Shane finished the small fight without any further issues and collected the corpses that littered the ground.

Normally he would now continue mining the elemental and mana crystals close to the cave entrance, but unfortunately, he wasn't left with any funds to purchase a pickaxe. As such, he could only kill the new scaled lizards that appeared from the small tunnels in order to go hunting or to do something else.

Shane asked himself if he was at the wrong place or why so many lizards were copulating at the higher layers of the cave but it would most likely remain a secret for eternity.

Furthermore, he couldn't really complain about the situation because killing copulating beasts was much easier than beasts that were on guard against him.

Even if Shane felt slightly bad, there was nothing for him to do against it.

As such, he decided to not mind it after a while and a whole hour passed before a notification appeared on his system.

[200x [Mortal-(Trash)](Fire) elemental crystals have been sent to Firug Grila in exchange for 26 gold coins]

Shane smiled at the message as the [Mythic] mission progress bar increased from 0 to [26/1000] but there was a small problem.

He only had 26 hours left and Shane figured out that he would have to increase his mining speed by a large margin.

Shane was not satisfied with the offers even after searching through the system shop for a while., Thus, he switched to the Primordial Shops in order to find some pickaxes with better quality.

He had 26 gold coins and pickaxes couldn't be considered rare, as a meagre amount of ores were required to make them and their price wasn't high either.

Thus, Shane purchased a few [Common] quality pickaxes. After five minutes, another 30 gold coins appeared within his finances.

With 56 gold coins, Shane immediately changed his trajectory towards better pickaxes when he picked a certain red shining one instantly.

[Ambrulite-pickaxe [Mortal-(Extraordinary)] Price: 42 gold coins] additional passive effect

[Turbulent Impact(passive)]

Shane bought the Ambrulite-pickaxe because of its passive [Turbulent Impact] which would ease his mining experience considerably, as long as he supplied it with enough mana.

Items with a [extraordinary] quality or above had the chance to have certain special effects and [Turbulent Impact] was one of them, causing their price to skyrocket compared to [Rare] quality items.

Using a mana crystal to utilize the passive effect of his newly acquired pickaxe was perfect and more than enough for several hours. Shane didn't want to use his own mana and he wanted to preserve it for when he might need it in dire situations.

With around 10 gold coins left, Shane bought an uncommon concealment potion for 16 hours with 8 gold coins, even though he had to grit his teeth.

Compared to shelter stalls, the primordial shop was always more expensive, and additionally, there would be a transaction fee of 10% increasing the price even more.

As such, his whole fortune decreased to 1 gold coin again, while his current position was much better than before.

Gulping down the uncommon concealment potion without looking at the remaining time left, Shane started his journey once again.

By now, Shane had figured out that the lizards had a bad hearing because he saw no other reason why he could mine mana and elemental crystals unhindered even though the thunderous sounds reverberated throughout the cavern's upper layer.

Shane stood in front of a large brown elemental crystal, taking deep breaths, as the passive effect of his newly purchased pickaxe activated.

A small red hue began to envelop the already red shining pickaxe when Shane pulled it back before he used all his force to smash it into the crystals in front of him.

Oblivious to the pickaxe's strength, Shane swung it once and hit the crystal but what followed made his jaw drop. The pickaxe had pierced through multiple layers and torn apart a small part of the crystal in a single strike.

Previously he was forced to smash his mining pickaxe multiple times into a crystal to obtain some small pieces of the elemental crystals.

However, now the difficulty seemed to decrease by a large margin, making it much easier for him to mine the trash and common quality crystals.

Time passed slowly and Shane received additional 7 notifications about the packages he had sent to the Elus merchant.

There were still 23 hours left on his [Mythic] mission and his finances had reached 246 gold coins, while the progression bar on his increased screen had increased to [302/1000].

With a radiant smile on his face, Shane knew that this small fortune was solely earned by the 1800 elemental crystals he had sold a few hours ago.

But now his spatial ring was once again filled with even more crystals, thanks to the investment into the Ambrulite-pickaxe with its special passive effect.

Even though Shane had mined two hours less compared to his first mining spree, the elemental crystals within his spatial ring told a different story.

More than 2200 elemental crystals were spread in his spatial ring, while around 100 scaled lizard corpses could be seen.

This spoke volumes about the efficiency of good tools and Shane was proud to have thought of purchasing an extraordinary quality pickaxe with such a fitting effect, instead of a pickaxe without any effect.

Packaging the elemental crystals into parcels of 200 pieces, Shane sent them to the Elus merchant with satisfaction.

Umbra sensed Shane's joy and was equally overjoyed. As such, one could see a foolishly smiling youth with a one-meter black snake on his shoulder sharing and spreading their joy through the cave, which was filled with soil, crystal shards, and dried blood.

He decided to take another tour through the cave's upper layer in order to be safe from any threats once he continued mining, which took him another hour. Now he had 22 hours left to complete his mission.

Hearing the beautiful sound the system notification made, Shane couldn't help but smile every time he saw his finances increasing.

613 gold coins!! Shane's eyes widened as he saw his finances while the progression bar for his mission had reached [669/1000]

He only had to hunt for another four hours in order for him to clear his mission and there was more than enough time left.

However, the only downside was that Shane was growing extremely tired.

Dispelling the tiredness by gulping down the liquid within one aqueous scale, Shane felt energized once again.

Shane's arms were almost completely numb and it was growing difficult to raise them.

In the end, he had to endure this hardship in order to accomplish the mission he had received, causing him to grit his teeth.

If a little bit of hardship could allow him to reach his new goal, why shouldn't he do so?

In Shane's opinion, he would even face a mountain of hardship if it allowed him to live his dream of freedom, achieve more strength, and help him venture through the dimensions to explore them.

Three hours had passed without anything special happening. Shane was about to sell everything he had accumulated to finish the [Mythic] mission as his vision blurred. The cave trembled as two deep roars reverberated through the cave.

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