They walked for a long time through a unique and lonely tunnel, which gradually began to have ramifications and mole-people, until they arrived to what seemed to him like a maze where it was impossible to orient oneself, and where they were being observed from the tunnels themselves or holes in the walls. There was also a soft light, enough to allow him to see without the need for his lamp, once he had become used to it, although not with the naturalness of the natives of the place, whose senses were adapted to that environment.

They had reached Jordavmol, an underground city, where the streets were tunnels and, unlike the surface cities, it expanded in three dimensions, front, back, right, left, up and down. Eldi felt overwhelmed, lost in that fascinating place, as strange to him as he was to its inhabitants.

They took him through several streets that he was sure he would be unable to find back, until they reached a side tunnel that led to a huge half-empty room. Inside, there were the magical platforms, and plenty of room for others which were still lost.

Eldi checked them all, one by one, while the others looked at him anxiously, restless, for they didn’t know if those magical platforms really worked. They had been brought with great care, and put in place meticulously, but they hadn’t been able to get them work, and couldn’t know if there was any problem in them.

“All are good,” the man gave his verdict, to the relief of those present.

All that remained was to really try them, and Eldi felt somewhat restless, wondering if he would fail to teach a being of such a different race. There was only one way to know.

They had taken copper ore there, and all the types of fungi they had managed to gather in such a short time, so Eldi accompanied Cato to the blacksmith platform, which had its usual form of sturdy table and the color of molten metal. It wasn’t essential that it had that form, what was necessary was the extremely complex internal circuit that handled the mana, and that allowed to manipulate the metal.

The boy took just a small amount of the mineral and put it on the table, as the master had told him. Then, he put a hand on the platform and felt the man’s hand on his.

“Feel the mana flowing from my hand, which moves inside the platform to reach the copper and extract its purity.”

The boy nodded, although he didn’t quite understand it at all. But he could feel how the platform was activated, how it reacted to mana, how copper was broken away from impurities.

The others watched in wonder as the mineral shone, and part of it dropped out. Even two elders, who had just joined and who had been reluctant to let the foreigner in, were seeing their doubts disappear.

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“Good,” acknowledged Eldi. Now do it alone.

Everyone was watching the young apprentice running to the heap of ore, taking it with his two arms and dropping it on the magic platform. Then, without feeling the pressure of everyone who was watching him restlessly, including Eldi, he put his small hand on the platform. He wasn’t aware of the importance it had for his people, because, for him, it was a game and a dream come true. And, as it had done before, and in the face of general enthusiasm, the mineral shined as the pure metal was being extracted.

The boy looked at the man, expectantly, seeking the master’s approval, at which he could only smile and approach the little apprentice, placing his hand on his head.

“Well done. Now let’s try something else,” he praised him.

Like the first time, Eldi put his hand on that of the smiling boy, then manipulated the metal and created a perfect spearhead, which Cato looked with bright eyes, wishing to try. He soon did it, reaching the same perfection. He then took the spearhead, as if it were a treasure, and ran to show it to his parents.

“He can’t do more than two craftings at a time. He’ll have to wait an hour to recover all his mana, and he needs a thousand to level up. Higher level crafting will cost twice as much mana, and the next level three times more. He’ll need to have more mana if he wants to improve, he will need to level up,” repeated the man, to which everyone nodded, many with tears in their eyes. They had long since abandoned hope of seeing what they were seeing.

“I can show him some recipes,” Eldi continued, “but only the low-level ones, for weapons that you might not need. If you bring your recipes, we will try them.”

The elders nodded. Even if the man learned some recipes that they had kept with zeal and secrecy, they were fine. The most important matter was to check that they worked, to secure their future.

“Tica?” He called the woman-mole.

She came, extremely nervous, much more than she had been facing the tiger. She did understand the importance of that. But, to her surprise, the learning flowed naturally. She felt she could use it as if she had always done it, and the recipes taught by the man were learned with ease. It is true that it didn’t make much sense to teach her the ones with herbs that grow on the surface, but he did it anyway, as long as he had ingredients and were of low level.

She continued practicing with the fungi that they had brought, creating various types, although focusing on mana ones. And, while her master had no recipes for all mushrooms, for now, it was enough. If they had enough ingredients for mana potions, it was fine, since these were the most important, as it would allow them to practice more, especially to a child with a small mana pool. But not for her, since she was level 40, and her mana was high for a warrior, but low for a wizard. In fact, it could be said that she belonged to a class similar to Eldi’s, a battle mage, although her repertoire of skills and spells was much smaller.

“With enough ingredients, she may level up in less than three hours. She can easily get to 4, but you have few ingredients of that level, and none higher. And the same goes for metals,” Eldi observed.

“The places where they grow are dangerous. But, with better weapons and potions, we can arrive little by little, we can reconquer some of our old lands. We owe it to you,” an old man thanked with tears in his eyes. He had voted against letting him in, and now he was glad he had lost the voting.