*Eeeoooeeeooo* The siren rang out through the mines, waking Kyros to the start of his first day working in the new mines.

I guess this is the one thing that will never change.

Kyros slipped into one of his many choices of overalls, such a thing was not a luxury back in the copper mines. He went over to his tub of water and splashed some onto his face, waking himself up. He had a hard time getting to sleep the night before, for how much he hated and resented the copper mine; he had grown accustomed to it. Although one thing could be said and that was for the first time since being in the new world, he had slept in a proper bed.

He studied his new pickaxe that had been in his room when he arrived.

Steel Pickaxe

Type:

Pickaxe

Durability:

200/200

Quality:

Good

A steel pickaxe, it is very sturdy and capable of mining most ores.

Leaving his room he headed to the mess chamber which he had already seen the day before. He looked around and saw the difference in atmosphere compared to his last mine, the workers all sat in groups and chatted as they heartily ate the food.

I preferred the quiet in the copper mines…

Kyros didn’t need to line up as he collected his food and headed over to an empty table, far away from the others. Sitting down he inspected this new food.

Stale Bread

Type:

Food

Benefits

+6 stamina every 10 minutes for 1 hour

Quality:

Poor

Common food for low birth citizens.

Ham Soup

Type:

Food

Benefits

+10 stamina every 10 minutes for 1 hour

Quality:

Average

Soup with ham throughout it.

Hmm there’s a world of difference between this and the old man’s soup. Although the bread looks to be about five days old.

+2% Perception

So it works like that… Maybe this could be useful. It doesn’t seem to be hard to train anyway.

After eating his food and waiting until it was time to get to work, he filled his time with inspecting everything to increase his perception. He was noticing how one of the guards off to the side had a limp, indicating he had hurt himself; that increased his perception. Within fifteen minutes of sitting there looking around, he had already raised his perception two levels.

With each level he raised it, he could see things he hadn’t at first. For example: before he had only perceived the guard to be injured but after rising his level twice, he could now see signs of blood on his upper thigh of the left leg. The guard obviously had a wound of some sort on his thigh, whether it was a training wound or from a battle with a monster; Kyros couldn’t possibly perceive that at his current level.

It was time to go and start the day mining; it had a similar set up with the copper mine. They all arrive into a large chamber with many tunnels branching out, however this time Kyros only partnered up with two others. One was a tall burly red-headed man, he also had a thick beard.

If only he wore a kilt, I would’ve sworn he was Scottish.

The other man was a skinny older guy, probably mid forties if Kyros had to guess. Nothing unusual about the man, apart from the fact that he looked to belong in an office bookkeeping and not in a mine swinging heavy pickaxes around.

“Hahaha so we got tha youngin hah. Don’t yee worry yah self chap, we’ll look afta yah.” The Scottish looking man spoke poorly. It wasn’t the first time Kyros had encountered this, a lot of slaves came from poor villages where they hadn’t learned academics.

“Ah quite right you are, Henry. As you just heard, this big oaf of a man is Henry, and I’m Charles. Pleased to make you acquaintance.” The skinny man announced himself.

Kyros tried not to laugh as these two men spoke just the way he had pictured the two.

“Right. I’m Kyros, shall we get started.” As Kyros said this, he was already inspecting these two men; doing anything to raise his new skill.

“That’s tha spirit chap! follow me den.” Henry spoke in a booming voice as he led the way down their tunnel.

They now stood in front of a series of rock faces covered in gold ore, he had never seen such a rich ore vein before. Henry got straight to work on the gold mining, Kyros noticed how his mining technique differed greatly to his own. Henry seemed to use his great strength to break the gold ore off the rock, it wasn’t neat or as effective as Kyros technique but it did get the job done.

Kyros was about to get started when Charles walked over to his side.

“Don’t copy Henry, he’s only good for his strength. Let me give you a tip, aim for the weak points of the ore…” Charles then went on to explain and point out what these weak points looked like. After his explanation ended, Kyros discovered something.

Knowledge of mining has increased. +24% in Mining. Mining has levelled up.

Skill Name:

Skill Rank:

Skill Level:

Skill Experience:

Mining

Intermediate

3

3.26%

Determines how fast you can mine. Higher levels will allow user to mine more precious ores and gemstones.

Can now mine precious ores.

So skills can be increased this way as well…

Looking at the ore in front of him, Kyros using his perception skill could see all the weak spots in the ore. When he struck one of these weak spots, the ore would break off easily afterwards. All of a sudden his rate of mining had increased exponentially.

+25 EXP +4% increase to Perception. +0.5% increase to Mining.

Wait, is using perception with mining essentially a cheat skill?

It seemed almost too good to be true. He also wasn’t the only one to notice, the other two with him had seen what was going on.

“Hah doncha think yah should slow down there chap. Your gon make us two look bad.” Henry stated.

“Yeah, maybe I should have you give me a few tips. Haha.” Charles joked.

Normally Kyros would’ve thought them to be joking, but with his new perceptive skills he could notice certain things about the way they said it.

I see, Lewys did warn me it was competitive. They had first thought me to be a naive kid, which must’ve been why they were kind before. I think they might try something later.

“Ah I think it’s just beginners luck.” Kyros responded as if he didn’t know what they were up to.

Like that Kyros had managed to mine 120 gold ores in the day, baffling to the other two older guys who only mined around 50 each. When they had first arrived they could only mine about 10 ores, it had taken them weeks to grow accustomed to gold ore mining.

Kyros had also levelled his perception to intermediate level 1. Although after doing so he stopped getting increases to the skill, he assumed it must take less obvious things to level up from now on. His mining levelled up once as well making it level 4 and he was close to levelling up his overall level which would make him level 19. It had been a bountiful day, he was especially happy with his mining. The increase of skill when mining copper was so low it was almost non-existent, gold ore however was much better.

He had been following the two veteran miners when they suddenly stopped, and turned around to stare at him.

I feel like I’ve seen this before… where?

“Hey Kyros, seeing as though we helped and were good seniors, isn’t it only fair of you to split your ores with us?” Charles spoke.

Oh that’s right. Dwenn and his lackeys, guess I should’ve figured this would happen.

“Nah, I’ll keep them. Thanks for the tips though.” Kyros had learned not be as rash as last time, where he had jumped straight to insulting which had caused everything to escalate.

“Now now, Henry and I here would like to offer you a contract. 50% of your ores will be going to us, in exchange Henry with his great strength will protect you from the others like us.” Charles offered.

Ahh I see, he’s the brains and Henry’s the brawn. Also it was quite a professional offer as well, Dwenn could’ve learned from these guys. Could’ve.

“No, I think I’m alright. Thanks for the offer though.”

“I see. I thought you were smart, seeing as how quickly you picked up my mining technique and improved it. I’m disappointed. You better convince him.” Charles had honestly looked disappointed. He had pegged Kyros for a smart man like himself, he would’ve been willing to drag him into the business in time; after he had showed him that he was the boss of course.

“That wasn’t smart of yah, but doncha worry yerself. I’ll be sure tah teach yah tah correct answer.” Henry walked over while cracking his knuckles.

Kyros stood his ground though, not taking a step back. Henry and Charles just took this for arrogance of a child though. Henry was now in swinging distance of Kyros, when he reached out and placed his hand on Kyros’s shoulder. He started to squeeze down on his shoulder. Kyros just smiled though, admittedly it was actually hurting; but for the sake of future issues he had to seem as strong as possible now.

When Henry noticed nothing happened, he tried squeezing even harder. Kyros however just reached up and gripped Henrys wrist. Kyros then suddenly used his own strength to squeeze on Henry’s wrist.

“Argh!” Henry, this somewhat over 6’ foot tall man fell to his knees and yelled in agony. This caused shock not only to the pain struck Henry, but also to Charles who was standing arrogantly in the distance.

Kyros’s strength was now 54. His stats had only been split between: Vitality, Strength, and Agility, seeing as though he currently had no use for the other stats yet. Also his strength was higher than his overall level allowed because of the bonus increases from mining.

“Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?” Kyros directed his question to Charles, still gripping Henrys wrist.

“Ah… no… that… will be all.” Kyros noticed that Charles still hadn’t given up. The perception skill was really handy in this moment.

Why force me to do things I don’t want to do…

*Snap* “ARGH!!!!! MA WRIST!!” Henry yelled in agony. Kyros had broken his wrist.

“How dare you! Just wait until the guards hear of this!” Charles couldn’t believe what had happened.

“I’ll be waiting.” Kyros now took the lead.

Back where they handed in the ores from the days work, stood Kyros. He could see the guards helping Henry and calling for a healer.

Guess they mean a medic.

No, quite quickly a man wearing a robe came running out. He put his hands over Henrys wrist and muttered something that Kyros couldn’t make out, then a green glow came out of his hands and surrounded Henrys wrist. Kyros saw how Henrys health had climbed all the way back to full health, and then Henry started flexing his wrist before thanking the robed man.

What! This is definitely magic! I assumed there would be because of the intelligence and wisdom stat, but now I know! How do I learn it though…

While he was contemplating, Charles had pointed out to the guards the culprit of the incident. Two guards immediately came over and addressed Kyros.

“You slave! Don’t think that just because you’re a gold class now that you can get away with this! You’ll receive punishment.” One of the guards barked at Kyros, however the other looked as if he was trying to figure something out.

“I’m sorry, but they had been the ones to start it. They had tried to extort me for my ores, I merely defended myself.” Kyros tried his best to sound innocent.

“Then how come he’s the one with the broken wrist and you’re over here twiddling your thumbs.” The guard was obviously sceptical of Kyros.

“Simple. He was weaker than me. If I didn’t show him that, he’d never given up otherwise.” Kyros stated straightforwardly.

“Ah, well..” The guard hadn’t expected such an answer. Clearly Kyros had went overboard but didn’t do anything wrong.

“Oh now I know who you are! You’re that slave everyone’s going on about.” The other guard finally spoke.

“Sorry?” Kyros didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Yeah I’m sure it’s you. They say an elf murdered three fellow slaves, and not only that; one of them was so horribly disfigured that no one could identify him. I had a friend who worked in that part of the mine, saw the scene, told me he wouldn’t want to fight the person who did it.” The guard told his story loud enough for everyone to hear. You have to remember that stories will always be exaggerated as they expand, because Kyros surely wouldn’t be able to fight evenly with a guard.

Suddenly the whole chamber started to fill with whispers as the slaves were all looking at Kyros and talking about him to their friends. He also saw the looks of horror on both Henrys face as well as Charles, they had realised they were playing with fire just before.

“Oh… Well, we’ll let you off this time, another incident like this though and we will punish you. Now get going.” The first guard obviously didn’t want to deal with him but still had to show his dominance.

It didn’t take long for Kyros to reach the mess hall for dinner. As he was walking through he could hear the whispers and see the directed glances his way, also how they all avoided eye contact with him.

Yes, this is much better, now I know there won’t be any more annoyances.

He was now sitting at the dinner table, when the hole in the middle of the chamber attracted his attention.

I wonder if I will be able to notice anything different now.

He looked at the hole and studied it, looking for anything different. He now noticed that dangerous aura he had felt before, however it kept growing stronger and stronger. He suddenly felt choked up and struggled to breathe.

“HMM WHAT’S THIS?” An ancient voice rang out in Kyros’s head. The pain. It felt as if his head was going to explode.

“HOW INTERESTING. SO WEAK, YET YOU CAN SENSE ME. OHHHH. YOUR AURA ISN’T THAT OF HUMAN, BUT SOMETHING ELSE. ALMOST SIMILAR TO AN ELF, BUT DIFFERENT. WHERE DID I HAVE THIS FEELING BEFORE…?” Kyros was now clutching his head with hands, not caring about the now growing onlookers.

“AHHH THAT’S RIGHT, IT WAS A COUPLE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. A HIGHBORN. HAHAHA A HIGHBORN ENSLAVED BY HUMANS, JUST IMAGINE WHAT THE ELVES WOULD DO… I CAN ALREADY TASTE THE DESTRUCTION.” This ancient voice had a sense of madness about it, something about it made him fear what would come if he were to ever meet the owner.

“YOU’RE WEAK FOR A HIGHBORN, I COULD END YOU RIGHT NOW WITHOUT LIFTING A FINGER… BUT WHERE WOULD THE FUN BE IN THAT?”

What.. What are you? Kyros questioned in his thoughts.

“OHH CURIOUS ARE YOU? JUST COME DOWN AND FIND OUT HAHAHAHAHAhahaha…” The voice faded out.

Strong… too strong.