Aimless Ascension

Mining was a hundred times harder than it looks. It barely took me a few minutes to figure that out.

My day started at the new home quite early as the morning horn blared strongly, unresting my fatigued body easily. To compare the intensity of the horn, I think it had the capacity to even wake the dead from their graves.

Half an hour later another horn blared, a little lighter asking us to collect our breakfast.

I went to get my breakfast along with the others. Since it was my first day, I decided to eat outside along with the other slaves instead of taking the food home.

But alas! None but the former accountant Cameron joined me or even asked for anything. There were about a couple of hundred people easily, not every one of them from the earth, obviously, but at least some of them should be. None came to greet the newcomers. They were busy with their food and lacked time for greetings.

Moreover, the guards on standby made sure we filled our stomachs in time, as everyone did so, keeping our mouths shut. Well, Cameron and I tried to talk in whispers, but a few glares from the cold-eyed guards stopped the former accountant after a brief exchange.

Oh, right, I forgot to mention the food. Well, it wasn\'t awful, but nothing that desirable either. It was something like a dumpling made of wheat and other stuff I didn\'t know. Other than tasting a bit sweet, I found no redeeming flavour.

Honesty, the meals I got through my beating days were way better than this. Then again, those were probably leftovers from the big boys, while this was a bona fide slave meal.

Anyway, I barely finished my fourth dumpling and still left with two when the horn blared. Every one of the slaves stood up. I blinked to find Cameron standing up again. I groaned and stood up as well, considering this was another moment where I could get beaten up just for being a little defiant.

I hid the dumplings in my clothes as a group of guards showed us the path to the mining zone. Every one of us marched behind them to the mining work silently. The march took a quarter of an hour, as the mining ground was much deeper underground. It was hotter too, easily over fifty degree Celsius.

I was handed a pickaxe and a trolley much like the others I saw yesterday and told to fill the trolley or else I would get beaten up. Anything less than a half-filled trolley would earn me ten lashings, and the number would accumulate if I fail regularly.

That didn\'t seem hard, to be honest, at least not compared to the ball-crushing ritual.

However, I was thoroughly mistaken about this entire business. Not about the lashing part, but about how hard mining was for most normal people.

So I went to mine with the intention of filling the whole trolley to gain some allowances, unaware of how tough the stones could be.

It wasn\'t until I rammed the pickaxe a dozen times with no result that I figured out how much I was lacking in the matter of physicality. Not to mention, one of my hands was in no shape to do anything. That was my preferred hand, too.

With just the right hand, I barely managed to create some marks on the stone. Better than dents, but still of no use.

Worse, the glittering stones weren\'t in the open either. Most of the ones that were in the open were already mined, leaving me and my two companions in misery.

Cameron was in no better condition to work either, although he could use both of his hands. He was pushing himself hard against the stone, beating his pickaxe on the same spot again and again.

The insane man was in the best state among us, though he wasn\'t as largely built as me, or had a trained physique like Cameron. He was doing well.

However, the first result came from Cameron, after relentlessly picking on the same spot for about five minutes. It was a fist size stone, resembling the appearance of sunstones, although it was a totally different thing.

Cameron held it up, inspecting hard. "This is more fragile than it looks," he said finally. "At least compared to the stones."

I came forward to check on the glittering gem as well. Cameron let me take a look, passing it to me. I appreciated that, though fully aware I have to give it back to him.

Anyway, the sunstone-like gem had a crystallised form, but it was much more fragile like iodine, instead of an actual sunstone. Whatever it was, I don\'t think we have it on our periodic table. Well, it was a compound matter, most probably, too foreign for me to detect anything.

"How much do you think this thing costs?" I asked the former accountant. Apparently, Cameron used to deal in millions, so he should have a better perspective about this than me.

"I lack information to determine that," Cameron replied as I winced. "This doesn\'t appear like fossil fuel to me, though I think their use is similar, considering all the lights and other equipment I saw seemed to take these stones as fuel. I guess the value would depend on how much a stone like this would last on those light devices."

"They don\'t seem that enduring to me," I said. "Still should be more valuable than petroleum and other stuff."

"That\'s a given," Cameron said. "Since those powerful men that could literally wield magic went out of their way to enslave us for this, these should be pretty valuable."

Something valuable to even those that could wield magic. I mused.

"What can that mean? What could these stones be, then?" I muttered. "Manifestation of magic?"

Both of us laughed at that as I tossed back the stone. We weren\'t aware at that time, but our guess was quite close to the truth.

However, in no way in our right mind would we think they would leave us to something that could have literal use to practitioners like them so easily.

_________

We have a volume title now.

The Left Hand of Calamity

This is final, and the first volume will take. I don\'t know . . . another 50K words to end, probably.