The quiet, deep mine chamber was filled only with the occasional drip of water, the dull thud of Leo’s wand striking the rock wall, and his grinding, muttering curses.
He drove the wand into the rock with all his might, each impact sending a jarring shock through his hands and numbing his palms.
Chunks of broken stone mixed with powdered blue fluorite showered down, not only caking his face but also worming their way into the collar of his expensive robe.
He, the young master of the Kastian clan, a future high-rank mage destined to be renowned across the continent, had just been fighting for his life against an armored fish crocodile.
Now he was reduced to mining in a pitch-black pit, using his precious custom-made wand as a pickaxe!
And to make matters worse, his cold-eyed overseer was a maid from his own estate!
If news of this ever reached the royal capital, those bastards in the main family would probably laugh themselves silly.
“Young Master, your mana output is unstable, and your direction is completely wrong.”
Ailiya sat on a clean rock behind him, holding a white handkerchief she had produced from somewhere. She was methodically wiping an ordinary dining knife.
Without even lifting her head, she showed no sympathy befitting a maid. Instead, like a ruthless, exploitative foreman, she pinpointed Leo’s “work error” with extreme precision.
“If you’re so good, you do it!”
Leo panted, stopping his movements.
He turned around, wiping the sweat mixed with lime dust from his forehead with the back of his grimy hand, and glared angrily at the silver-haired figure lounging leisurely on the rock.
“This damn rock is as hard as iron! I’m lucky to chip off a little piece with my wand! My mana is almost drained, and you’re sitting there making comments without a care in the world.”
“If you continue this undisciplined, purely emotional method of smashing the rock wall, your short wand will withstand at most a dozen more impacts before it completely shatters from external physical damage.”
Ailiya set down the now-spotless dining knife and elegantly crossed her legs.
She raised her ice-blue eyes, her tone flat and matter-of-fact, as if stating the simplest common sense.
“Mana infusion isn’t simply smearing mana like mud onto the surface of your wand. The mana structure you’re using is extremely loose. Not only does it fail to increase hardness or sharpness, but it’s actually accelerating the material degradation of the wand’s magical conductor.”
“I…”
Leo was rendered speechless.
He really hadn’t thought about applying magic more precisely to mining; he was just swinging a club.
“Th-then what do I do?”
Leo calmed down a little. He didn’t want to go through the rest of his adventure using a charred stick to cast spells. That would be too embarrassing.
Though still a bit sulky, he obediently walked over with his wand to save his precious tool.
“Come here.”
Ailiya beckoned.
“Watch closely.”
Ailiya didn’t take his wand.
She extended her gloved index finger and gently touched the blade of her ordinary dining knife.
In an instant, a dense layer of mana, glowing with a deep blue light, wrapped tightly around the knife’s edge as if it were alive.
Completely unlike Leo’s loose, dissipating mana, Ailiya’s infusion was extremely compact. There wasn’t even a ripple of mana flow on the surface. It was as if she had plated the ordinary iron knife with an unbreakable shell of dark blue magical metal.
“A single slash.”
Ailiya casually swung the knife against the hard rock beside her.
Sssssh—!
With an extremely faint friction sound, like cutting through soft tofu, a cut several inches deep with an incredibly smooth cross-section instantly appeared on the hard rock wall.
And the edge of that most ordinary iron dining knife didn’t show even a trace of a roll.
Leo stared in dumbfounded amazement, his mouth wide enough to fit a shoe.
How the hell could a dining knife do that?!
Ailiya put away the knife, instantly dispelling the mana, and naturally switched back to the head maid’s cold demeanor.
“Compressing mana to a high density and altering its structural arrangement to perfectly match the physical material of the weapon. This requires not only immense mental control but also an extremely sharp perception of mana flow.”
“Of course, you can’t do that yet.”
Ailiya looked at the crestfallen Leo and offered advice suitable for a beginner:
“If I were you, I would combine the cutting property of wind magic with the penetrating property of water magic.”
“Use high-pressure cutting generated by the water flow the moment it contacts a crack in the rock wall, instead of relying purely on brute force. This will not only conserve your mana but also greatly increase mining efficiency and protect your wand.”
“You already successfully cast the mist barrier, a water-wind compound spell. So why, when it comes to practical application, have you regressed into a goblin that only knows how to swing a club?”
Leo flushed bright red at these stinging words.
“Who regressed! I’m a genius!”
He turned stubbornly back to face the rock wall.
Leo took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.
Hum—
He began to try what Ailiya said, wrapping a thread of wind mana around the tip of his wand, then slowly, as usual, drawing on water mana to merge it.
The two different types of mana met at the wand’s tip, producing a slight tremor. Though unstable, it didn’t explode like before.
Leo aimed at a tiny crack in the rock wall and thrust the wand into it.
Bam!
A very dull, muffled sound of an internal explosion came from within the rock layer.
Small pieces of rock peeled off directly, revealing a complete ore that shimmered with an enticing blue light.
“It actually works!”
Leo’s eyes lit up. The humiliation from before was instantly swept away, replaced by an eager excitement as he looked at his wand.
This efficiency was many times faster than his earlier futile smashing, and the mana consumption was indeed much smaller.
He experienced a new sense of accomplishment.
The feeling of ingeniously applying magic to daily life and gathering felt incredibly novel to him.
“Looks like you’re not completely useless, maid.”
Leo snorted stubbornly, but his movements unconsciously quickened, as if he had found some new, fascinating toy.
For the next ten minutes or so, the mine was filled with rhythmic, miniature explosions.
Crack—!
A piece of blue fluorite the size of a fist, completely clear and glowing with a faint blue light, actually fell loose and landed undamaged on the ground.
“Done! I dug out a whole piece! As expected of a genius!”
Leo jumped up excitedly, like a child who had gotten candy. Holding the ore, he rushed over to show Ailiya.
Ailiya sat on the rock, reached out, took the ore, and used her appraisal skill.
[Blue Fluorite Raw Ore]
[Quality: Common (Green)]
[Evaluation: Common raw ore with few impurities]
[A common mana ore. Mana capacity is average. Easy to process. Used to make simple dim-light tools, weapons, daily goods, etc.]
“Barely acceptable.”
Ailiya casually tossed the ore into the leather bag at her feet, which was already half full. Her movements were natural, without a hint of embarrassment.
Leo stared at his empty hands, then at Ailiya’s perfectly natural expression.
He choked for a long moment before finally spitting out:
“Hey, I worked hard to dig that out. Don’t you have anything to say?”
“Something to say?”
Ailiya tilted her head slightly, a barely perceptible hint of mockery in her eyes.
“Is the young master hoping I’ll praise you in the same tone I use for the guard dogs in the estate? ‘Good job, keep it up’?”
“If that’s the case, I don’t mind indulging your petty vanity.”
“You…”
Leo was at a loss for words, his face flushed red.
Would it kill this woman to give one compliment?!
Staring at Ailiya’s flawless yet infuriating face, Leo’s eyes flickered. A mischievous impulse born from his restless nature suddenly surfaced.
“Ailiya.”
Leo suddenly dropped his angry expression, stepped closer, and lowered his voice mysteriously.
“You have… something on your face.”
Ailiya frowned slightly.
She hadn’t felt any foreign object fall on her. She instinctively reached up to wipe it off.
“Don’t move! Let me help.”
Leo moved first, reaching out with his hand, which was covered in lime powder and wet mud.
With a bit of vengeful pleasure and a trace of barely noticeable tension, he quickly and lightly swiped his finger across Ailiya’s porcelain-pale cheek.
The result was that an extremely conspicuous black mud handprint instantly appeared on her ice-cold face.
At that moment, the air seemed to freeze completely.
The mine fell silent except for the dead sound of dripping water.
Leo looked at his “masterpiece,” then at Ailiya’s ice-blue eyes, which were gradually darkening as if brewing a storm.
His smug smile instantly froze on his face. A powerful chill shot from the soles of his feet straight to the top of his head.
“Heh… heheh… Ailiya, listen, I was just…”
“Young Master.”
Ailiya’s voice was so soft it was almost inaudible.
But that calmness carried a deathly stillness, like the calm before an avalanche.
“Just now, you used that dirty hand that had just dug through a goblin nest, touched muddy puddles, and smashed rocks for ages… to touch my face?”
Provocation.
This was nothing short of blatant provocation.
Even back in the game, those deliberately designed hostile NPCs that provoked players had never dared to physically smear mud on a player’s face like this!
Because most of the time, NPCs only used their mouths, and then got beaten up by players.
“I… I was just trying to clean it off for you…”
Leo backed away repeatedly, his legs starting to shake.
“Really! It was a kind gesture…”
Ailiya slowly stood up, the clean cloth she had used to wipe the knife dropping to the ground.
Under Leo’s terrified gaze, the mud-stained face broke into a smile. It was a smile without a hint of warmth, breathtakingly beautiful, but so chilling it made his scalp tingle.
“It seems I’ve been too lax recently, too gentle with you, leading the young master to develop the illusion that you can provoke me at will.”
Ailiya took a step forward.
Though no mana leaked out, she exuded a pressure even more terrifying than Balke’s second-order aura.
“Ah! Help! Uncle Balke! Misi! Sailin! Bu La Da!! Mother—!”
Leo let out a miserable shriek. Abandoning even his precious wand, he turned and began a desperate sprint around a massive stone pillar.
“D-don’t spank me! I already bruised that spot falling down!”
“In light of the young master’s excessive energy and serious lack of discipline, you will complete the remaining ore collection entirely on your own, until that small leather bag is full.”
“No way—! I’m the young master! I’m your employer! You can’t abuse me!”
Deep in the mine, the youth’s howls and the girl’s flat, crisp “lessons” intertwined, echoing in the dark, damp space, lingering long.
Until—
Whoosh—whoosh—
From the pitch-black opening above, a faint sound of something heavy sliding and a pulley scraping came.
Ailiya stopped her actions and looked up.
A thick rope, with a metal pulley bracket and a simple hanging basket attached to its top, was slowly descending from the entrance.
Accompanying the rope, Balke’s relieved, rough roar echoed through the mine.
“Young Master! Ailiya! Can you hear me?! The old man is here to get you!!!”
Leo lay sprawled on the ground, covered in stone chips, his rear end black and blue.
He looked at the life-saving rope descending and was almost in tears.
“Uncle… I finally don’t have to be her slave digging ore anymore… I really don’t have a single drop of mana left…”
Leo sniffled, feeling for the first time that Balke’s raspy, broken-bellows-like voice was a heavenly melody.
Ailiya calmly picked up the heavy leather bag and slung it over her back.