Chapter 144: Enhance Crystal Element
Madha squeezed softly the hand he was still holding and said solemnly, "That three-horned bull isn’t a normal wild beast. Even with guards backing us, we might not win."
The words dimmed Gara’s eyes, only for them to flare back up a heartbeat later.
"If we can’t beat it the normal way... then we just use another method."
"What method?" Unease crept into Madha’s chest.
Gara didn’t answer right away. He opened his cloth bag and pulled out several jars.
"These are my strongest anesthetics. When ingested, they’ll knock you out in under a minute." He held up three jars. "We’ll put that bull to sleep."
"But how do you make a bull swallow them?" Madha asked.
Fian extended his hand toward him. "I can do it."
Madha frowned. "Scouting from a distance is one thing, but making them consume this... I’m not sure." Madha looked concerned.
Even though he always felt threatened by Fian’s existence—the fear that the elf could take Gara away from him—he would not throw him to his death.
"I have a way," Gara said calmly. "Listen to me."
This time, Gara pulled out a different jar from his bag. Not the porcelain ones he usually used for medicinal herbs, but a rough earthenware jar.
He opened it and poured a fine white powder from the earthenware jar into several porcelain jars.
"The scent of salt will attract herbivores like bulls. They’ll mistake the anesthetic for food," Gara explained.
"Herbivores?" Madha gave him a puzzled look.
Gara didn’t bother explaining further, this wasn’t going to turn into a biology lecture. Instead, he turned to Fian.
"Just throw these jars near them and make sure they shatter. Then leave immediately. Don’t wait around. Don’t let their attention shift to you or they’ll charge. The salt scent takes a little time to spread, so don’t linger."
Fian nodded. Gara handed him three porcelain jars, and Fian disappeared into the darkness.
Thankfully, Gara had once studied a book Idris gave him, one that mentioned how cattle and bulls were fond of salt.
It reminded him of how certain salts released odors when mixed with specific substances... one of them being the toxic compound in his anesthetic.
It wasn’t long before Fian returned.
"Now we wait ten minutes," Gara instructed.
Leaving the bulls in the deeper chamber alone for the moment, their eyes turned back to the crystals.
If mined properly, this vein could mean Gara would never have to worry about money anymore, even if he had a hundred children to feed in the future.
"How do we mine them? Is there a special method?" Gara asked, glancing at Madha.
"No special method. Usually, the exposed crystals are cut cleanly, then refined until their color deepens into that blue." Madha pointed toward one of the crystals being fed by the water.
Gara rubbed his chin. If he let the water keep flowing over the crystals, refinement wouldn’t even be necessary.
But then, where would he divert the water? Even if he created a new channel away from the river, eventually the villagers would discover it.
While Gara was busy calculating his newfound gold mine, Madha and Fian walked around the cavern, examining the crystals up close.
Fian reached out and touched a smaller crystal, dark blue in color. The moment his fingers brushed it. Crack. The piece broke cleanly off.
"...I broke it," Fian muttered, stricken with guilt.
"That crystal was already damaged. That’s why it crumbled so easily," Madha called out. Fian let out a relieved sigh.
Madha added, "Looks like it’s been eroded by the water for too long. That’s why it’s unstable. On the parts untouched by water, most of the crystals aren’t fully blue yet, they still need refining. Out of all of these, only one looks ready to use right now."
Gara walked over to the one crystal Madha pointed out. With a precise Water Slash, he cut it cleanly from the wall and caught it in his hand.
The instant the dark blue crystal touched his palm, a blue panel flickered into existence before his eyes.
[Enhance Crystal — Earth Element Detected! Not Suitable!]
Gara’s eyes went wide in shock. He turned quickly to Madha. "Do Enhance Crystals have elements?"
Madha blinked, confused, then shook his head. "No. All Enhance Crystals are the same."
Then, what is the meaning of the panel that the system showed?
Gara suddenly remembered his earlier conversation with Orman, about how the success rate of Enhance Crystals was notoriously low.
Could it be... Enhance Crystals actually have elements and they only work when used by Liners with matching elemental Talents?If people don’t know that and just use them recklessly, no wonder they backfire. Gara’s thoughts raced.
He felt like he’d uncovered another secret of this fantasy world. Unbelievable. A whole world, and no one realizes Enhance Crystals have elements? Tsk, tsk...
Before the ten minutes were up, Gara harvested five more unrefined Enhance Crystals, stuffing them into his cloth bag until both his and Fian’s were full.
Each unrefined crystal was about the size of grown man’s palm, bigger than Gara’s own hand.
When the time passed, Fian went to scout. He returned shortly after. "Five asleep. The three-horned one’s drowsy."
A smile tugged at Gara’s lips. "Then we just wait five more minutes."
True enough, five minutes later, Fian came back with news that the three-horned bull had finally succumbed to sleep.
That was their chance. They readily struck into the deeper part of the cavern.
Gara had assumed the bulls were close by—since Fian always returned so quickly—but the chamber was farther than expected. That distance probably explained why the beasts hadn’t noticed their presence.
The tunnel finally opened into a vast cavern. The ceiling arched high, the walls spreading wide into a dome-like chamber.
There, six bulls lay asleep. And at the far end, upon a crude clay chair, sat a skeleton. Its body resembled a human skeleton, but the head’s skull... unmistakably that of a minotaur.
They stayed in the corridor, cautious. If something else stirred, they wanted room to retreat.
"I’ll take out the bulls one by one from here with Fian," Gara whispered, ready for battle with the sleeping enemies. It was still a battle, nonetheless.
...