While we were walking towards the mountain, I managed to confirm a number of different things. First of all, the world that we were in now should be in the same realm as Deckan. This was confirmed from the fact that I was able to cut a blade of grass and convert it into a card. Of course… from what I remembered, there was also the possibility that the world was instead in the golem’s realm.

While I don’t know too much about that group, I was well aware of the fact that the golems had even more mastery over card magic than we did. It was to the point that they had even traced the source of card magic to some rare mineral found deep within the planet’s crust. The first time that I had heard that, I was actually quite surprised. However, aside from those two realms, there was nowhere else where native items could be turned into a card upon being collected.

As for the second thing that I discovered… well, it was a good thing that Casey was securing us funds. Along the way to the mountain, we came across a wild canine creature. Using my ki blaster, I shot and killed it. After a quick test, the canine should have been no more than level ten or twenty.

With the dietary requirements of eight to ten rings for the three of us, it would take more energy to cook and eat this creature than we would gain from doing so. While there are some extreme exceptions, the presence of such a low level creature in the ecosystem would likely mean that all of the surrounding flora and fauna are of a similar level.

On the bright side, that means that there aren’t likely to be any creatures in the surroundings that can truly threaten us, and the local weather is unlikely to become dangerous either. Jocelyn was the one to point out those bright sides, but I was still more interested in securing shelter.

It would take a full year for monsters of our level to begin spawning, assuming we were forced to stay that long. I found it… extremely unlikely that the Boundless Caravan would be kind enough to consistently send us supplies for that long without asking for anything in return. For now, our priorities were getting shelter and finding some local resource that we could barter when the need arises.

Once we hit the foot of the mountain, I cast my mapping card again. As the projected map took shape in front of me, I noted down each and every cave that appeared. If there were too many linked together, it was bound to be the nest of some burrowing monster, and we should look elsewhere. While I felt that there was no need to be cautious of the local creatures, that did not mean I wanted to sleep in a nest of ants. Tried that once. Never again.

Thankfully, while there were a number of caves within the mountain, most of them were rather small, and none of them created any sort of complicated network. This allowed me to rule out the possibility of burrowing creatures. However, none of the caves seemed quite fit for us to live in at the moment, so Jocelyn and I would still be ‘remodeling’ one physically before we head back.

First, though, I flipped the switch in my card gun, swapping to the second card that I had loaded before we started this walk. After firing the gun, I watched as a second projected map overlaid with the first. This was a resource map, able to display any mineral or crystal resources.

This was what it meant to live off the land. When you enter a zone far beneath your level, your only hope of survival is to find something that someone else wants enough to get them to save you. No amount of harvesting grubs or hunting game would be enough to nourish you in such a situation. That’s why soldiers carried around ample rations for their own dietary level.

As for what I saw in the scan… “Looks like some silver… a bit of magnartum, but not enough to lift the mountain. This last reading, though…” I furrowed my brows, looking at the third mineral registered with the scan. It was hard to update the ‘database’ inside the cards, so there were several cases where they ended up being out of date. In those situations, it wouldn’t be odd to find a resource that the card couldn’t identify.

That was exactly what was happening here. It was silver in color, and seemed to pulse with energy. Not mana, or ki, the scan could easily pick that up. This was almost distorting the scan, only alerting me to the oddity by how it interfered with the ability to read it.

“Jocelyn, I’m going to take you to a cave. If I give you the tools, can you have your familiar work on clearing it out? I want to get a sample of this to send back. I’m not a fan of sleeping near potentially dangerous material.”

Jocelyn’s eyes went wide, and she nodded her head hastily. I pulled out a pair of cards that had a pickaxe and a shovel with a mithral-lined head. “These should be able to get you through the rocks easily. If you run into any trouble, reverse the pickaxe. It has an enchantment on the back to soften materials.”

The lycan girl took the two cards, looking at me in confusion. “If I take these, how are you going to get the sample?”

Chuckling slightly, I pulled out another card, readily activating it and revealing a knife in my hands. “This should be enough for me to get it. According to the map, there is an exposed vein near the top of the mountain. Once I climb up there and retrieve the sample, I’ll come back down to get you. Think you’ll be okay alone for a while?”

Jocelyn gripped the two cards in her hands, hesitating. However, she gave a determined nod after a moment. While I was not entirely comfortable leaving the two of them alone one after another, I had verified the safety of this area to a degree. Furthermore, there was too much that we needed to do for us to remain together the entire time.

Returning her nod, I walked about a hundred meters with her and pointed her at a nearby cave. Of all the ones that I had seen, that one was the closest to the size needed for us to comfortably inhabit it. “If you run into problems, use the suit’s radio to call me.”

After saying that, I infused my ki into my feet, jumping high into the air and rapidly beginning to scale the mountain. This wasn’t a particularly tall peak, only about ten kilometers. Even if we were on Desbar, that wouldn’t qualify as a ‘big’ mountain. Let alone Deckan’s realm, where it would not be uncommon for a mountain to be over a hundred kilometers tall.

Ten kilometers took me just as many minutes with my ki. While I wasn’t particularly accomplished as a monk, I had enough ability to at least enhance my speed to this degree. Upon reaching my destination, I found the cave that had been pointed out on the projected map, and slipped inside.

“Where are you…” I muttered to myself, looking around at the walls of the cave. Not seeing a hint of silver peeking through, I knew I would have to chip away at the rock wall to find my prize. In order to avoid wasting energy, I fired my mineral scan card again. With its assistance, I was able to walk over to the far left edge of the cave, where I began chipping away with my knife.

Within moments, I saw the silver gleam emerge from behind the dark stone. After that, I channeled just a bit of ki into my blade and broke off a small piece. Next would be the first test. If this was a mineral I had come across before, or at least learned enough about for it to make an impression on me, then storing it as a card would allow me to identify it. If not, the name on the card would be blank.

Focusing, I transformed the chunk of ore into its card form. Sure enough, there really was a name on it, though not one I expected to find. My guess was that I knew just barely enough for the system to get away with giving me its name. That, or there were circumstances at work beyond which I was aware.

Dimensium… The boys back home will be crazy about this. I gave a small smile as I pocketed the card, transforming my knife back as well. Given the depth of this ore on Deckan, we had yet to find a suitable mining site. However, from what the scan said, there were veins of the stuff running all throughout this mountain.

Forget having trouble with food… they’ll probably send us machinery just to mine this for them. If they could send people over the trade platform, they’d jump at the chance. I shook my head at the humor of it, happy to have found something that could secure us our food for the foreseeable future.

Descending the mountain wasn’t much more effort than climbing it. After leaving her alone for a total of half an hour, I returned to the cave where Jocelyn was working. Inside the cave, I was quite pleased with what I saw waiting for me.

The floor of the cave had largely been smoothed out, Jocelyn herself carrying armfulls of rocks to throw out the front. Along one wall, her familiar stood with its arms stretched forward. As Casey had told me, it was a giant suit of armor, one laden with dangerous spikes. The helmet contained a pair of fiercely glowing eyes as it stared at the tools I had given her.

Tools which were now operating entirely on their own. Did she create a spell to allow her familiar to possess objects? I was quite curious about the full extent of Kione’s magic system, especially in the situation we found ourselves. More than likely, I would create my own familiar with their help, if only to give me some magical options that did not rely on my limited collection of cards.

Still, seeing the pickaxe chipping away to create an opening, and then the shovel bashing in to scoop out large chunks of rock, it was not exactly how I expected this to go. I certainly wasn’t going to complain about the efficiency of it, I just thought it would be more work.

Once Jocelyn saw me, she threw aside the rock she was carrying and waved happily. “Welcome back. Did you find your mineral?”

I gave a nod, explaining what I had found. Just like I had been, she seemed relieved to hear that we wouldn’t need to worry about food expenditure for a while. However, just as we were beginning to leave, the two of us froze. We heard a voice that neither of us were excited for. One that I quickly hoped I had just imagined.

“Greetings, travelers. I am Speaker Thorn of the Metongs. You have been discovered on an otherwise uninhabited world. Are you perhaps stranded and in need of aid?” The voice, which seemed eerily similar to that of Mother Lyra, echoed in my mind for several long moments.

“G-guys…” Casey’s voice shakily rang out from the radio. “Please tell me that I just imagined that. How could they find us that quickly?”

The voice spoke up in response to Casey’s question, though seemed to carry a confused tone to it. “I’m not sure why it is a problem for us to have found you. The planet you are on is one we had scheduled for mining after confirming the absence of sapient life. Rather, it is a good thing we noticed you, as the area you are located would have been destroyed three rotations later.”

I was conflicted on how to proceed. If these Metongs were in league with Mother Lyra, then revealing our circumstances would only get us killed. If that was the case, we had to act fast, and find a way to escape their clutches before information about us reached them.

If they weren’t connected to Mother Lyra, then we had a chance. They might represent a different nation of Metongs, though given what Mother Lyra said of the ‘Network’, that seemed unlikely.

“Young man.” This time, the voice did not speak up directly in my mind, but in front of me. A woman appeared, her form slender and silver. Strands of sparkling metal fell like hair down her shoulders. Her body simply faded into being before me, causing me to be unaware of if this was a teleportation ability, or some projection she was using to communicate.

“I apologize for the intrusion. In an effort to curb your group’s anxiety, I chose to read your surface thoughts. As the lone male, and the only one visibly equipped to pilot the nearby craft, I assumed you to be in charge. I assure you that I did not read deeply, and only wished to see how we may have offended you.”

My body stiffened when I heard that she had been inside my head. It wasn’t entirely unexpected. Mother Lyra used some method to learn our language, which I always assumed to be a type of mind-reading. However, it was her next question that confused me the most. “May I ask how you are familiar with the Metong you know as Lyra? She seems to have left a negative impression on the three of you. However, she has disconnected from the Network, so we are unable to track her current location.”