With the baton done, Thomas pulled out the list of requests and looked it over again. He was hoping to find something he could make with what was left of the day. Sadly, the projects remaining on the list would take at least the majority of a day to complete. So, he ignored them and decided to do his own thing. First up was cleaning the slag from the Sunshine Gold and pouring it into the ingot mold. The melted material left within the crucible wasn't quite enough to fill the entire mold and Thomas had no more ore to add to it. This left him with one and seven-tenths of an ingot of Sunshine Gold.

While the second ingot cooled, he cleaned out the crucible and tossed in the second ore he'd dug out that he suspected to be more Icebound Platinum from his metallurgy. He really hoped it was since he wanted even more of that metal to make gear for Snowlily. The more he had the better. If it turned out to be something else, well, he would just deal with it later.

He left the ore to melt in the crucible and tried to decide what to do with his time. He really wanted to make a new set of tongs and a hammer to make his creation of elemental metals less wasteful but that would require using high-grade materials. He'd managed to use high-grade materials without drawing much attention before but he was running low on Origin Steel. He also felt the Origin Steel wasn't quite right for what he wanted to make. He needed something with a good or great mana conduction property. Sadly, the only materials he had like that were not suitable for the task of forging. So, making new tools was out.

He sat on the top of an anvil and crossed his arms over his chest to think. He had to plan carefully for the future. He intended to head into the dungeon for two full days, all forty-eight hours, earning experience and preparing weapons for his jailbreak. His biggest concern was locating Snowlily though. He had no idea how extensive the caves were or where in the caves she was located. His highest priority was to find her and get to her as fast as possible. He simply had no idea how to do that.

His best bet was to locate ice magic. The problem was, unless she was casting a spell at the time he was searching it wouldn't do him any good. The second option was to try and enhance his 'All Seeing Eyes' using something, maybe goggles. He could see elements through the walls but not very deeply. If he could enhance that through an enchantment and focus his sight to look for spots of Ice energy then maybe, just maybe, he could locate her. That still left him with not knowing the layout of the cavern. He needed a way to easily and rapidly map the entire cavern system. How was he going to pull that off?

He let out a sigh and spent a few minutes trying to think of different things to try. He had a couple of ideas but he was going to need to test them out to know if they were even possible. Until then he could only waste a little more time. To do so, he checked the crucible and smiled at what he saw. So far the ore he'd tossed inside hadn't melted much. The hardest metal to melt so far had been the Icebound Platinum. The combination of platinum, which already had a fairly high melting point, added to the natural chill of the metal from the Icebound attribute made it hard to melt. The metal ore in the crucible was showing the same nature which increased the odds of it being more Icebound Platinum. This was a good thing for him.

As he sat back on the anvil he thought over his biggest concern, mapping the cave system. There were no mini-maps or world-maps that could be accessed in a system interface in AoG. He would have to find a way to circumvent that using magic. The problem was, he had no magic that had anything to do with mapping. Well, except maybe the Earth element. It was a cave and it was completely made of natural stone. He looked around and wondered if there was a way he could use that to his advantage. He glanced at the busy Clad and then the bored guards. Even after shocking one of them the guards were still lax and bored looking.

With everyone like that, Thomas closed his eyes and focused on the mana churning within his body. He agitated it and summoned up a little to convert to the Earth element. His goal was to try and create some sort of ground sonar that would let him see without using his eyes. He just wasn't really sure how to go about it. They say that necessity is the mother of all invention, time to see if that was true. He took a deep breath and focused his intent into the mana he summoned. He desired for the mana to penetrate the ground, walls, and ceiling around him to allow him to 'see' through them.

As he focused his mana gathered around him growing darker in color as the density increased. With his eyes closed, Thomas was oblivious to the changes in his mana. As he focused his intent his mana pulsed. It spread out in all directions sinking into the stone around him. He focused intensely until a small amount of information returned to him. It was a... feeling. An odd feeling. He released more mana increasing the power of the second pulse he released. The feeling became more distinct but he still couldn't identify what it was. He released even more mana in the third pulse and the feeling suddenly came into focus.

With his eyes still closed, he slowly turned to face the direction of the feeling. It felt like... hardness. Like touching a brick wall or something similar. It truly was difficult to describe just what the hell he felt. He just knew he felt something in the direction he faced. He lifted his hand and pointed it in the direction he felt the something and sent another pulse. This time the pulse of Earth mana was focused in just that direction. The odd feeling became more intense and he felt that it wasn't all that far away from him. Even with his eyes closed, he could still somehow feel that the hard thing was at least fifteen to twenty meters away.

Thomas stopped what he was doing and opened his eyes. He found himself staring at the wall behind where he slept. His bed was about seven meters away so whatever he felt was a good eight to thirteen meters beyond that. It was also the only thing he'd felt. He couldn't detect the guards or even the much heavier anvils. It was rather disappointing. He quickly opened his character sheet to see if he'd unlocked a new skill or ability. What he saw made him both happy and annoyed.

Abilities: Ore Detection // Rank 1 // 0/20 Exp

Thomas couldn't help letting out a deep, and slightly frustrated, sigh. The ability was nice and all and would definitely be super useful in the future. But in the present, it was just not what he needed or wanted. Going by the new ability, what he'd felt had been ore buried within the wall. It could be. If it was, it was definitely beyond the distance that his sight could see elements through the stone. There was really only one way to find out and it was a great way to waste some more time. He quickly checked on the melting ore in the forge, even removed a little slag, before making his way over to the wall.

He did the same thing he'd done a few times before and summoned a pickaxe with a serrated edge using his Metal magic. He started hacking his way through the wall creating a tunnel that was big enough for him to fit inside while swinging the pickaxe. He thought of several different methods he could use to dig faster and more efficiently but the name of the game was 'take it slow'. He was somewhat efficient though. He didn't want to spend all night trying to dig the tunnel so he hacked out large sections and rolled the big stones he made out of his way. Being able to change the shape of the pickaxe at will gave him access to various ways to hack into the stone.

He spent a good forty-five minutes hammering at the wall. By the time he could see the mana particles from the ore with his 'All Seeing Eyes' he was soaked in his own sweat and panting for air. He dropped down onto the dirty ground to catch his breath and drink some water. Even with attributes that made him above superhuman, digging through the stone by hand for so long was still back-breaking labor. It didn't help that the stone got even harder as he dug deeper into the wall. The stone getting harder didn't really make sense to him. Since he was digging without going deeper the hardness of the stone should have been pretty even throughout.

While resting, Thomas munched on a few of the snacks stored inside of his inventory. He had all kinds of things in there from fresh meat, fruits, and vegetables to various kinds of street vendor food. Even if he was stranded on a deserted island for a week or two he wouldn't starve. He might die of thirst though, he didn't have much water stored away. Maybe he should remedy that? After all, water summoned by magic disappeared so drinking it was pointless. He pondered these somewhat pointless things until he recovered enough to continue digging. Since he could see the mana particles of the ore it meant he was within just a few meters. One final push and he should arrive at the ore.

It took another fifteen minutes or so of digging before Thomas heard the distinctive sound of metal hitting metal. A chunk of stone broke off of the wall and landed on the floor with a distinctly heavier thud sound than previous stones. Excited, Thomas reached down to pick up the ore. As soon as he tried to lift it he grunted out loud. The ore weighed a fucking ton! At least, compared to its size. The chunk of ore was maybe ten centimeters on each side but it weighed at least twenty or more kilograms. A piece of lead of similar size should only weight about eleven to twelve kilograms. Thomas couldn't help being excited at finding a super heavy metal. Why? Because the most common trope in games was that Adamantite, Adamantine, Adamantium, or whatever you wanted to call it was the heaviest!

Excited, Thomas hefted the ore off of the ground and checked the cross-section to see the raw ore. He'd seen Adamantine once before, just once. It was back during his duel with that shithead in the Academy. He couldn't even recall the dumbasses name but he remembered the look of that armor. The armor had been bright silver with specks of black. He stared at the cross-section of the ore in excitement, that quickly deflated at what he saw. The ore was pitch black. In fact, it was so black that if he didn't have his 'All Seeing Eyes' to confirm the Metal mana particles around it he would have assumed it was coal!

Just judging from sight he felt that this ore was definitely not Adamantine, which saddened him a bit. Still, it was a heavy ore which meant it was dense. That density could translate into strength. The next step was to use his Metallurgy on it to get a feel for the ore. His mana traveled into the ore and it felt sluggish. The mana transmission properties of the ore were worse than plain iron. When the mana finally returned to him it carried no distinct feeling and didn't feel any different than usual. This meant the ore likely had no particular elemental attribute. So. It was a super dense ore with bad mana circulation and no attribute. As long as it proved to be durable it just might make an excellent material for making weapons.

He stored the ore away and went back to work hacking at the node with the pickaxe. He found it hard to judge just how much ore he was extracting due to its sheer weight. By the time he finished digging it all out, he estimated there would be enough for anywhere from eight to ten ingots once it was smelted down. Those eight to ten ingots would weigh quite a lot. He just hoped it wouldn't take much of the metal to provide a good solid core to a weapon. With the ore complete extracted he returned to the workroom through the tunnel he'd dug out to see the guards all staring at him with odd expressions.

Thomas gave all the guards an innocent look as he asked, "What?"