NOVEL NEXT Chapter 69: Opportunity.
Chapter 69: Opportunity.
Every time the Mana Stone Mine is discovered, there will be a bloodbath. In the past, when the first mana stone mine was found, the miner would get sick and die.
Only after so many deaths did they discover that the radiation emitted from the mana stone in large numbers inside the mine caused the regular people to get mana poisoning in their bodies. Only apprentices and above can mine the mana stone with mild side effects.
But warriors and mages refuse to become miners. They begin to experiment on the slaves by testing drugs to lessen or slow down the mana poisoning effect. At first, everything went smoothly for centuries. However, when the mass revolt happened, the number of slaves dwindled, causing the market for the mana stone to almost disappear.
The output of mana stone dropped sharply because the number of slaves that get sick and die can’t be replaced as easily as before.
Since then, the kingdoms or nations have begun to control and monopolize the mana stone in their hands.
There are still slaves working in the Mana stone mine in a secret place where they breed or gather new slaves. Only the people involved knew of their existence; even the population doesn’t know.
Over time, the new breed of slave develops resistance to mana poisoning. But they usually don’t live to an old age.
In the past, they taught the slaves to become warriors, and as a result, the slaves revolted and killed all the wardens in the mana stone mine. Since then, they have stopped them from learning the warrior path.
In one of the mana stone mines belonging to the native tribe, many natives and outsiders are digging and collecting the mana stone, while others push the mine cart full of mana stone out of the tunnel.
The overseer is an apprentice-rank warrior watching the slaves.
"Too bad we can’t sell the mana stone." One of the overseers spoke.
"Shush, do you want to die?" Before them, there were many overseers who got greedy and got caught stealing the mana stone. Their punishment is dismemberment and being fed to the supervisor's pet, the giant scorpion.
"Don’t worry, the leader must be busy having fun with the new slave."
"Where does the slave come this time?"
"I don’t know, but it’s an outsider slave."
"It must be expensive."
"The monster tides this time, I heard, are bad."
Fortunately, we live far away from the monster nest."
While they are talking, a middle-aged man pushes the mine cart and leaves the tunnel. After that, he went home. To reduce illness or death from mana poisoning, each person had a quota of jobs they had to finish per day.
Near the mine, there is a town where the slave lives. The building is made from mud and soil. Not all slaves work as miners; there is other work in this place, and children can be seen playing around. If outsiders see this, they will think this is a normal town, except the people here wear similar worn-out clothes.
The security here is not tight compared to the mine. To escape from here, they need to go through the porcupine cactus monster desert plant, which looks like a barrel covered with many long thorns. The monster will attack and explode if any creature is near it.
The slave overseers, who are apprentices and adept warriors, guarded the only exit. Normal people will not survive the attack from the cactus monster that surrounded the town to prevent the slaves from escaping.
The middle-aged man enters his house, goes to the drawer, takes out a vile amount of gray powder, and consumes it. His pain gradually subsided because of the mana poisoning.
Ever since he was born, he has been a slave. Different from others, he wants to escape. He had heard the story that had been passed down by the older slaves. In the past, there was a great revolt that freed all the slaves.
However, until now, none have succeeded in escaping.
-
Levi is riding a camel under the hot sun, and beside him is Ben.
Thanks to his fame, he got a lot of jobs. After asking around about the mana stone mine, he got the information from one of the tribe's retired elderly men who used to work as slave overseers.
The location of the mana stone is a secret for native tribes; however, after Levi saved the elderly man's grandson, the elderly man told him everything.
Levi's plan is to steal the mana stones. There might be a master guard guarding the mana stone mine. But he doesn’t believe that the master rank will keep watching diligently, and the mana stone mine has never been breached or attacked for a long time.
In a secret location, there is a town close to the mana stone mine that gathers and breeds slaves. Although the federation managed to free many people, after a century, many places still had slaves in secret. Even the kingdoms that knew about the slave trade pretended they didn’t see anything.
Levi had read the history of the mass revolt. However, it does not make sense because there are no telephones or the internet, as the founder of the federation says. Not to mention the transport of large amounts of weapons for the rebels and the involvement of grand masters to stop the war. His only conclusion is that there are other organizations and factions involved in the mass revolt.
Soon, he sees numerous green cacti with long thorns. "That must be the Porcupine Cactus Monster."
Burning them will alarm the overseers, and the safe path is guarded. Levi can fly when transformed into a blood-venom dragon; however, he is afraid that the overseers might see him because there is no tall tree to cover him and the porcupine cactus will make noise if he is in the sky.
"Time to dig." Levi raises his hand, and a magic circle appears. He begins to move the dried soil to make a tunnel; after that, he creates a basic concealment formation. When he puts the mana stone on the magic formation, the tunnel entrance disappears.
Only the mages who had detection spells or were proficient in magic formation could find the entrance.
-
A few days later, at night, a middle-aged man is sleeping, and suddenly he wakes up because he feels something sharp on his neck.
"Who are you, and what do you want?" The middle-aged man sees a black-clad man who only shows his eyes.
"Don’t do anything suspicious; you just need to answer my question."
"Yes." The middle-aged man carefully sits beside the bed.
After the black-clad man begins asking questions about the town and Mana Stone Mine,
A black-clad man, satisfied with the answer, walked toward the door.
"Wait, let me out of here; I am willing to become your servant!" The middle-aged man had dreamed of being free since he was a kid. Now this is his opportunity to escape from this wretched place.
However, the black-clad man doesn’t stop walking; he walks out the door and disappears into the darkness.
The middle-aged man, seeing that, feels disappointed and stands up to report the intruder. He might get a reward, but his body suddenly feels weak, and he collapses on the bed.
"Why?" That is the man's last word before he stops breathing. On the man's neck, there is a needle-sized wound.
The black-clad man does a similar thing to other slaves to gather information about this place. Nevertheless, he can’t waste any more time; by morning, everyone will know what has happened.
The black-clad man is Levi, and in front of him is the warehouse where the mana stone is stored. But there are two people guarding the door. Although this place is important, the security here is lacking. Along the way, he sees people drinking and having fun.
The two guards sitting on the floor were talking.
"When can we have fun with the new female slaves?"
"Just wait until the leader is bored with them."
"Since the master rank in charge of this place left, the leader had been out of control."
"Who can stop him? we just need to wait patiently."
Suddenly, both of them collapsed on the ground.
Levi appears from the darkness using a shadow cloak spell that can hide his body in the dark.
After rummaging the guard's body for key, Levi opened and closed the warehouse door.
The mana density inside the warehouse is dense. Nevertheless, without using magic formation to filter the impurity, the mana coming from the mana stone is poisonous to the body in large concentrations. That is why the mana stone will be converted to mana liquid to make it less dangerous to normal humans.
Inside the wooden crate, there are many unprocessed mana stones. The mana stone still covers with rock and soil. Because of that, the weight of the crate is heavy. With Levi's strength, it will not be a problem to carry it, but it’s hard to run away.
Levi touches the first crate, and the crate disappears.
He does it several more times and stops; although there are more inside the warehouse, his spatial storage is at its limit. He quickly leaves the area.
The next morning, the mana stone mine is in chaos; there are overseers and slaves dead. Most importantly, several unprocessed mana stone crates are gone; they need to deliver today.
When the leader finds out about it, his face is pale, and he orders his men to find the culprit.