I returned to my Dungeon workshop area without any incidents, even though I wanted to see if that fox from before would show itself again. I directed my golems to place all their collected crystals into a pile on the ground until I could figure out a better place for them, only to be greeted with a system window once they had finished.

I flicked my tails in interest as I read through the notification. A twinge of irritation ran through me as while the effect was helpful, it was being annoyingly vague about the effect. It would be nice if it told me how much it increased the efficiency… but I should be happy it gave me anything at all.

I directed my golems to guard the entrance to the surface as well as tasked extra guards to the path further into the caves, giving the spot a moment of attention in the dungeon view, shaping up some small stone walls to restrict the movement of the foxes as well as texturing the floor to make it uncomfortable to stand on for something with small paws.

Pleased with my work I turned to the area I had designated before for raw material harvesting and started to look through my ore catalog and shifted it by price per volume, the entire array shifting wildly before settling down.

For any reasonable volume, it looks like my options were malachite, galena, cassiterite, and coal called ‘metallurgic coal’. Consulting my… limited knowledge I elected to split my skill points and mana between making a pile of coal and malachite

I held my arms out, palms facing forward to the two places I wanted to place my new deposits of the two resources, and shut my eyes, concentrating on the feeling I felt while making the pile of wolframite. It felt… itchy to my core.

I scrunched my face as I felt a warmth flowing from my chest out to both hands and… then I felt it leaving me, reaching out to the ground. With a prolonged flash, I could see through my eyelids, that it was done.

I opened my eyes and blinked a few times, the makeshift night vision I was using coming back and I was surprised by what I saw. The pile of malachite was nearly twice as big as the pile of wolframite, but the coal… It was ten times as large. Almost as large as my torso.

I quickly split my mana between making two regenerative fields, one for each of the new piles, and was immediately taken back by the speed at which my mana flowed out of me, not to mention how much it felt like I was able to apply, each field being stronger than the field on the wolframite by what felt like half.

I felt that I had just enough mana left to upgrade the regeneration on the wolframite as well, so I turned and made my way over to the currently regenerating pile of rocks, the golem I set to mine patiently waiting. I reached out to the golem mentally, and once I made contact with it I updated its instructions to harvest from the malachite and coal piles as well.

The golem quickly made its way to begin its new duties while I turned to the ore pile and split a thread of mana off again, reaching towards the regeneration field… only to have it shatter when I tried to pump more energy into it as I had with the others. Maybe upgrades were… less than easy.

With that failed attempt eating a good chunk of mana, I reached out one last time to instead apply a new field, with nothing there to stop me it went smoothly, much like the other two had, my mana reserves bottoming out as the improved field was established.

It was expected that I would run out of mana, but that penalty is super harsh… Wait, what is that about mana crystals?

I turned and nearly dashed over to the pile of glowing blue crystals, picking one up expectantly, hoping for another system menu to pop up and explain how to use one. Aaand… it didn’t. I shook it in mild frustration a few times before curling my tail up on the ground and sitting on it, trying to focus on the mana crystal.

I’m not sure how long it took, time is such a strange thing when you don’t have a point of reference, but I felt a thread of mana reaching in through my fingertips and I promed onto it with my own, only for a system prompt to somewhat rudely dump itself into my vision… or rather thoughts?

Well then… it actually explains the effects! I wasn’t expecting that…

But the options are really good… permanent buffs? Even at a flat rate increase that’s really good…

I hesitantly selected option 2 and the crystal started to liquefy rapidly, turning into a rapidly shrinking blob around my fingers, and before I had a chance to respond, it was gone.

At that same time, I felt my mana pool fill slightly, but the total size shrunk notably, as well as the rate mana was trickling in, after monitoring that feeling for a while I could feel as if it was stretching ever so slowly.

Feeling that I started collecting more of my crystals and using them, partially to refill my mana, but mainly to keep them away from those foxes I rightfully stole them from!

My capacity and regeneration rate had tanked by the time I was done and had the debuff removed, though I could feel them growing slightly faster than my regeneration rate. And then my eyes fell on the rest of my hoard.

I descended upon it and started to consume all of them, selecting the third option as soon as the system prompted me, and after some work and a mild headache… I had eliminated the pile of easily stolen mana crystals.

Take that, you foxy thieves!

Daikael

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