Mike’s chest heaved as he stared at the pile of Mythril in front of him, a sinking feeling in his stomach. Despite his best efforts, he only had enough to fill two five gallon buckets, not even close to meeting the quota of twice his body’s volume. His failure wasn’t for lack of trying–he had worked nonstop for the last 10 hours. The only breaks he took were when Footsteps of the Wind decreased his Dexterity to non-functioning levels, which equated to 10 seconds for every 10+ minutes of work.

His mining method had further refined over the last 10 hours, and he felt cautiously optimistic that he could hit the quota during his next shift. Putting his method in list form had given him a mental reprieve from the exhausting and repetitive work. His current list was as follows:

Use Tactics to put excess Toughness into Strength Wait 3 seconds for Tactics to be off cooldown Activate Footsteps of the Wind Channel excess Dexterity in Strength Mine like the ground is Bart’s face (15 seconds) Fall over when Dexterity is brought down to 1 (10 seconds) Redistribute Dexterity into Strength and mine until Step 3 was ready again (10 minutes)

True to form, he verbally said the step number as each action was taking place, which helped him get into a rhythm that enabled him to keep working through the pain and exhaustion. He had found the sweet spot for the minimum amount of toughness necessary to withstand the vibrations of the pickaxe to be 15. Anything less than that and he had to let go of the handle after every swing.

“Phew… Butther said that you were a Stercus cultivator, but I thought he was joking.” A wheezing voice called from the direction of the main cave.

More capable of responding to the accusation this time around, he opened his mouth to respond, but didn’t know what to say. He didn’t really understand what a cultivator was, even if he knew what stercus meant from his year of Latin in junior high. It was one of the few words he remembered other than plant names. Deciding it was better to have be known for cultivating waste than to expose his actual abilities, he decided to just roll with it.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” he called back.

“Well it’s gonna take more than an… *cough*... apology. You will have to load my cart with whatever you have mined, because I am not entering that cave. Everyone’s path to immortality may be different, but some things just aren’t natural”

Rather than replying, Mike bent and picked up a handful of rock in each hand, straining to hold onto the Mythril despite having channeled everything he could into Strength. 25 steps later and he exited the tunnel that led to his mining area, giving the carter his first look at him. The bluish humanoid sucked in a breath at the sight of his sweat and ichor covered body, which only served to increase the amount of polluted air that the being breathed, forcing him to double over in a retching, gagging cough.

Mike deposited his load in the cart and moved to help the man, only to have the man shrink back in fear. Cursing the System’s ability to always make him an outcast, he turned and walked back to the cave to get another handful.

It took a full ten minutes at his slow pace to move all of the Mythril, and when the carter wasn’t coughing, he nagged Mike for going too slow. At last the task was accomplished and the carter hurried away at speeds Mike would be hard pressed to match despite one of them dragging a large cart.

Mike returned one final time to his cave and for the second time since arriving in the Outskirts he found himself wondering if it wasn’t worth investing a few points into Charisma. The carter’s reaction had made him feel embarrassed and a beautiful face with a pair of elegantly pointed ears were at the forefront of his mind. His mother had always taught him to dress appropriately for the occasion and the truth was that he was unfit for any occasion in his current state, let alone being around the most attractive woman he had ever seen.

“It’s not like I have a chance with her, I just don’t want to be overly embarrassed.” he said to himself as he searched his spatial storage bag for anything that he could use to clean off with.

There was less in the bag than he remembered: an assortment of herbs from when he had worked on potion making, a small piece of buckskin from his last bison, some spices (essential but not useful in this particular situation), a bunch of Quicksilver, his Dayton axes, a few leftover studs from when he had trained in the pit, a couple of seeds from a day when he had helped the gardeners, a few empty clay pots of his own making, and a large clay vessel filled with what should have been a healing potion but ended up just being a Potion of Uselessness.

Not seeing any other option, he dipped the buckskin into the Potion of Uselessness and did his best to scrub the sticky substance from his body. The potion had a nice herbal smell, although it was surprisingly viscous and he had limited success in actually getting clean. Before long the piece of buckskin was completely saturated and he had to accept that he wasn’t going to get any cleaner. Stowing the items back into his spatial storage bag, he made his way back to the main cavern.

As soon as he entered the larger space and saw Mustela waiting with a couple other slaves and two guards, he knew that the reckoning for not meeting his quota had come. Rather than giving Mustela the satisfaction of reporting to him, Mike instead headed straight for the cavern’s entrance, as if everything was right in the world. No sooner had he come parallel with the group's location however, one of the guards stepped out in front of him, barring his path.

Mike stood looking at the guard, remaining stubbornly silent in his continued effort to not recognize Mustela as his superior in any way.

“Oh no, no, no. You didn’t think you could not meet your quota and then just walk out of here back to camp, did you? This is a slave camp afterall, and you are only allowed to be here thanks to magnanimity of Blarney. It is therefore expected that you will work to pay for the protection and Spiritual food that you are given.” Mustela said, in a voice that painted him as the hero of the camp and someone looking out for Blarney’s interests, rather than the snake that he was.

Mike only stared at the guard ahead of him, still refusing to acknowledge the weasel-man's presence.

“You can’t ignore me!” Mike took satisfaction as the fake benevolence in Mustela’s voice gave way to annoyance, before he caught himself, “That is to say, you can’t ignore those who are providing for you. And an example has to be made. You may not be a slave here, but what will the other slaves think if your treatment is superior to theirs? Therefore, as the slave administrator, I am afraid I will have to assign just compensation. Your shift for the next 5 shifts will be extended an extra 12 hours, where you will be on carrier duty.”

The guard in front of Mike seemed surprised at the punishment, which Mike noticed, despite not having any visible reaction himself. What was 12 more hours compared to Hell Week in boot camp? He changed his direction and headed towards where the yokes and buckets were placed, forcing him to pass closely to where Mustela stood.

As he passed him, his furred fingers closed around Mike’s bicep and he hissed, “And this punishment will be extended by an additional 5 shifts each time your quota is not reached.”

The contact was enough to break Mike’s stoic demeanor, and his face briefly contorted as he fought to not break the other slave's arm. Mustela noticed the facial expression, and in thinking that his punishment had overwhelmed the ex-Navy SEAL, he mentally applauded himself for gaining the upper hand as he released the arm in his grasp.

Silently exhaling while congratulating himself on not causing a scene, Mike continued on to equip himself with the yoke and buckets. Two handfuls of the strange metal had been hard for him to hold onto when he was loading the cart earlier, so he chose two of the smallest buckets that were available, before joining the line of marching feet in their orbit of the Mythril mountain.

He knew he was in trouble as soon as the first large rock was tossed into his bucket by the first loader he passed, even though he had already channeled Toughness and Dexterity into Strength to his full capacity, leaving himself with only 10 and 15 respectively. Despite his pool of 66 Strength, the rock caused him to become unbalanced and he nearly tripped, inciting a loud guffaw from Mustela, which he heard somewhere off to his right. His balance was restored a few steps later as a similar sized rock landed in his other basket, and he faced a new problem. He could barely move his legs under the strain. Luckily, the loaders held him no ill will and spent their lives gauging a person's capacity to carry, and no more stones were added to his basket.

His face downturned, he did his best to say the steam distance from the slave in front of him, a weird demon who’s clawed feet dug into the dirt with ease, increasing his capacity to carry the burden placed upon him.

Before even exiting the cave, Mike stumbled two times, causing an audible wave of curses to cascade behind him as one slave after another were forced to break their stride or collide with the person in front of them. Yet it wasn’t all bad, as Mike got a notification saying that his Strength had increased by yet another point right before he exited the tunnel and approached the foot of the bridge. That point proved absolutely necessary, as he was forced to activate Tactics and move 1 of his Strength points into Dexterity to prevent himself from losing his footing as he went up the bridge.

Disaster didn’t strike until he started going down the other side of the bridge, where he was unable to match the ever-steady pace of the rest of the line. Despite his best efforts, his foot slipped on the slanted surface near the bottom of the bridge and he fell backwards, his head hitting the wooden bridge with a loud bang. Rising in hasty embarrassment, his head ringing, he did his best to rejoin the line, but he was unable to tune out the rude remarks of those behind him.

After another 4 minutes, they reached the drop point, which was a massive warehouse. The line entered through a door set in one end of the building, dumping their baskets into large storage containers that were being moved onto shelves by yet another group of slaves, before they exited the warehouse through the other end of the building. The relief Mike felt as he offloaded the baskets caused him to exhale in appreciation. Though the trip had only lasted 10 minutes, he had been pushed to his extreme limit. It was a short lived reprieve though, as a nearby guard ordered him back into line, and the process began again.