The first day of their journey into darkness came and went, and soon the second one was upon them. They would need to work fast as Blackthorne would have to return to the world of his birth if he wished to keep his shitty little job. Such a concern would not be a concern for more than a year at most, but it was necessary for now to allay suspicions.

The previous day had proven relatively fruitless, but not long into their second run into the mine Blackthorne had the most ridiculous conversation of his life after they stumbled across a massive pile of rubble.

"You're fucking kidding me! Tell me you're kidding," asked Blackthorne his eyes wide and his mouth agape.

"What is there to jest about? It's cheap unless it's worked into magical metals," replied Sonja. "Twice as heavy as iron. Doesn't hold an edge. Not as rare as silver..."

"So, this ore is considered dirt cheap but items made from it can be worth something?" asked Blackthorne.

"Yeah, inferior versions of metals that mimic mithril. At least, that's what the miners who visited the tavern would often say," she replied.

"So, on your world this stuff isn't worth much?" Blackthorne showed her the large rock in his hand. "Are you sure?"

Sonja peered at him curiously, her head at a tilt. "It's made into jewelry, I guess? Why?"

"I studied up on things before I left. Scrap metal being what it was, I thought stuff like gold and silver would be easier to come by here, but still hard to get." he said. Blackthorne took the loose rock that he'd picked up from the pile and waved it around. "I figured the same would be true of what I have in my hand."

He put the rock in his pocket then began to search the pile. There were lots of pieces of low grade iron ore, the kind not worth carrying back to the surface. However, every now and then he found another piece of the metal he sought out. Platinum. Pure, honest to darkness, platinum.

"You know. I am always looking through stuff online in search of random facts to alleviate my boredom," he said while he hefted a heavy rock that was mostly considered to be platinum ore. "This stuff used to be worthless on my world, too."

"Platinum? You are saying that it is worth something now?" she asked him curiously. Seeing that there was a point to what he was doing now, Sonja happily began to pick up rocks and check to see their nature.

"Yeah. Back in the day it was thought of as an impure form of silver. Spain discovered deposits of it in South America, and threw the stuff away. They'd even complain about how much of it they found. It wasn't as good as silver, and it was much heavier," said Blackthorne.

"Right. What changed?" asked Sonja, before she hefted a rock twice the size of her head. She tossed it onto a growing pile nearby that contained dozens of bits of platinum possibilities.

"The industrial revolution. Platinum is used in a lot of things, like catalytic converters." Blackthorne heaved a heavy rock onto the pile then looked to Sonja. "You know all of those cars you saw on the road? Every damned one of them has to have one, I think."

Her eyes widened. "I see! So, there are uses for it on your world but I take it that it is hard to come by?

"Yeah, gold's rare on Earth but we probably dig up ten times the amount of that every year compared to platinum," said Blackthorne.

"It's not that uncommon around here, but we don't use it for much other than for jewelry..." Sonja acquired a thoughtful expression after she spoke. Her silence drew Blackthorne's attention.

"What's wrong?" he asked her.

"Ah. Nothing is wrong. I was just wondering if perhaps your dragon loot would have a lot of platinum in it? If you subconsciously thought of it as precious and the miners just left it lying around down here..." said Sonja, her voice trailing off.

"If you're trying to tell me that you think I can shit platinum bricks in my sleep, you'll officially become the best thing that ever happened to me," he said with a laugh.

Her left eyebrow arched upward. "This was ever in doubt?"

He snickered at her, and soon they both shared a laugh. The possibilities of the moment were something to behold! A cast off metal that had limited uses in this world, but worth a veritable king's ransom back on Earth, they spent quite some time gathering their future into neat little piles.

Sometime later they finally stopped to take a break. They had barely scratched the surface of the dump site, but had amassed a huge series of rock piles.

"This sure beats beating the wall with a pick axe!" exclaimed Blackthorne happily.

Sonja chuckled at him then went about eating her lunch. It was a simple affair of sandwiches and fruit. Still, it was a welcomed meal! Manual labor of this type was quite uncommon to her.

Blackthorne surveyed his platinum mountains. Most of the mass would be lost during synergy as the platinum in each bit of ore would only be found in small increments. The process itself would waste quite a bit of it. Even so, he had no other method and he did not feel like waiting months on end for a blacksmith to clear out his treasure trove. The cost of refining the ore would also eat into his profits to the extent that he might as well cut out the middle man.

"I keep saying it, but I do think it's weird that it has little value here," he said. Blackthorne moved some of the ore around then spread himself atop it like he planned to make a snow angel out of rocks.

"Well, it does have uses. Like I said.... Alchemy, cheap mithril variant metals, ornamental items... It's just not worth it to cart it around unless its high grade ore. There wouldn't be enough of the metal in the ore to bother with refining it." Sonja took a bite of her sandwich then smiled. It tasted like a bright future as far as she was concerned.

"Makes sense. I have yet to see any high grade ore here. It's all low quality." He had suspected that due to the references made by the system the majority of the rock would be lost, and what Sonja said confirmed his suspicion. If these rocks had any real value to the people here, wouldn't they have just hired a synergist pick through it all? On this world, the value of platinum might not have been enough to warrant paying a team of synergists to wade through low-grade ore every day. On Earth, though...

"They must need a lot of platinum to make it worth the effort..." he said softly.

"Probably? How much platinum do you think that we have here?" she asked him.

"Might as well find out," he said. "This will either take a long time, or a really long time depending on what the system considers prepared material."

"What do you mean?" asked Sonja.

"Well, it seemed to think ore that I broke loose from the wall counted as prepared material. Yet, the wall itself wasn't." Blackthorne waved his arms up and down lightly. The rocks scraped against each other in a grating manner while he made his platinum ore angel. "This might be considered the same way, or it might not count because I didn't prepare it myself."

"Ah." Sonja had nothing else to say about that, so she went back to her meal.

Blackthorne took a deep breath then released it slowly. He extended his synergy aura out around him then began to try his hand at producing low-grade platinum. He could refine it further later, but for now he wanted to see if he could speed the process along using his mass production ability.

Success! He felt the energy as it seeped into the rocks around him. The ore had a blurb and basic stats. That might be all that he needed for it to count as a prepared item.

Soon, he began to gasp and pant as his life force rapidly drained away into the rocks. He stopped when he felt himself to be on the verge of collapse.

A few minutes later he had regained enough his energy to roll over. Using the torch stone he comb the area looking for a sign that something good had happened. It did not take long before he found a marble sized bit of platinum.

"That's it?" asked Sonja incredulously. "That's all we got?"

He grinned at her. "Yeah, isn't it great!"

"Great? That can't possibly be worth anything..." she said with a sigh.

His grinned widened. "You have no idea."

The little marble of platinum was low grade, probably riddled with impurities and even other metals. It had been taken from the ore and only a handful of useless rocks had been produced otherwise. However, it proved a point. If he could use his mass production capacity, he could actually produce a small amount of platinum.

Earlier during their exploits in the mind the day before, Blackthorne had discovered that he received far less refined iron if he tried to combine ore without using mass production. At times, he produced none at all. There just wasn't enough material to work with at the time. Mass production, however, would drain his life force quickly but could combine many objects at once.

The amount of platinum in each bit of ore was ridiculously small, but it was there. He was pristinely uninjured and his life force restoration was ridiculously high. A normal synergist would need to be dozens of levels higher than he was currently to match his ability and they would be unlikely to be able to match his regeneration rate without expensive potions or a notable healer. It was no wonder to him that it was too costly to extra ore from such pathetic rocks. He, however, was not a mining company and the tiny bits of platinum he could gather were worth nearly a thousand dollars per troy ounce.

"I've refined a lot of stuff, and I can guess at the sizes of things afterward a little now. I'm betting that if I can refine enough of these little marbles of shit-tier platinum to make one about this size it would be about one good troy ounce," he said. "Thousand bucks a marble... Give or take."

"What's that in real money??" she asked him.

"Given the exchange rate?" he asked her. Though, he continued before she could speak. "It changes pretty much daily, but today it's about twenty-eight Jerin to the dollar..."

"You can't be serious!" she asked him incredulously. "That tiny little piece of metal is worth twenty-eight thousand Jerin?"

"No. A high-grade one of the same size? Definitely." Blackthorne grinned at his little piece of shiny metal. He wouldn't become a millionaire over night, but he'd easily make more in the course of the next few days than he would have while working for decades at Archers.

"I wonder what other common things they have here that are worth a ton on Earth..." Blackthorne's smile widened even as he closed his eyes. There was another way that could work as well.

He offered her a lop-sided smile. "Say, Sonja.... how much are sugar and salt worth?"

"Salt can't really be mined around here. Usually have to have it delivered from Kaasvalia," she said.

"I know I've had salt cured ham, but don't they have boxes that keep food cool in this world?" he asked.

"Yes, but they tend to be expensive. Salt is always in high-demand. It's cheaper than buying one of those boxes, and the meat lasts longer," she replied.

That certainly made it seem like a useful side hustle. "What about things like spices, or sugar?"

"Well, sugar isn't worth as much as salt but its not as common as what I saw in your kitchen. It's really just used for cooking cakes and pastries..." She sensed where he was going with his line of questioning, however, and spoke up. "Those spices in your kitchen, especially that ground black pepper, would be worth more than either of those..."

He could smell the profits already. Silk Road? Screw that. It was time to set up the trans-dimensional dragon road. Spices for everyone!

Platinum could be hard to offload in bulk without catching someone's attention, but it could be used to bank roll his real enterprise. Stuff for the spice rack bought in bulk would be no big deal at all in the eyes of the law, but would be highly profitable in a world starving for a taste of the good life.