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 dimd 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 thod."
"What thod?" 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 consu 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 ."
This ti, Gara pulled out a different jar from his bag. Not the porcelain ones he usually used for dicinal 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 imdiately. Don’t wait around. Don’t let their attention shift to you or they’ll charge. The salt scent takes a little ti 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 ntioned 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 mont, their eyes turned back to the crystals.
If mined properly, this vein could an 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 thod?" Gara asked, glancing at Madha.
"No special thod. 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, refinent 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 mont 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 Elent Detected! Not Suitable!]
Gara’s eyes went wide in shock. He turned quickly to Madha. "Do Enhance Crystals have elents?"
Madha blinked, confused, then shook his head. "No. All Enhance Crystals are the sa."
Then, what is the aning of the panel that the system showed?
Gara suddenly rembered his earlier conversation with Orman, about how the success rate of Enhance Crystals was notoriously low.
Could it be... Enhance Crystals actually have elents and they only work when used by Liners with matching elental 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 elents? 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 ti 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 ca 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 assud 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 do-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 sothing 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.
...
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