Mike Analyzed the pickaxe in his hands:

Miner’s Pickaxe

Quality: Artisan

Durability: Very High

Rarity: Uncommon

The information caused him to pause and question what kind of place the Outskirts were. How is it that they can give slaves Artisan level goods with very high durability? He had felt the power of Hoosefelt and the Strength behind Guigui’s gentle not-so-gentle pat on the back. He had even felt how strong the items displayed in Blarney’s sanctum were. But until this moment, he had assumed they were anomalies, and he mentally berated himself for not better using his time since he arrived here. It was unlike him to not learn as much as he could about his situation, but he had felt off since waking up from the rubble pile. His responses had been somewhat delayed, making him wonder if he had a concussion of somekind. That combined with Guigui admonishing me for using Analyze, seeing beings much more powerful than myself, learning about the Assimilators and being indentured into a mining camp in the space of a single day are excuses, just not very good ones. He thought to himself. I’ll have to do better if I want to survive.

Redirecting himself to the task at hand, he swung the ax a second time, less hard than before, but was met with a similar result, causing him to Analyze the pickaxe a second time, sure that he had missed the “rebounding” attribute that had always shown on his dayton axes, but still saw nothing.

Swinging very softly, he found that the pick barely bounced at all, which was different from how his axes had always rebounded. Mentally preparing himself for testing the other extreme, as well as the bounds of what Very High durability entailed, he channeled Dexterity until he only had 9 remaining and swung the pickaxe with all his might. His 66 effective Strength caused the head of the pickaxe to enter the rock a half an inch before it stopped in place and the shock of the blow disseminated through his hands and up his arms with painful vibrations.

Holding back the impolite expletives on account of his beloved mother, he sucked in a deep breath before blowing out loudly as he bounced in place, fighting to remain under control.

After around 10 seconds, the pain had become bearable enough and he grasped hold of the handle in order to pull it out of the rock, only to trip forward awkwardly due to his very low Dexterity. Feeling his anger mounting at the total absurdity of the situation, he pushed himself off the wall, grabbed hold of the end of the ax and heaved it from the stone in one gruff motion, or at least he tried to. Despite the tip only being imbedded slightly into the rock, it held fast.

In frustration towards the inanimate object that wasn’t behaving as it should and against everything his father had distilled in him about controlling his anger, he materialized a small glob of quicksilver and threw it at the cave wall in anger. The metal felt heavy in his hands and by now his eyes had adjusted sufficiently to the dark area that he was able to watch the reflective orb of metal hit the wall far lower than he intended. Causing the budding flames of his anger to abate as understanding dawned on him.

“Well, nothing like kinematics to confirm it.” He said to the dark cavern.

After 10 minutes of testing, he was pretty certain that the gravitational pull of the Outskirts was nearly between 5 and times stronger than that of earth.

“That would explain why I can barely walk here, why swinging a pickaxe is harder, and why I am incapable of digging more than half an inch into the rock despite my high Strength, since they would be much denser. Which finally explains why my first swings rebounded.” he mumbled, wishing that Creeanth or another hobgoblin was present to hear his musings. “It doesn’t help me know how I am going to mine twice my volume in body weight today though.”

“I guess it starts with me getting the pickaxe out of the rock,” he said as he reached for the handle for the third time.

Over the following hours, Mike tried a multitude of various techniques to retrieve the Mythril, with very limited success. Having already tried channeling as much Dexterity into Strength as he could and only making a small dent, he next tried adding in Toughness. The pickaxe went deeper, but the pain was also much stronger. While he could turn to that if he needed to, he decided to keep that as a last resort.

He next tried making a pickaxe out of Quicksilver. This actually improved his mining capabilities quite a bit, but he eventually decided that the risks outweigh the rewards. He didn’t know how rare Quicksilver was in the multiverse at large, or spatial bags for that matter, but he had a sneaking suspicion that if anyone saw the Quicksilver or him using the spatial storage bags, he would become an even greater target for Mustela and others who were grasping for power.

Finally, he tested what he suspected would be the most inefficient method, but maybe the only method that was slightly possible and wouldn’t hurt him. Activating Tactics, he set his stats back to their defaults, then waited three seconds before activating Footsteps of the Wind, bringing his Dexterity to 316. He then reactivated Tactics to channel all but 40 Dexterity into Strength, bringing his Strength up to an insane 170. With 40 Dexterity and 170 Strength, he began mining in earnest, and found that his swings could now penetrate the rock wall much more effectively, but not as easily as he would have expected. Before the 10 second timer wore out and he fell to the ground, he had managed to uncover almost a fingers worth of Mythril. With so much of his Dexterity still allotted to Strength, he found that only a single point of Dexterity remained, making him feel as immobile as a newborn baby.

Once his stats had returned to normal and while he waited the 10 minutes for Footsteps of the Wind to once again be usable, he walked over to the halfway-extracted Mythril. Despite still having the majority of his stats set to Strength, he could barely budge it, indicating that the stone was far denser than anything he was familiar with. On closer inspection, he noticed that it was in fact a metal rather than stone, although its surface was very rough.

I wonder how this would improve the quality of my Dayton Ax. He thought, his mind making plans for how and where he could set up a kiln without anyone noticing.

…………………………………………………………………………………………

Butther showed up some time later as Mike sat meditating on the ground, waiting for Footsteps of the Wind to once again be active. He had tried to use this time effectively, but found that he was unable to train the kata in here, much as he had been blocked when he had been in the Quicksilver Cavern under his valley. By that point, he had a small pile of stones that he had collected, equating to around 10% of his body's volume by his estimation, an amount that he was quite proud of. Butther’s face made him realize that he was likely well behind schedule.

“I thought I could walk with you to get our meal for the day.” he said, causing Mike’s stomach to rumble loudly.

Getting up and following the hobgoblin from the cave, the two walked mostly in silence, Butther seeming to understand that Mike was exhausted. Still, not wanting to be rude, Mike asked a polite question every few minutes.

Inside the cavern, a large table had been set out behind the counter of the tool crib. From the looks of it, most of the slaves had already gotten their food and were eating in silence, making it so that the two of them only had to wait behind 5 other people. After giving the tool manager their numbers, they each got a piece of raw meat that was about the size of both of MIke’s hands put together. He could feel some sort of pressure emanating from it, but decided not to comment on it in front of so many others. He was still uncertain who he could trust.

Rather than eating in the cavern, Butther steered them back towards the mines, saying that it was better to minimize time in the cavern wherever possible. Mike nodded half heartedly as he tore a bite from the flesh, which was surprisingly sweet.

“It’s missing garlic, salt, and pepper at a minimum” he said, his mouth full and dripping from the juices.

The hobgoblin guffawed out loud, startling Mike, “Hahaha, right, like they would employ an actual Spiritual Cook in a place like this, much more for the slaves!” he managed to get out.

Mike chuckled and acted like the joke was intended, wondering what an earth a Spiritual Cook was.

By the time the hobgoblin had finished laughing, Mike had finished a bite of food and found that it sat very heavy in his stomach, much like a large bowl of halusky did. Despite that, he knew he hadn’t eaten enough and took another large bite, pushing past his discomfort.

By the time they made it back to his cavern and Butther had said his farewells, Mike was almost doubled over in pain and he reviewed the System messages he had pushed aside while with Butther.

[Warning, you are consuming Spiritual Beast without having reached a necessary level

Damage will be incurred each second until digested.]

[Warning, damage incurring at a higher rate due to continued consumption]

[Warning the levels are approaching what can…]

The final warning blurred over the one he was currently reading in bold red letters.

[Warning, mortal limit reached]

Cursing, he activated Hands of Healing before passing out on the hard ground.