The man tortured Alex for what felt like an eternity. When he was finished, they left him in a smoking heap and walked away after shouting at the other slaves.

Alex stared at the ceiling of the mine for several minutes as the pain slowly faded. He reflected on the past few hours and tried to figure out where he'd gone wrong. First, he'd lost his temper twice. On the truck and here in this cave. Frankly, he was lucky they hadn't just killed him.

He glanced over at the body of the man he'd killed. Very lucky.. The urge to vomit swept over him, but he pushed it down. Don't know when I'll get to eat next, he thought to himself.

Alex found it strange that they'd left the body behind, but shrugged his shoulders and went back to staring at the ceiling. Not losing his temper would have kept him more aware of his surroundings. He might know more about his current situation and ways to escape. As it stood, he had no idea what the path out of this place was.

Speaking of, was anyone going to come rescue him? Would the Commander and his unit even think he was alive? Was anyone from Torval's squad even still alive? Alex quickly turned his mind from the subject, feeling despair and sadness creep up at the thought of them dying and no one coming to rescue him.

Alex’s mind wandered back to Earth. How were his roommates holding up? Hopefully none of them had been conscripted, this new world was significantly more messed up than he wanted them to have to put up with. What about his parents? They’d never had the best relationship, both of them more focused on their own lives than their son, but nonetheless they were still family. Mediocre parenting aside, Alex didn’t want anything bad to happen to them.

He shook his head, dwelling on things he couldn’t affect wouldn’t help in this situation. He knew he needed a plan to get out of this mine, slavery didn't seem like a great lifestyle. What would a cultivator do? He wondered.

Probably cultivate and when he was strong enough, slaughter the lot of them. Which brought up another question, what exactly did the collars do? Could he still cultivate with it on?

Deciding to test it, Alex quickly closed his eyes and started to meditate. The familiar rush of essence into his body, even more rapid than what he experienced on the ship. After a few minutes of directing that essence into his organs, he stopped and opened his eyes. Operation ‘Cultivate Like Madman’ was a go. He just needed to figure out when he could cultivate first.

Alex felt a hand tap his shoulder. He opened his eyes once more to see the man that had woken him up. In the dim lighting, Alex finally got a decent look at the man. He was short and stocky with a long brown beard and a bald pate covered in dirt. Brown eyes looked down at him with concern.

"You… do… very…." The man stated. Alex stared at him blankly before replying.

"No talk common," Alex managed to say. The man shook his head and muttered at that. He held a pick over Alex and dropped it on his stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

"Mine," the man said. "No mine, no eat."

He walked back to a wall and started wailing away furiously at the wall with his own pick. Alex sat up and watched him for a while. Stone and ore flew from the wall in great chunks. He was definitely stronger than your typical person. Probably tier three or four if he had to guess. Growing tired of watching the man, Alex stood up and went to his own wall and started swinging.

---

After five hours of swinging the pickaxe, Alex learned three things. First, mining was boring. Swing, shift rock around, kick stone back, repeat. Nothing broke the continued drudgery. After the first hour, a group of people pushing floating carts had stopped by to sweep up all the stone they'd mined. They returned every hour after that.

The second thing Alex learned was that people could in fact outwork machines. He’d wondered briefly why the slavers were using people to mine rather than advanced equipment, but the group of a dozen people had mined several hundred meters worth of tunnel in those five hours. It turns out a group of enhanced superhumans were very efficient movers of stone.

Lastly, he found out that with enough focused effort, he could cultivate while mining. It had taken him a few hours to get the hang of it, but he found if he synced his breathing with the swinging of the pickaxe he was able to successfully pull in essence. After that mining was still boring, but the joy of cultivation helped offset the doldrums.

Lost in his meditations, Alex was startled when an exhausted looking man caught his pickaxe midswing. Alex looked beyond the kind man to see a few slavers had returned. The group of miners were led back through the maze of tunnels towards the cages. At the entrance to the cages, a man stood behind a table laden with bowls and a large cauldron. After depositing their pickaxes back into a pile, the slaves filed into line and the man began to hand out food.

Alex realized he was famished once he noticed the food, so he eagerly got into the line. A hand grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back out of the line. Scarface had returned.

The man sneered at Alex, and a bolt of red lightning struck him in the chest sending a wave of pain through his body.

“No food for… one,” the man stated. The scar on his face twisted his expression as he spoke. “... teach him a ….”

Alex received a kick in the side that displaced some of his ribs, and then the man walked away. He groaned, why did people keep breaking his ribs? Also, so much for ‘no mine, no eat.’

Before he had a chance to collect himself, another slaver walked over to him and started shoving him towards the cage with her boot. Alex begrudgingly crawled into his new home. If he was being honest, the slavers were acting oddly benevolent towards a man that had killed one of them despite this harsh treatment. Was life really that cheap on this planet?

Alex dragged himself to a corner of the cage and watched the rest of the slaves slowly filter in. When the last person had climbed through the doorway, a slaver slammed the door shut and locked the cage.

---

Fisk watched the strange newcomer as he ate the slop these bastards called food. He was an odd one to be sure. Who didn’t speak Common? Also, who was stupid enough to attack the slavers? Sure, he was surprisingly durable, surviving extended torture from Dross, the leader of the slavers, but that wasn’t a reason to act so recklessly. Now they were sure to keep a closer eye on him, reducing his chances of escaping.

Also, what was with the kid’s endurance? After his private torture session, he’d worked just as hard as the rest of them, and still had energy to spare despite the six hour shift. It made absolutely no sense, he’d never met a mage so physically capable before. Which begged the question, was he even a mage?

Fisk fingered the collar around his neck. If they ever took this off him, he’d probably rip through them like a beast horde through an unclaimed world. Unfortunately, the parasitic collar remained, restricting his ability to draw essence from his core and cast spells.

He sighed, it was a hopeless situation, but he couldn't give up. His daughter needed him.

---

Alex spent the rest of the evening cultivating, and he made surprisingly good progress. Based on where he was, he thought he'd be able to finish viscera training within the week, assuming all he had to do was mine, eat, and sleep. From there, he wasn't sure he wanted to switch to bone forging next.

While it made sense from a logical standpoint, what he really needed right now was firepower, or more accurately muscle power. With his insane regeneration speed, any damage he might do to his bones and skin from using overpowered muscles should be mitigated relatively quickly.

In the end there really wasn't much of an argument to say he shouldn't, so muscle and ligament training it was. With that in mind, he settled down for a long night of cultivation.

---

Alex was shaken from his meditation the next morning by the kind man from before.

"Time… mine," the man said. Alex nodded in response, but felt he owed the man something more so he tried saying thank you.

"Thank much," was all he could remember. The man looked at him oddly then smiled wearily.

"No… kid," he replied, Alex only understanding a bit of the brief sentence.

"Not kid," Alex replied, "Name Alex."

"Nice to… you, Alex," the man responded, "... Fisk."

Alex pointed at the man, "Name Fisk?"

The man nodded in response. Before they could try to communicate further, a slaver rattled the cage with their baton, signaling the start of their day.

Alex grudgingly stood up, physically ready for the day, but mentally dragging.