novelPurity Five
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Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Galen was the richest guy in the town for a simple reason: his father was the mayor of the town, and he owned a mine. While the minerals were not very profitable, they still made Galen's life comfortable.
Galen eyed Roland up and down. In the end, for Falken's sake, he said, "All right, since Master Falken has recommended you, I'll take you on. However, I'm a fair man. I'll give him money according to the minerals he digs without any special privilege. How does it sound?"
Falken chuckled and said, "No problem."
Then, he patted Roland's shoulder and left slowly. Galen opened the gate of the stone house, and the stench of rocks was unleashed. Different minerals had been piled up inside the warehouse.
Galen fetched a hoe and a basket from inside and tossed them to Roland. He said, "These are your tools. You can start working... Right, what's your name? I need to register it."
2Galen picked up a quill and opened a book from his drawer carefully."Speak, and tell me your age, too."
"Roland, seventeen."
Roland was twenty-four in reality, but his game character was set to be seventeen, between a teenager and an adult. So, he could only give such information. After all, he looked too young to be twenty-four, and Galen wouldn't have been convinced if he said so.
Galen wrote down his name in the book. Roland stole a glimpse at it and discovered that the words in this world were pictograms. The words were not straight. There was no telling whether it was the standard format or Galen's personal style.
In the end, Galen waved at Roland, and Roland strode into the cave with the hoe and the basket.
The cave was rather huge, which was understandable because fresh air was needed in the mines. An oil lamp was established every dozen meters on the way. The wall was wet, and Roland could feel water on it.
Roland dragged the basket forward. There were pit-holes and pebbles everywhere on the way. After several minutes, he finally heard noises up ahead. Soon, he saw several people working hard at the end of the cave in different directions.
This was the real mine. It was a rather spacious place. The dome was a dozen meters high, and there were about thirty meters from the left end to the right end. The place was rather dim despite the lamps hanging on the wall.
Roland jumped off from the platform. Someone noticed the noise but soon focused on their mining. Time was money for the miners.
Observing the environment carefully, Roland came to an unoccupied corner and watched other miners work. Then, he copied them.
Mining and sweating for an entire day, and copper of purity five is all I can find...
To the soundtrack of cling–cling-clings, Roland somehow remembered the poem. When MMORPG games were popular, he was only a ten-year-old child. He saved his breakfast money for a whole month to buy the monthly card for a game. Then, he mined two hours every day and paid for the game with the coins he earned in the game in order to play on.
3His deepest impression on the first MMORPG game was mining, and he was mining again in the first immersive game in the world. He wondered if he was destined to be a miner.
8Mining was an arduous task, but players, including spellcasters like Roland, had much better body builds than regular people did. When he started to work, his hoe was always hitting the hard rocks or getting stuck in the crevices, but half an hour later, Roland felt that he was getting the hang of it.
2A yellow and white rock was dug out. Roland picked it up and observed it for a moment. Then, he shook his head, threw it away, and worked on. Before, when Galen opened the warehouse, he had snapped the minerals in the warehouse with the photo function of the system, which allowed him to compare the rocks he dug out to the existing ones to evaluate their value.
1Of course, the comparison couldn't be accurate, but it was much better than random guesses.
1After another hour, the other miners sat down and rested, but Roland kept working. Those miners gathered and pointed at him. There was even vague laughter. They must be mocking Roland because they thought that Roland couldn't persist much longer.
Roland ignored them and carried on. He had to keep trying until he felt exhausted.
Those miners rested for a while and went back to work. An hour later, they were too tired to work on again, yet Roland was still waving his hoe. This time, they didn't tease Roland and just gazed at him in silence.
1After resting for a while, they continued digging, but when they gathered again and rested an hour later, Roland was still waving his hoe.
The miners stared at the thin young man in disbelief. Someone couldn't hold back anymore and approached Roland. He looked at the rocks in Roland's basket and the dent on the wall that Roland had just created with complicated feelings.
Roland pried a stone off the wall and threw it back into the basket. He smiled at the miner who approached him and left the mine with the heavy basket.
At this moment, Language Proficiency was already over. It was impossible for him to communicate with others.
The miners watched him leave. Looking at their baskets that were still half-empty, they all lost motivation to work.
4Roland left the cave with the basket. It took him quite a while to become used to the dazzling sunlight outside. In the end, he dragged the basket to Galen and heaved it onto Galen's desk.
The basket was so heavy that the desk almost collapsed. Galen was greatly surprised and woke up from his dream. He exclaimed after he saw the basket and Roland behind it.
However, Roland couldn't understand him now. After Galen made a long speech, he could only shrug helplessly."Sorry, Language Proficiency is over."
Galen was stunned, because he couldn't understand Roland, either. However, as a merchant who traveled a lot, he guessed what had happened.
There were more things that he wanted to say, but he could only shut up now. He moved the basket down to the ground and screened the rocks in the basket. The worthless ones were thrown away, and the valuable ones were divided into three heaps according to their quality. In the end, he counted them and put twenty-eight coins on the desk.
Roland took the coins and left without saying anything.
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