The night went away like flipping a switch for Duncan. One minute he was laying in bed missing his smartphone and closing his eyes for a second the next minute he was already opening his eyes and yawning.

He could see the rays of the black hole sun striking through the shutters.

Duncan checked his time off function and it was at 1 hour 2 minutes and 33 seconds.

“At least that works as I thought it does,” he said, yawning while checking on his clothes which were again ripe with the smell of rust and sweat. He had the providence to wash his underwear and socks under the shower and hang them out to dry on the window sill.

They were still a bit damp but at least they didn’t smell like a hobo’s asshole. Quickly getting dressed he came downstairs to find Wazsh coming from the backyard.

“You are up early,” he commented as he went to wash his hands of dirt in the kitchen.

“What have you been up to?” Duncan asked while yawning.

“Watering the vegetables and digging through a new patch,” Wazsh explained while he dried his hands with a towel.

“That reminds me Clara brought your clothes. They are on the bar counter. Didn’t know when you might show up so I put them in the most visible space.”

“Thank you,” Duncan said before checking on his clothes. They were clean and smelled like flowers. Neatly folded. The blood stains were gone and even the holes were gone.

“Wazsh. How did she do this?” Duncan came running back into the kitchen holding up his T-Shirt that used to be full of holes from the rat bites.

“What? Ohh, you mean the holes. There is a magic called mend that some people can use. I am not sure exactly how It works. Either time manipulation or nanobots. Some earlier adventurers tried to use Clara to fix their armor but she could not. Her version only works on clothing, I guess. She would wash armor too but she could not fix it,” Wazsh explained.

Duncan gobbled up the info wide-eyed and nodded.

“So, you are leaving for the mine today with Bolgar? Don’t forget your backpack and be careful,” Wazsh said as he brewed himself some tea.

“Yes. And I will,” Duncan replied.

“Want some tea? For free this time,” Wazsh asked.

Duncan nodded and they drank in silence. Duncan was thinking about what the mine will be like and Wazsh thinking about what to plant in his garden. Soon Wazsh excused himself and went back outside and Duncan left towards Bolgar’s smithy after bringing his clothes to his room and grabbing the backpack.

As Duncan came to the door, he could hear some grinding noises and as he entered, he could see Bolgar sharpening the end of one pickaxe.

“There, finished,” Bolgar said as he moved his hand over the spike.

“Are you ready to go?” he asked once he saw Duncan.

“Ready as I'll ever be, I guess,” Duncan confirmed.

Bolgar picked up another pickaxe and handed it to Duncan. It was heavier than it looked. Using Identify on it revealed it was a steel pickaxe of superior quality.

“Let’s go!” Bolgar said and walked outside. They started walking towards the entrance to the village but then turned left some fifty meters before it. After another one hundred meters or so they came to what looked like a storm cellar. A big door on the ground with a lock on it.

“There were some kids that would try to be smart so we locked it up after the last accident,” Bolgar explained as he unlocked it.

“Accident?”, Duncan asked as he looked around this new part of the village he visited for the first time. He saw fields stretching on either side of the village which was mostly around the main street with maybe another row of houses. Fields were stretching towards the fence and he presumed it was the same for the right side of the village which he now couldn’t see. People were working the fields in the distance.

A lot more people than Duncan imagined lived here apparently. A mixture of men and women worked with simple tools, mostly hoes, and watering cans. He saw kids running about. Some playing, some carrying water.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Well, a local kid went inside and got lost. He found his way back out but not before causing panic. We even organized a search party and looked for him,” Bolgar explained as he opened the doors.

“That was the day Wazsh lost a lot of customers,” Bolgar said with a sigh.

“What do you mean?” Duncan asked.

“He was the only one who didn’t search for the kid and people took offense. He tried to make it up with free beers for the search party but it was not the same. Well, hopefully, the kid got a good whooping for making us worry. After that we closed the entrance,” Bolgar said as he picked up a torch and set it on fire.

Duncan looked in the direction of the bar and imagined how bad Wazsh must have felt when that was happening and he was not able to help or explain why not. He also grabbed a torch and followed Bolgar with a pickaxe in one hand and the torch in another inside the mine.

Duncan already had fantasies of finding gold and silver as they passed the first few meters into the darkness. It was a gentle slope at first that gradually inclined more. The supports looked solid as they made their way deeper. Soon shafts were going left and right but Bolgar ignored them.

“I have been here countless times. There is not much in those shafts left,” he explained as they passed them.

After what seemed like a kilometer to Duncan, he finally turned left from the main shaft into a shaft that looked a lot less solid. All the rocks that they passed seemed pretty much the same to Duncan under their torchlights and his fantasies of finding gold were soon washed away by reality.

“Here we go. You see these darker rocks?” Bolgar asked.

Duncan could hardly tell the difference under the weak torch lights but there was some so he nodded.

“This is coal. We need some of these first. So how should I teach you how to mine?” Bolgar asked after explaining what Duncan was looking at.

“Just start mining and I will observe you,” Duncan replied.

Bolgar scratched his forehead in disbelief but still picked up his pickaxe. Duncan quickly used the Observe skill on him and the time slowed down. He could observe Bolgar’s muscles bulging as he raised the pickaxe using the momentum of the swing and adding his strength on top of it as he pounded the rock. After a few swings of Bolgar’s pickaxe, a big chunk of coal fell off the rocky wall and time came back to normal for Duncan.

[ You have Observed Mining ]

Learn

[YES] - [NO]

Duncan mentally clicked on YES.

[ You have Learned Mining Level 1. ]

Strength +0.1

Dexterity +0.1

Perception +0.1

Duncan happily closed the windows as Bolgar watched him in disbelief.

“What are you doing? I thought you would observe me?” Bolgar asked.

“I know Mining now,” Duncan happily exclaimed.

“How is that possible?” Bolgar asked in disbelief.

“Let me show you,” Duncan explained and picked up his pickaxe, and moved to the wall. He could see the differences between the rocks now more clearly. Like if someone raised the contrast on a television screen. The dark streak in the grey rock was much more obvious.

He focused on the thickest black part and when an option of mine showed up he mentally acknowledged it. As before the whole process was like watching a fast-forward action. Soon a piece of coal was at his feet. It took him significantly more swings than Bolgar but still, he was happy with the result.

“Not bad for your first time,” Bolgar exclaimed as he put his chunk in his inventory.

Duncan used Identify on the biggest chunk that fell from the wall.

[ Coal – 1,5 kg – Good quality ]

Another window opened up immediately after.

[You have Learned Identify Level 2. ]

Intelligence +0.2

Wisdom +0.2

“Ohhh. That’s a nice bonus,” Duncan thought as he closed it.

“Our goal for today should be around 100 kilograms of coal and 50 kilograms of iron ore,” Bolgar explained as he got a bit forward in the shaft and started to swing his pickaxe again.

Duncan nodded and did the same. Soon he reached level 2 in Mining followed, of course, by level 3, and then his progress stopped. He noticed he was using fewer swings as he leveled and the chunks were getting bigger.

He calculated how much he mined and he had around 35 kilograms worth of coal in his inventory.

“Bolgar, how much coal did you mine,” he asked the dwarf that was still swinging away.

Bolgar stopped, coughed a bit but then said, “Let me check. 96 kilograms. It should be enough for today. Let us find iron.”

Duncan acknowledged.

They left their shaft and walked further down the main shaft. Duncan could now see weak intermittent streaks of coal running along the wall. He wondered how he was unable to tell before as the rock seemed almost uniformly gray tinted with the orange from the torches.

“Must be the stupid nanobots messing with me,” he surmised.

As they walked there was suddenly a noise followed by a sudden updraft in the mine which was followed by howling winds. Duncan ducked low and Bolgar just swiped his hands gesturing to move on.

“A lower mine shaft must have collapsed. It happened a bunch of times while I was mining. No need for worry,” Bolgar explained as he went deeper.

“How deep is this mine?” Duncan asked.

“I haven’t been lower than the second floor myself but some adventurers went down to the fourth,” Bolgar explained.

Duncan nodded and inhaled the now dusty air.

“I should have gotten a cloth to cover my mouth. I hope I don’t get a coal lung or what was it called? Ahh right, Black lung disease,” he thought as he went further and further into the unknown.