I woke up in the same shaft. The same place, saw the guys sitting in different places but still close enough to see each other. They were all sweaty and reflecting the light from a single lamp in here. They all looked at me as I woke up.

"He really likes to sleep doesn't he?" The dwarf stopped the silence surrounding all of us.

"Well, today he woke up the earliest. Even earlier than me! That's already pretty rare." Marcus nodded.

"He isn't that well built though. I don't think he worked out a lot in his life. Since Marcus is here for six months or so he trained some, but I don't think Hayden did before he came here." Added Estel while biting his loaf of bread.

"I'm sorry…"

"Don't worry it still doesn't matter. We will say we all mined this. We don't want you to have problems. Let's take this stone on the cart." We started putting the stone on the two carts we had close to us. The rocks were pretty heavy but I still managed. "Shaft 12!" He shouted into the long corridor leading to the exit. The cart started moving itself with all the stone in it.

The cart was so quick that in two seconds the whole thing disappeared in the dark. You could hear the sound of it moving through the whole shaft. After ten seconds or so the cart came back as quickly as when it left.

"It's time to work guys. If we won't mine enough they will kill us earlier." Nodded Estel while picking up his tool. The other two followed and went to the same position in other places. And they were at it again. I also tried to do as much as I could for the next hour at least. The work is really hard, with every single swing I felt that the strength in my arm started fading away. I felt every droplet of my sweat falling down from my face on my torso. Slowly flowing lower until it reached my pants. The droplet sank into it. Many of those. Those that were flowing down my spine made my body shiver since it was a cold sweat...

I didn't realize it but exhaustion took a toll upon me already and that made me think if it wasn't around the afternoon. The bread on the cart didn't look too appetizing, but my hunger overwhelmed me. I took a bite of that bread and it was crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside… "Even bread has many different tastes" came to my mind as the bread was getting better with each bite. Slowly getting to the halfway mark of eating, a thought came to my mind "I should keep some for later" And so I left the second half of the loaf on the cart right beside me.

Afterwards I took the pickaxe again. With the taste of the bread still in my mouth, the pickaxe in my hands slowly started moving. The swings take a lot of energy, but the break from before made me a little more energetic. All my muscles are ready for the work without restrain.

"One swing second…" I was counting each swing. With every other, the feeling of muscles getting weaker… Also started disappearing. "Twelve, thirteen, fourteen…" This gave me a small feeling of pure concentration on the work. As more swings went by, small blue pieces started appearing on the wall. This caught my eye and made me swing even harder and faster.

Now fully able to see the blue thing in the wall it looked pure and blue in the color of the ocean. I looked into the blue stone that was reflecting everything. And I saw… Myself? Again… My dirty face… This of a slave… I need to get out of here rapidly. This one gaze continued for a short amount of time.

"Hey, guys! Look what Hayden found!" Marcus shouted in our small mining place.

"Oh god… Boy if you weren't here you would be hella rich!" Added the dwarf while holding his beard.

"Hayden. You found yourself a mana crystal!" With a hand on his chin, he explained. "Mana crystals are used for some ancient crafts… There is a legend that besides the power of dark there was also one other… But it quickly went extinct since there were only a few people that practiced it. Most of them never taught anyone the usage of it and so… After three or two generations the knowledge of mana went extinct… There are still ruins of those that actually used that power. Their castles are still in the far lands on ice mountains in every continent. But no one has ever entered them since there were never enough mana crystals in one country to put the mechanisms into motion. I once read a book where it was said that they were well… Very different. Their power was not from a long time before, instead… It's like a thing that replaces all the time. Gathering itself from the soil and everything.

And different from us their power would… Never run out? I don't know… It was a book I read a really long time ago so I don't remember everything one to one. But I'm sure that what we are looking at is a big mana crystal."

"But… What do we do?" I questioned the four of them with my head down.

"Well… We can't do much. Either we mine it and send it to them or we leave it be and let someone else send it." Answered Matthew with a sigh. "I think it's better to send it to them. We will maybe get something like a bonus or anything..."

"I agree with Matthew. What's the chance of us coming back here in circumstances that would allow us to mine it. And as Matthew just said maybe we would get something." Marcus said while looking at the azure wall.

"I don't know… Hmm…" Shaft 12 went into silence again. But this one was a little weird because everyone was doing the thing with the chin… Only I didn't. "You guys are right. But it's Hayden who has found it so it's his choice what we do with it." And as he ended that sentence all three of them looked directly at me.

"Umm… Well… Let's give it to them… Maybe when we will escape we can get a part of it." Then all four of us uncovered the whole ravine and saw that it was as big as the whole wall in our shaft.

"Oh my god…" Matthew looked at the mana crystal and it reflected in his eyes. "Now… What do we do? This is so much that you could build a set of villas if you sell it…"

"Mine, Matthew. Mine. Maybe we will take a small part of it with us and… You can study it! Maybe you will be able to create mana crystals with your power!" Pointed Estel in Matthew's direction.

"We could actually try it… I could later try to use it to get paid for entering the castles that you've told us about." He jumped up with happiness and new energy. "So shall we start?!" And we all then started mining all of the mana crystals inside the cave. They weren't very hard to mine but the quantity was just incredible.

It still took us around an hour of only mining to get all the crystals from the walls. The cart was loaded to the fullest. We took the smallest one possible which was still the size of a small dagger.

"Shaft 12! A big one!" Estel shouted into the shafts way. And the cart again went rapidly in the dark shaft. It was screeching from the weight put onto it. The sound was so loud we had to cover our ears.

"What can we get actually?" My voice left my mouth with a questioning voice.

"Well, we can get a pass to leave one fighting day or more food. Something like that." Assured Marcus while looking at the shard we took.

"Matthew, do you think you can recreate this?" The crystal landed in Estel's hand and wondered if he could actually do it.

"Hmm… It will take me some time… I need to imbue my dark inside the stone and look at how that 'mana' works. I won't be able to use it of course, but maybe I will understand some of it… It's really dense from what I see… That power is really condensed. Those mana users had to be really powerful to make devices based on this…"

"There was a book title I saw in one demonic library it was… "Mana users compared to dark power. Who?" Something like this. I didn't read it though... Sorry."

"I don't know, but surely those best were comparable to the best." I thought to myself… Can I try to retrieve that knowledge? Or… I don't know… If I could grasp something of that sort well maybe…

"I think it's time for us to head out. I looked with the eye outside and some people already left the mines."

"Let's go," I added. Me. I was the one to say it. The hope flowed to my mind when I heard the legends of mana… What if… It's my only hope…