Chapter 301 - Gold!

As Ada and Osira have come to report what they discovered, Clarry and Jone are deep in the fourth tunnel of the right side. Like the second team of explorers, their legs are too facing torture. And by that I mean, they are walking down many many stairs.

Little did they know, this Staircase reaches down even deeper than the one at the third tunnel. So far they have counted over 200 steps yet they did not reach down at the end.

Clarry took a glance towards Jone, seeing her out of breath she couldn't help asking. "Do you want to take a break? I don't think we will reach the end of this Staircase anytime soon."

Taking a deep breath and bending down a little to rub her knees, she afterwards looked at Clarry as countless droplets of sweat rolled down her forehead. "That would be nice, why on earth is it so deep?"

Clarry is three years younger than Jone, and at many aspects heavily physically fit. As mentioned before she is 70 Kilograms of muscle, for her this deep staircase is but a warm up. Considering the fact that she saw how she out matched people before in terms of physical strength, she learned to let others catch up by slowing herself down. The last thing she needs is for a 42 year old lady to collapse out of exhaustion and roll down the stairs.

However, to make her feel a bit comfortable by removing her focus on the fact that Jone is sweating hard, she answered her question with a little theory in aims of shifting topics. "It could be another mine, I mean look at this logically."

Clarry tried to explain her theory that has built up in her mind the deeper they walked down here. Sitting on a staircase, she continued to explain. "They wouldn't have want for tunnels from different mines to meet each other and mess up their order, so they started new mines deeper and just headed towards a direction equal in elevation to the end of the Staircase."

Sitting a couple of feet away from Clarry, she took another deep breath to relieve her lungs and decided to compliment. "Well that actually makes sense, it could be that they were looking for more precious minerals."

...

Finally reaching down the staircase over an hour later, they estimate that they have walked down a 150 meter long staircase! One would think that the Snow Ignites are holding secrets for world dominance here! What contraption would require a tad over 450 steps? It felt like they walked down to hell although the scene very different.

Gold! They have struck Gold! Walking just 10 meters deep they found an amazing and at the same time disturbing scene! A cart filled with gold ore stood on the middle of the tunnel, along with many demons.

Gold is the world wide currency, and hundreds of coins can be made a day if several Blacksmiths are put in to work on them, not to mention if tens work on them! Perhaps this was some source of income, although unnecessary since the only thing these Snow Ignites worried before would be food, they have everything else.

They were focused so much on the cart of gold or which reflected light that they barely took a peek at the skeletons several meters in front of the cart. Clarry instantly walked towards the cart, grabbed an ore and proceeded to speak with her tone rising in enthusiasm.

"This is gold ore, do you understand how valuable just this cart is?" Clarry's tone arose, one would think she is going crazy or would stab Jone and make out with the gold. But no no, she is happy that her tribe will progress greatly thanks to all this gold!

"That does look like a lot." Jone became surprised and in some aspects happy, but not enough to nearly reach Clarry's energy. "How much do you think is all of this worth?"

Jone's step father was a rich ill.u.s.tratio, she has seen a lot more gold than what she is seeing here. The only thing why her energy shifted from the usual a little bit, is because she knows this gold will benefit the tribe of which she shared burdens and tears with.

"Umm I think that there are around 100 ores here." Clarry replied as she rolled over a few ores to and glanced upon the size of the cart in better detail to make a hard assumption.

At this explanation, Jone's eyebrow raised high and she became more and more energetic about this find. Asking right after, "So this has to be worth a couple thousand Gold Coins right?"

"No, it's worth more." Clarry replied, carrying a smile of which looked devious. You would think she will make this gold disappear overnight. "Considering that once separated from the Quartz, two ores are required to smelt an Iron Ingot weighing a Kilo."

"Wait!" Jone felt puzzled out of the sudden mention of Quarts, she hasn't been in a Gold mine before so she doesn't know how the process goes. "Gold is made of Quartz?"

Smiling a little bit, considering the fact that this question is in many terms adorable. Clarry shook her head from left to right and clarified. "It is only attached to Quartz, deep underground here it is the most common." Of course she would know something like this, gold is a popular topic and she pokes her nose everywhere to know more.

"Ohhh!" Jone stretched one word and more thoughts rolled in her mind, none of which carried embarrassment for the lack of knowledge. "Isn't this Quartz thing used for healing?"

"Yes it is!" Clarry smiled, happy that Jone is at least catching up now and as a treat she appears knowledgeable on other things, Clarry always feels happy if her tribe learns more. "This is considered a powerful healing stone but it doesn't work for every wound obviously."

"Right. What about the gold?" Jone asked once more, seeing that they have tip toed their way off the main topic.

"Oh right!" Clarry tapped her temple with her two front fingers, doing a bit more calculations she added. "This should sum up 50 Kilograms of pure gold, an Ingot weighing a Kilogram is worth 150 Gold Coins so..." Clarry tried doing more calculations just to be more and more sure, finally answering. "This cart of gold can be sold for over 7,000 Gold Coins! Maybe even up to 8,000 if there are a bit more than 100 ores here!"

At this case, Jone's eyes opened up wide with her energy rising higher than before based on the past decade. "It is really worth that much?" Her face carried shock too, this is indeed a great find.

"Yes it is!" Clarry answered swiftly and tried to grab the cart from the bottom and try to lift it so they can carry it up, a dumb move from someone so smart.

"Clarry, we can't carry the whole thing up 450 stairs." Jone brought logic here this time and pulled Clarry lightly on the shoulder.

"You're right." She turned around at a mild speed and her eye was caught by the skeletons on the ground she faced, "Damn this scene is ugly."

"You mean the Skeletons?" Asked Jone as she too focused her gaze towards what she pointed.

"Yes." Clarry answered and afterwards walked closer to the Snow Ignite skeleton. "Look, this one has its head separated and that one has a Pickaxe on his head."

Luckily, the Skeleton with the Pickaxe on his head appears to be a Demon Skeleton. As in, these Snow Ignites didn't get at it to the death for the l.u.s.t of gold. Not to mention, Quarts isn't so cheap either once heated up for crystallization.

But quite the opposite, someone was brave enough to face a Demon head on and bash a Pickaxe through it too. Obviously the Snow Ignite hit the Demon a split second or more before the Demon charged and ripped his or her head off, but this just proves bravery if not less.

Jewelery can be made out of it, It is common and due to the hand craft they are stupidly half the price of a Gold Ingot. Currencies here tend to get confusing, but people found out way after way to make it work for the better, or at least for the better of the richer.

This is a great find indeed, but they need to explore what else this tunnel has to offer. What are the odds of them finding another cart filled with these precious ores a bit deeper? Following this tunnel at a straight line for twenty meters, they faced a mild turn to the right and walked another fifteen meters before they found their selves with more options.

However, these options don't sound so plentiful. They don't offer anything but dead ends! Straight ahead towards that mild right turn, they see a dead end 10 meters away from where the tunnels split towards other directions.

To their left, they see a strongly sharp turn to the left. But as mentioned it is a dead end, they can see it clearly since it is only 5 meters away.

Basing it on the information at tunnel 2, Clarry adds. "There is definetly more to find if we break through these dead ends."