Tom kept on following the river. Zigzagging between the hills, always going gently upwards, he ignored the smaller streams and continued following the main river. After half an hour of walking, he spotted a perfect circular cave entrance in the cliff face.

Tom quickly looked around, and the gamer in him was screaming that a cave was equal to untold riches. So naturally, after he made sure it was safe, he walked into it.

The entrance was three meters in diameter, so he was able to walk in effortlessly. Once he was in, he just stood at the entrance, as his eyes couldn't see more than a couple of meters through the darkness. So he waited on a high alert, holding the spear like it was his only sawing graze, and maybe it was. He waited until his eyes somewhat adapted to the darkness. However, internally he was going through a debate if he should go into the cave without a light source. Because if he went too deep where there were no light sources left, he wouldn't be able to see anything.

But his curious side won over as he started making out the shapes of the cave walls. He also realized that his awakened mind had much more applications than he had thought. As he focused his mind on seeing, his night vision became sharper and better, he could make out much more details than he had ever dared to hope for. However, he didn't dare to hold his concentration for long, as he didn't want to spend all of his willpower before he even started exploring.

So Tom started walking deeper into the cave while hoping that there would be some sort of a light source. As he would rather avoid spending who knows how long playing Bear Grylls and making fire only by rubbing two sticks together. He could only speculate that it would take him ridiculously long to make it happen, as he had no idea how to do it. So he hoped that the lady luck was on his side.

After walking for five minutes and almost turning around, Tom finally saw some glow around the corner. "Oh, Bless all of the fantasy games and their designers." Tom was delighted. The fact that everything seemed like it was designed was finally paying Tom some dividends.

Tom walked behind the corner that had the glow coming from behind it. And he saw rows upon rows of mushrooms that were glowing. "Of course, it is mushroom the natures jack of all trades."

Now Tom could see more of the cave than just the outlines of the walls, as there was an actual light to enhance his vision. The cave's walls looked like they had all kinds of minerals mixed in them. They were a mess of colors, from copper blue to the brown of iron, and everything in the between. It was like he had hit the jackpot of the mining world. Naturally, his first thought was how could he claim as much as possible of this wealth for himself.

"I have nothing to mine with. And on top of that, the Empire's mineral prices are a fraction of what they were on the Earth." Tom quickly calmed himself and his greed. However, this must be important to humanity as a civilization, as once they start building their settlements, they're bound to need minerals.

Tom decided to look up if he could claim land in the Secverse next time he logged out. He was sure that he could at least earn something from this cave if he were to own it.

Tom continued on going deeper. His pace quickened as he finally could see. While he walked, he kept on seeing minerals veins left and right. Almost like clockwork, the mineral vein changed every ten meters or so. He had seen countless ores he didn't even recognize while walking deeper and deeper. His desire to own this place only grew with each new ore vein he spotted.

He finally saw something that he could not ignore. The thing that no human could mistake for anything else, diamonds! He just stared at the wall dumbfounded, the cave wall had countless diamonds sparkling between the stones like stars in the night sky. There were more diamonds in front of him than he could have ever imagined. He felt how his excitement got out of hand. As there were more diamonds in front of him to account for countless times the amount he had to spend to enter the Secverse. The only problem he had left was that he had no way to harvest it.

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He decided to try his luck, as he just couldn't contain himself anymore. He plunged his spear next to a particularly large diamond and tried to pry it out. Only to be faced with the cruel reality that everything he had seen had been too good to be real. The diamonds came alive. Or more like the creature to whose skin they were attached to, came to life.

"Oh god, what have I done," Tom thought as a two meters tall creature made out of stone and diamonds came to life and charged at Tom immediately.

This time Tom's reaction speed was superb, as the moment the diamonds started moving, Tom was already running out of the cave.

To Tom's delight, he was much faster than the stone monstrosity. And for once he could just run away from his problems. As he had tried prying the diamond out, he knew his spear was basically useless, as it had only left a tiny scratch on the monster. So he just kept on running, heading out of the cave.

The Stone monstrosity released a roar, and to Tom's horror, he saw how the minerals in front of him started detaching themselves from the walls.

At this point, Tom knew that his only option was to get out of the cave before he got surrounded, as he might stand a chance against a one stone monster, but when they outnumbered him, he had no hope. So he just kept on running. He was so grateful that they were slow, as he could see how they were detaching themselves from the walls as he zoomed past them.

But soon enough, his good days came to an end. Apparently, the speed of sound was faster than him. So there were countless stone monsters that had managed to detach themselves from the wall before he made it to them. Now that he could see them clearly in front of him, he realized that they were stone golems, but that information did nothing to help him in this situation. As now there were golems in front of him, just waiting for him to deliver himself to meet his end at their fists.

Tom entered a hyper-focused state as he neared a golem that was mostly aluminum. Tom could see how the golem was aiming its fist at his head, but it was almost like it was moving in slow motion as it neared him. So he confidently made his body dodge the attack by side-stepping the fist. But to his horror, he realized that his body was also in slow motion, it couldn't keep up with his mind. He watched in slow motion as his body barely dodged the fist, and then he was already past the golem. Barreling toward the outside.

He barely managed to dodge a couple of other attacks, and he could feel how tiredness was starting to creep up on him. He had already spent over two minutes in this focused state. After each dodge, he could feel how his mental strength was depleted even more. But he had one last challenge left. He saw the iron golem and the copper golem standing next to each other. The last two golems, the final line of opposition standing between Tom and his survival.

Tom started following their every move as this was the first time he faced two enemies at once, and he knew that he would be in trouble if they could cooperate. Tom had only seconds to formulate a plan. So Tom picked the iron golem and aimed for the wall next to it. Once he was at a striking distance from the iron golem, it send its fist flying toward Tom's head, and Tom executed the movement he had thought out.

He pivoted towards the wall, barely missing the punch and squeezing himself between the monster and the wall. He made it through just barely. Tom was shielded from the copper golem hit as it connected with the iron golem that was between him and it. The punch pushed the iron golem against the wall, nearly crushing Tom. However, the iron golem was sturdy enough that it ate enough of the punch's momentum. Buying Tom enough time to squeeze out from between the wall and the iron golem,

grating his shoulder against the wall the whole time. Tom could feel how he had barely any willpower left as he made it past the last monsters, but he had managed to get out of the cave alive.

Once Tom was out of the cave, he kept on running following the river until he was sure that there were no golems following him. So he slowed his pace and finally stopped. He was once again so very exhausted, so he Logged out. However, he did not pass out! No, he was fully in control of his body! And once he was out of the game, he went straight to sleep, as it was already seven pm, so it was almost acceptable sleeping time, Right?