“You guys don’t want any of the Toxnightcap?” I asked.

“I don’t have Storage,” Joe said.

“No thanks,” Myantha said. “It is all yours.”

A derisive squawk from Tāwai

I didn’t tell Myantha about the Mana Garden. She can work these things out for herself. She is the professor.

I had a spare copy of Storage, but if Joe was paying off Nightsight in Monster cores, there is no way he could afford to buy Storage from me.

I looked up at Tāwai. He might have sounded derisive, but he wasn’t as disinterested as he sounded. Eating Mana-enriched food has many short-term benefits and sometimes permanent benefits. I just had to find mana-enriched plants to grow that were not poisonous.

My Rejuvenating Aura and Minor Regeneration were keeping the toxin at bay. My Toughened Body ticked up a level. Ok, the Rejuvenation and Regeneration were mostly keeping it at bay. Joe must have a monstrous constitution to have lasted down here an hour with only Replenish Blood.

My spade clinked against a stone. I worked my way along the base of the rock outcrop, collecting mana soil and Toxnightcap.

The body of a white grub with teeth fell beside me. It was about the length of my leg. I finished it off with my spade and figured I might as well harvest the Huhu Grub. I could hear the fighting above me.

“Are you guys OK up there?” I yelled.

I got a raucous squawk in reply, which I took to mean they were fine.

A rock outcrop in a mana-intense area. That is a thought. It is a very dark rock. I switch out my spade for a pick. And start breaking into the rock.

I step to the side, and another, longer Huhu Grub lands where I am standing. This one was dead, so I just stored it for later. I glance up. I bet they are aiming for me.

The colour of the rock changed, and my mining skill definitely kicked into overdrive. This was Darksteel. Darksteel is used in many high-end weapons. It is often mixed with steel and titanium to make various alloys by Master Smiths. The mana conductivity is massive, especially the darker mana types, Shadow, Death, Nature, Demonic, etc. It works well with fire, making a dark flame. It doesn’t work with Light or Holy mana. It takes enchantments very well. Alloys are often used in making safes. Needless to say, it is valuable and in demand.

It will be good for putting wards on. Maybe I can get a blacksmith to make some plates for me with it.

I mine steadily, dodging the occasional body. Then, a white beetle with a broken wing crashed down, so I put the pickaxe through its head. It looks like they don’t just have the Huhu grubs but the beetles as well.

“Are you guys sure you are fine?” I ask.

“Ooof,” grunted Joe, so I took that as a yes and kept mining.

My Rejuvenating Aura ticked up a level. There are still plenty of toxins down here.

Then, I found something even better—a Duskmantle Onyx. These gems were even more valuable. I kept mining.

Eventually, the bodies stopped dropping. I had mined a good-sized pit by this time and got a number of gems.

Myantha finally dropped down to harvest the bodies. “Oooh, it is nasty down here. I will only be able to do short stints.”

“Does Joe not have the harvest Skill?”

“He says not… but maybe he is just avoiding this. You must have a strong skill.”

“It is a combination of skills.”

“How much longer will you be?” she asked.

“I have found each edge of the vein, so it depends on how deep it goes. Here,” I tossed her a Duskmantle Onyx, “and one for Joe.”

“Squawk!”

“Come down here and get your own!” I told Tāwai. Then, I stepped to the side, “Don’t you try shitting on me!”

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“Squawk!”

Myantha just shook her head and went back up into the branches to recover some health. She passed me Joe’s cores, but there were no skills in them.

The ore vein went deep.

Special Action was performed.

Store more than five cubic meters of Ore.

Storage gains Ore Hopper.

I mined through the night. Night and day really had no meaning this deep. I did have to help fight off a Night Owl. It was high-levelled and vicious, and it was targeting Rob. It just wouldn’t die. It was large, large enough to make a meal of Rob. I was throwing Spears at it, and a Power Throw wasn’t enough. I had to do a Piercing Throw to get through the feathers and then follow it with a Power Throw to get the spear deep enough to actually hurt.

Joe was great and basically stayed by Rob with his shield and a spear, keeping it away. I was very glad I sold him Night Sight, or he would have been ineffective.

Tāwai was frustrated. He couldn’t get his claws past the feathers.

What was most effective was Flash at disorientating it and making it veer away from its attacks. I had to warn everybody before I Flashed it as it was hard on all their eyes. My Cutting light would get through the feathers, but it was fast-moving, and I missed more than hit. I had a lot of missed spears to collect as well.

Radiant Strike hurt it. It was weak to light skills. Frostshade Rend hurt it even though it wasn’t a light skill. It is just more on the same power level as the Night Owl.

Myantha had a couple of strong skills that would damage it.

Rob was getting shredded, and I almost brought him into the tattoo to save his life when Tāwai finally used Gust and Swift Flight to manoeuvre into the right place and his Peck Skill to take out an eye. That was the beginning of the end for it.

There was a lot to harvest from the Owl. A lot of feathers, claws and the beak. It dropped a skill stone, Silent Movement. Tāwai already had Silent Flight, I had Muffle Sound, and Myantha had skills from her assassin days. Joe wasn’t sure he needed it, but we insisted. His armour was the main culprit, and this should at least muffle it. Now, we need to teach him some stealth. We probably had better find him another skill stone.

They let me have the monster core, and I gave it to Tāwai to peck the skill out of it. We were both hoping for whatever made its feathers so hard to pierce. What he got instead was called Hunters Eye. It was partly a camouflage-piercing ability, along with being able to spot weaknesses in his prey. It was a good skill. We don’t have anything that spots weaknesses. My Spectral Vision is pretty good at seeing through camouflage, but there are all types of skills in this world. This was probably how the owl saw through Rob’s camouflage.

Rob’s regeneration was very good, so he was healing fast, boosted by my Rejuvenating Aura and Tāwai’s Heal Wound. Tāwai sat on Rob’s back and pulsed his Heal Wound skill regularly.

I then went back to mining and the others to overwatch. Joe has probably done the best out of this excursion in terms of skills. Tāwai was next, but Myantha and I weren’t complaining. We were levelling what we had, and I was particularly pleased with my Storage and Toughened Body levels.

I was mining below ground now and mostly being guided by my Spectral Vision (Seethru). The skill could easily see where the Darksteel ore was as opposed to normal rock. The Duskmantle Onyx also showed up clearly.

The next difficulty was the Toxin Hogs that showed up to eat the Toxnightcap. They didn’t like that I had stripped away over half their delicacy. It was a large herd, and only Joe and I could fight on the ground while the others attacked from above.

“Spears and Piercing. Spears and Piercing,” Tāwai announced from his Hunters Eye.

My short spears were good boar spears, but my Spear skill was lacking. Joe’s wasn’t, and he maxed out his Basic Spear, and he got the Impaler Spear technique. He was very pleased. The Hogs had tough hide against slashing attacks and blunt weapons. They had a charge skill, and Joe’s shield got a workout.

My Umbral Cold did nothing; they were pretty immune to poison and Death strikes. Burning Strike and Bloodletting were both very good, but Burning Strike left the lingering smell of cooking toxic bacon.

The hogs were very short-sighted, so my images were useless. They had an acute sense of smell. Tāwai tried landing on their heads and Pecking their eyes were only of limited value, but Pecking their noses sent them wild.

It was a long slog to kill them. Tāwai could spend longer and longer down here fighting as his (stolen) Poison Resistance levelled.

Myantha didn’t have many piercing skills. You might say she had a cutting personality but lacked a penetrating wit. You might say that, but I wouldn’t recommend it. She is an assassin. She followed Tāwai’s example and sliced noses.

Harvesting the hogs produced lots of toxic pork, which I had no idea what it could be used for. You couldn’t eat it. We also got hides that were both poison-resistant and slashing-resistant. The Trial loot gave us a Poison Resistance Ability Stone, a Scent Tracker Stone and Hog Hide Chaps.

All three of us wanted the Poison Resistance Stone, but the other two ruled that I didn’t need it, as I was doing better than any of them in the Toxic environment without it. They decided that Joe would get the Poison Resistance and Myantha would get the Scent Tracker. I got stuck with the chaps I didn’t want.

When I indicated I wouldn’t mind the Scent Tracker, Myantha said, “You seek out things, not people or beasts. I am the Assassin,” and that was that.

I insisted that Joe help with the mining as he now had Poison Resistance that needed levelling. He came down. He was strong but a useless miner. No Skill at all. He was almost as useless as Tāwai. I insisted Tāwai come down and level his skill as well. I had forgotten he had that and should have been down here from the beginning. He hadn’t forgotten. He just hadn’t wanted to be here. The toxin wasn’t so strong now anyway, after being trampled by the hogs.

It was nearly evening again. I had another level in Toughened Body, and my Minor Regeneration levelled. That was a hard skill to level, but having it running constantly for a day and a night did it.

That was when I came to the end of the Darksteel vein and dug up the reward chest.