The next morning, I get ready to go and meet Alex, but I remember two small things.

My book and the source of the pounds upon pounds of silver fueling the more intricate parts of my inner world expansion.

I can’t blame my delay all on the trial. It lasted months, but only about 4 days passed for everyone else on the outside, even counting my delay afterward, barely 10 days passed in total. That said people were already starting to worry and it won’t take long, so I sit and pull out my book.

I quickly leaf through it, find the last transcribed page and start reading the actual information added to it properly instead of the bits and pieces I sometimes pull if I have a burning question that I think the book may answer.

Each page in its proper context is like a different teacher imparting their knowledge to me. Even without my direct intervention, the thousands of transcribed pages from the network updates feeding my book were doing their job even better than I hoped. It seems the library guys managed to increase not only the quality but the quantity of information and consequently the outflow of high quality information.

My endless book is bursting with new info, but I don’t want to spend the time typing it all up given that is slower than simply reading it, a difference that only magnified as my willpower, intelligence and perception increased my reading speed. My very perception of the flow of time was altered.

But that is a trivial challenge, with an equally trivial solution: scribes.

The knowledge, properly organized in my head by a continuous read starts to make more sense than the bits and pieces that I snuck once in a while. Answers to questions I didn’t know I had unfold in my mind.

Instead of letting consume me and all my time, I finish the book and start on the next item on my list.

Extending my perception and will through the network. I find the thickest and shortest path to the HLZ and the work begins in earnest. The uncomfortableness of my task is ever-present, but as the minutes pass, I manage to relax again, especially as the ever thickening multiple paths forward link the HLZ and the ring of villages.

As I start feeling myself again, even as my mind is hundreds of miles away, I extend the perception field out fully before realizing the imbalance my half job created.

Above there is a large dome but below there is a cupula 15 meters smaller. But I don’t need that much attention above, just below.

With a single twist of my will, the entire thing starts capsizing.

With it at maximum range, and many if not all the characteristics of my natural perception field, I use Aspen’s sense and start pushing forward.

Kilometer after kilometer I eat through in record time. All the exercises I did help and my higher stats were the icing on the cake to prevent the headaches that pushing too hard causes.

I reach the thin tendrils sometimes kilometers inside the HLZ, but mostly keep to the outside ring.

I plan how the scouts can help me. Getting a few of the largest seeds and sending teams out with cannon equipped speeders might be a good option.

They had done a wonderful job laying a perfect mesh for well over a hundred miles of our village and laying the spider web connecting most of the villages in the instance. A few stopped the advances of my network with their mages stopping the root’s advances or simply requesting to remain outside our range. But even them, I was only a mile or tree from their territory.

The HLZ, however, was not a free place, and entering it, even for a few minutes to throw a few seeds out is too dangerous. Unless I wanted to dedicate a lot of my or Aspen’s attention to it, growing quickly with just Mana/Qi fueled growth is too time consuming.

Still, in many places, I could see well over a kilometer past the border. And silver mines were everywhere.

They were not evenly distributed, not even in the way we grew used to seeing them around the villages. Sometimes there were three mines within a hundred miles, other times 500 miles stretched without a single bent rock that smelled of silver.

By the end, the roughly 12000 miles circle reveals a full 116 mines. Most of them with the same familiar metallic and sterile taste that only silver had.

Three of those however did have a similar cold and sterile taste, but it resembles more stainless steel than silver, or so imagine given the lack of that particular steel anywhere or even chromium and nickel. I go back to one of the mines for a more thorough inspection to confirm my suspicions.

I find the place, send a few points of Qi over, and start growing a single tendril in that direction to get a better look.

My new resource seeing what is around it, buckles and pushes the root at an amazing speed, but it is so eager, that it nearly becomes unwieldy, but I manage it just fine. As the Qi runs out and the root tendril is more than close enough for a full look of the mine at only some 50 meters out. I stop moving my perception and drive my full attention to it.

I reach out to ‘mentally touch the nodules of the small cave, though larger than what most silver mines had available. Around 15 meters long instead of an average of less than 10 for the silver mines.

The walls and nodules were also a lot thicker and more pronounced.

As I mold my reality around a single piece of ore and let it become my world, I mentally split apart the rock.

Sediments from two different types of rock, a smidge of organic matter decomposed, and plenty of metal.

Iron, carbon, and something else.

Steel.

Deep steel.

We finally have a proper source for deep steel.

NO, we have three. Each of them is just over a kilometer in and that only comes to show the need for me to push deeper in. When Alex recovers, he can teach a couple of people how to break the level 100 skill cap, or at least give some guidance on that, and soon enough, we will be the ones rushing into their territory.

++++++++++++++

Though we also should push as fast as possible and not take our time preparing. The beast's average level was slowly but steadily climbing and was just about to break the 150. Alex’s find of a level 142 Wolfkin was actually very lucky.

I shake my head and put that all off for later.

A few jotted notes that I put in my inner world and a final look at a few iterating spots in the expanded network don’t reveal anything beyond what I expected, so I message Alex:

“I'll be in the smithy in 20 minutes.”

Trusting that the messager service will find him in short order, I close up my little hut and activate its security measures, before taking flight.

The trip goes in a flash as my mind concentrates on my actual goal what we are to make. Or rather, remake. Aspen and the back of my mind stopped everything else and we toil away on a little surprise, it probably won't make much of a difference, but one day it might in a heated battle like the one Alex barely survived.

The miles end and I land right in front of the shop to find Merlin already inside and getting ready for us to try a new technique. After his own growth inside the inner world he may even have been ready to take the +8 step and maybe even +9 soon enough, but with Blackwood already making +8 swords given that I didn’t go from single step to single step in the ladder, but rather jumped a whole 3 steps, our reward is to enjoy his work at an even higher level than if I had done it slowly but steadily.

“Nash,” He interrupts my thoughts.

“Merlin are you ready?”

“Definitely.” He says putting his hands on the plate and I start the session with him. I let go of everything else as I move around trying to reach for the deepest kinetic meditation possible.

The world continues moving around me and I try to hold a conversation with Blackwood as he finishes sharpening a simple short sword, likely an expert item with a hefty markup given our apparent distaste for the flexible, but an unimpressive class of weapon.

“Just to check, commissioning your help to reforge the best weapon possible will cost us 5 gold?” I say still trying to justify the expense in my mind.

“Yep. ALL my expertise and ‘dexterity’ up to the +8 level are unlocked along with anything extra you get if your crazy experiment with Merlin work. Do remember you are providing the materials.”

“That is more expensive than a custom +8,” I say still dissatisfied at the limitations.

“There is a reason you didn't choose that option… or even just sitting on the mana plate and help make a common +10 spear.”

I keep the tread of Qi in a wave pattern intermingled with Merlin’s mana as he starts heading deeper and deeper into the meditation session and walks to the metal cabinet.

Opening its simple doors, I’m greeted by the familiar sight. A lot of Deep Steel ingots on the bottom shelves and lesser amounts of all other metals above. On the very top shelf, there is only a single bar. A small bar that I have yet to get the courage to even touch.

The absurdly expensive bluish metal that cost an arm and leg… of an entire army of people.

Mithril.

The entire ingot is likely not enough metal to forge even a stiletto dagger if not alloyed with anything else. Less than half a pound of my perception field could be trusted. Given our impoverished state, using that metal in its pure state for more than an earring or a ring any time soon is just a pipe dream.

I start moving downward when my perception field sees a grave flaw, but a flaw that I might be able to exploit, and a sliver of hope blooms in my heart.

Tentatively I reach out my fingers. Tapping the mithril bar to the side reveals to my eyes what my perception field already saw with crystal clarity. Blackwood purposefully turns to me but doesn’t say anything. I stare at the thin crack in the ingot, induced by what? I have no idea, but it is there.

I tap my finger against it and a fingernail-sized chunk splits from the ingot.

“Well, would be bending the rules, but seeing as it is just a little bit… I can sell you this sliver for just…10 gold. About 2 carats worth of mithril. It is just enough to push a light spear like this a step above and is probably better than the others metals you were thinking about. A lot more compatible as well. You guys still don’t understand the metallurgy very well, at least not the systems. You have a decent grasp of normal chemistry from before your integration. Just be aware that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. It's only by chance that I even have this sliver. Ten gold is a good price. The ingot may be cheaper than actual mithril coins, but not by a few percent. Mithril is not like gold where a gold coin can buy you a small ingot of the raw metal.”

“This is almost suspiciously good luck, nobody else even noticed before now,” I say cheekily.

“Uhh? Yeah, it indeed is good luck, very good luck.”

We both laugh it off, but he doesn’t even hint that it was his work again.

“Last time I felt it the Mithril Bar was in one whole chunk. What could ever have damaged it?” Not expecting a real answer, just thinking aloud, but he does address my question.

“No idea.”

I decide not to pry. He must have caused the crack under the system’s nose through some miraculous method. Regardless, I’m thankful.. and it will definitely be worth it.

As I move in to start assisting Blackwood with the work, Jack and Li Wei, the other wonder pair of our village step up.

“We would like to help.”

For the first time, I notice them. Their determined and focused demeanor, the lack of acid build up in their muscles from hard work and the low reaction times from someone with just the right hormonal balance. Relaxed and fully focused on the task ahead.

I look each of them in the eye deeply trying to determine what is happening, and if that is a good idea, but the more I think the more certain I become. Letting them take the lead is the right choice. No… it is the only choice.

Finally, blocking a good chunk of the sun, Greg looms behind the guest of honor coming ‘just’ to supply his Aether as we try something we never had before.

With everything in place, Blackwood steals our thunder and says:

“Let's begin.”