Chapter 52
[Passive Skill: Mineral Devour]
[Your stomach and teeth become stronger.]
[You can increase the power within your body by consuming minerals.]
[You can imbue magic with the unique properties of minerals.]
“What is this?”
I doubted my eyes for a moment.
Stronger stomach and teeth? Consume minerals?
Isn't that what I used to do before awakening?
There's a skill with a similar effect?
After returning home, I was lost in thought for quite a while.
[Mineral Devour]
Just how far do the limits of this bizarre skill go?
I was seized by an irresistible urge to research it.
Could I really, just as I'd imagined not long ago, churn out gold or diamonds by the bucketful?
Just thinking about it made a smile spread across my lips.
But there was risk in starting with gold or diamonds right away.
If it had no effect, I'd just be throwing money away.
I decided to start with the cheapest, easiest-to-get, and most mineral-like mineral of all.
Iron.
I headed straight to a nearby hardware store.
Under the owner's puzzled gaze, I bought a whole box of bolts and nuts.
Back home, I dumped the bolts all over the table.
Hmm, but how am I supposed to eat these?
Would it be okay to turn them into sand first and eat them?
I instinctively ground them into powder and tried eating a handful.
“Hmm.... I don't think this is having much of an effect?”
But I felt no effect whatsoever.
“Looks like I’ll just have to eat them raw....”
I looked at the bolts and nuts on the table.
Just looking at them made my jaw ache.
But I decided to trust the skill description.
[Your stomach and teeth become stronger.]
I could only trust that one line.
I picked up a nut, squeezed my eyes shut, and carefully bit down on it with my molars.
Crunch.
With a crisp crack, the lump of metal broke much more easily than I'd expected.
Like biting into a slightly hard biscuit.
I opened my eyes in surprise. It really worked.
I took out a few more and chewed them slowly.
It tasted horribly.
A metallic, fishy taste spread through my mouth.
I swallowed the bolts and nuts one by one.
At last, all the bolts on the table had disappeared into my stomach.
Before long, I felt the chunks of iron in my stomach slowly melt away.
I could feel the finely ground iron powder mixing into my body, more precisely into every grain of sand that made up my body.
It felt like a tiny amount of iron filings had mixed into the countless grains of sand that formed my body.
However, even after eating an entire box of iron, the efficiency was horrendously poor.
“Maybe it's because the quality's bad? The efficiency is awful.”
That's fine. Once the experiment succeeds, I can buy the expensive stuff and eat that.
I began my proper experiments.
The first thing I tried was changing my body itself.
What if I could change my whole body into steel instead of sand?
I closed my eyes and tried to draw in the iron filings imbued in the sand that made up my body.
I imagined my arms and legs turning into solid steel.
But it failed. My arm simply turned back into sand.
Becoming a steel alchemist would have to wait for now.
Without getting discouraged, I moved straight on to the second experiment.
The second experiment was material creation.
Could I create iron directly from sand?
I spread out my palm and gathered sand on it.
Then I tried to recreate the exact shape of the nut I'd just eaten.
This time, I succeeded halfway.
The grains of sand clung together and began to take on a faint metallic sheen.
By pouring in more power and forcing it together, I could make something fairly similar.
But it was definitely not refined steel.
What's more, before long it lost its strength and broke apart back into ordinary sand.
“I think I get it.”
I nodded as I watched the sand scatter.
I felt like I had a rough idea of the skill now.
It was the ability to temporarily grant my sand the “properties” of the minerals I ate.
Some of my sand would turn into iron filings, becoming a little harder, drawn to magnets, and able to conduct electricity.
But I couldn't produce perfect steel.
“Then eating gold wouldn't really mean much, no matter how much I ate.”
It would just turn back into sand soon enough anyway.
I looked mildly disappointed.
So I guess the world doesn't let you get away with things that easily after all?
“Then what do I eat now?”
I fell into deep thought once again.
A hard mineral? Or a mineral with some special property?
The first thing that came to mind was, of course, diamond.
The hardest mineral.
If I ate this and could grant its properties to my sand?
It would become both the sharpest weapon and the hardest shield.
I immediately went online to check the price of diamonds.
Right after that, I quietly closed the browser window.
“This definitely isn't it.”
Industrial diamonds were cheap.
But after trying the bolts, I learned that the better the quality, the better the efficiency.
Even cheap industrial diamonds would still be a hefty expense if I had to eat dozens of kilograms.
I scratched my head and thought of another way.
Suddenly, one thought flashed through my mind.
“Come to think of it, there's no need to buy them with money, is there?”
Abandoned mine.
Wasn't the theme of the floors in the 20s I was climbing right now a mine?
Wouldn't I be able to find all kinds of minerals there myself?
It seemed like I could just mine them directly there.
I immediately posted the idea in the Mage Gallery.
[Title: Has anyone tried mining on the 20s floors?]
Author: ㅇㅇ(H33.333)
Would diamonds or tungsten come out too?
Mages began commenting on my post one by one.
ㄴ Fridge: Just diamonds? Orichalcum and mithril show up too. Well, the amounts are really tiny, though.
ㄴ Magic is Firepower: It's a good choice for making money. It's also why hunters drag out their stay on the 20th floor as much as possible.
ㄴ pkkatsu: I only mined enough to gear myself up and then stopped there.
“Orichalcum? Mithril?”
So the Tower really does have fantasy metals like those.
Come to think of it, it'd be a shame not to have a mithril weapon.
I couldn't hide my excitement and asked my next question.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(H33.333): So how do you find them? Do you just dig around and they pop out?
ㄴ Fridge: The standard way is to use monsters.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(H33.333): Oh, is there a way to control that drill machine?
ㄴ Fridge: No, not that. That thing is the 25th-floor boss, so it shouldn't be appearing in normal fields in the first place....
ㄴ Fridge: You use kobolds. If you leave a few of them alive and hit them a bit, they'll run away, right? Dig around near where they flee.
So there really was another hidden piece I didn't know about.
No wonder they seemed to be carrying pickaxes and bags.
ㄴ Beetle: If you're making items out of minerals later, make sure to tell us here first. There aren't any workshops in Korea that make mage gear. You'll need a letter of introduction before you visit.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(H33.333): I probably won't be making gear. My gear is already good. It's not like you can make legendaries in a workshop, right?
ㄴ pkkatsu: What kind of new form of bragging is this?
ㄴ Magic is Firepower: Then you're just mining minerals for money?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(H33.333): No, I'm going to eat them.
ㄴ Magic is Firepower: ?
ㄴ Fridge: Is your body one of those weird types where if you eat rice, you become a rice mage or something?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(H33.333): I got a similar skill.
I explained the skill's effects in detail.
ㄴ Fridge: When I have time, I should try putting together the best combo. Sounds fun.
ㄴ pkkatsu: I'll make a combo too!
ㄴ Magic is Firepower: Hmm. Maybe I should try it too....
Mages suddenly piled in.
Come to think of it, it did seem fun.
I had been running simulations in my head over and over anyway.
ㄴ Fridge: But you're a solo mage. How are you planning to dig in the ground?
ㄴ pkkatsu: You're an earth mage, so surely you can dig, right?
ㄴ Fridge: Ah... right.
That was true.
There was no reason to delay any longer.
The next day, as soon as I woke up, I headed straight into the Tower.
[Entering the Tower's 23rd floor (EXTREME).]
I looked over the floor-by-floor mineral data Fridge had provided once more.
The types of minerals that appeared differed by floor.
On the 21st floor, for example, most of them were common minerals like iron and copper.
I had no interest in such ordinary metals at all.
Diamond! Orichalcum!
Or even redstone from a game!
My goal was only those special, useful minerals.
My head was already full of visions of unleashing diamond-sand cutter attacks.
Even more enemies than on the 22nd floor appeared.
Three giant drill machines, and dozens of kobolds swarming around them like ants.
Why were monsters that were supposed to appear as mid-bosses on the 25th floor showing up here so casually?
“I have no idea what they're going to spring on me on the 25th floor.”
I gripped my staff, feeling the Tower's malice.
Normally, there are two ways to get minerals on the 20s floors.
Either kill the kobolds and loot the minerals from the small bags they carry.
Or use their tendency to flee toward ore veins, follow them, and do some proper mining.
Of course, I planned to take both.
“First, I should deal with the drills.”
I thought about whether I could somehow make use of those drills for mining, but I couldn't come up with any method, so I gave up.
Besides, my own digging ability seemed like it would be better anyway.
I lightly tapped the ground with my staff.
The mine began to move according to my will.
***
A little later, I leisurely used the weathering skill to turn the drills into sand.
Of course, I didn't forget to collect the cores in the process.
Now only the kobolds remained.
I slowly walked toward the survivors.
But then something strange happened.
“What the hell, why are these guys like this?”
The kobolds began backpedaling in terror the moment they saw me.
Some dropped the pickaxes in their hands, while others collapsed on the spot and clutched their heads.
“Why are these guys so scared?”
I was sure they were nasty and tenacious, the kind that only start running after all but one or two of them have been killed.
But this? It looked like they didn't even have the will to fight.
They just stood there trembling, unable even to run away.
“What are they so scared of?”