiment with the metal I was mining in my previous life, I was unable to. It's not like I didn't try, but when I did, the warden took notice immediately. Needless to say, after that I didn't ever have the courage to try again. Even after 50 years, my body never forgot the pain I felt that day, and I still occasionally had nightmares. However, seemingly because I had already died once, that phantom pain was no longer there, and I had lost some of the fear I had.

Taking up my pickaxe again, I start mining out a single piece. Even with nobody around to see me, I was still extremely careful in my extraction of the piece. After all, with how deadly silent the tunnels were at night, it would not be strange for such noises to alert the wardens and end in another such traumatizing incident.

After 3 hours of dedicated efforts, I had finally managed to attain a piece of the metal from the wall. Doing so without making a single sound exhausted me greatly, much more than I had anticipated in fact, as I found myself falling to the ground without my consent.

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