AK - The Alchemy Kingdom

Chapter 108: Crystal Mine I

Year 3, Spring, Second Month, First Week.

Controlling a poor-trained wind horse isnt an easy task, after all, the wind beasts primal instinct is to be free. When Katlyn suggested that the crystal mines exploration team used the supposed tamed horses, Diana felt a little hesitant, however, the thought of walking 50 kilometers quickly convinced her. The mount beasts even fooled her by being perfectly behaved during the bulk of the journey, probably because they were finally allowed to gallop to their hearts content. But once they got near the mountains and the team had to search for the mine, doing dozens of turns every minute, the horses started to act out.

After cursing the Originless beasts for quite some time, they decided to hid the beasts in a nearby stone cave. It didnt take long for the team to start seeing the negative effects of not having horses. On the way here, they encountered many beasts but avoided them all using the speed of the mount. Then, only an hour after leaving the horses they met a group of wild cats. Actually, if they were to disregard the defenders wounds, Diana welcomed the fight, her muscles needed stretching.

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The operator halted and checked the energy reader for a few seconds before doing yet another turn in the opposite direction, earning a displease grumble from Diana. Couldnt he decide on a direction? She was starting to sympathize with the horses. The magic reader was another adaptation of an existing magic tool that gave them new and important information. Actually, Reiner has made a point of encouraging the Alchemists to adapt tools instead of creating others from scratch, this saved a lot in terms of resources and time.

The tool was similar to the wave reader but aimed to measure magic energy in the environment. The stone balance was sensible enough to read the slight changes in the energy levels, which was perfect for their current task. Although Diana complained about the difficulty to track the crystal mine location, this was something unheard of in the story of the Kingdom. In fact, most of the Kingdoms mines were found by Adventurers or others who stumbled on them.

The problem wasnt finding a general location, but narrowing it down. Crystal mines are formed, almost always, near energy veins. Specifically, when a ramification of the vein ended in a closed space, where the energy would accumulate through the years and form the crystals. However, not all of the veins or ramifications birthed mines, most just poured their energy into the world or created elemental environments.

Energy veins are powerful but very difficult to control, their surroundings often become untamed elemental regions that attract beasts and make the survival of not-magical beings difficult. Even so, the Kingdom managed to subdue and control a dozen or so small veins inside of its territory. However, for decades they failed to advance further into the Forest where the stronger veins were.

The northern part of the Green Mountains where the explorations team was looking for the crystal mine was one of the places created by an energy vein. Although this vein wasnt as big as the one ambitiously target by Karl for their relocation, it was at least ten times bigger than any of Kingdoms veins, which could be proved by the lively green mountains that formed on top of the vein.

Fortunately, Dianas team had two things the Kingdom lacked, the certainty that a crystal mine existed here, courtesy of Master AI, and a tool to help pinpoint the exact location. Amidst her critics and complaints, the team finally found the entrance of a cave that could supposedly take them to the mine. Diana looked at the sky and calculated they still had six or so hours before night, then she turned to the team and instructed:

Check your protection gear and lighting effects before we go in

The so-called protection gear was just an Array in their coats that would help to push the high-level energy away. The design was based on the detoxifying tool, just a simple Manipulation A. combined with Signature Extraction A. to keep out as much energy as possible. Unfortunately, the Array wasnt very efficient in terms of eradicating the poisoning, it could only delay the inevitable.

The operator took out the lighting charger and re-charged the lighting effect in everybodys coats. The effect would be crucial to help them navigate in the dark cave. Using light energy to illuminate the environment was one of the most intuitive ideas, after all, the light crystal already glowed by itself. However, only light Mages or high-nobles could afford such a luxury.

Normally, even the Alchemy Department would be against using it as a standard, but the appearance of Contain Rune made the popularization of such a rich resource possible. Since the Rune could temporarily contain energy or even property and then supply it to an Array, they could charge hundreds of lighting tools using only one light crystal.

The tool (lighting charger) was actually very simple, just a Property Extraction A. to get the lighting property from the crystal combined with a Stimulus R. to convert energy into more of the property to save the light crystals energy, then a Direction A. to push the effect to the Contain R., which would be in another tool. Instead of making the Contain R. removable, the lighting charger needed to be pressed against the Rune to transfer the effect.

The lighting effect Array, which was drawn on their coats, would be able to contain the lighting property for some hours. To keep it from being active all the time and wasting the property, Karl added an Activation A. (square) to the design, combining the Rune with this Array would add an if pressed condition to it. He also combined the Contain R. with a Manifestation R. to manifest the lighting property, again, when pressed. Then, in the internal Array, he used a Direction A. (triangle) to direct the effect to the front of the user and a Stimulus R. to increase its area of effect.

With everything ready, the group finally entered the cave.