A Single Mother's Farm of the Gods
Chapter 216: Back To The Mines [II]

Chapter 216: Back To The Mines [II]

The Quarry and the Mines are just near each other and both are home to the ores that people mine. And thankfully, both places are considered as areas that are included in the farm’s plot size therefore, this place is one of Elaina’s properties. Of course, there might be someone who will start claiming this place as public property but because this place is very much hidden from the populace and it is far from the dungeon where traffic people head usually, this place is one of the best areas where mining has yet to be done properly and exploited by humans dry.

Elaina arrived for the second time at the quarry. She has extensive knowledge of nodes of ores and precious stones due to her mining business back when she was still the empress. She supervises the team that is mining there as their monsters sometimes wander inside or if there is an area that has precious nodes present but is guarded by monsters, it is her job to dispatch the monsters and let the others do their work.

She has handled mining as well so she slowly but surely learned the ins and outs of how to mine properly without immediately exhausting the resources in the area.

Now, Elaina is back in the mining business, but this time, she is alone and she will be hauling everything instead of asking someone to do it in her stead.

The Quarry is littered with various breakable rocks and boulders that need a little tinkering with the pickaxe to reveal what is within. However, Elaina had no interest in that stuff and instead, she started to survey the breakable rocks if any nodes contained some aquamarine for her to mine. She can tell whether those rocks contain the stuff she needs in a few glances or by tinkering with the little rock that covers the node’s internal mineral.

But after a few minutes of checking the nodes one by one, she ended up not finding any suitable nodes that would yield any sort of gemstones. Most of what she has seen so far are bronze and scrap iron. There are some instances of iron nodes as well, but they are mixed with scrap iron, making it a bit less valuable compared to a pure iron node. She has no use for either three minerals so she gave up on searching the quarry for nodes to mine and glances at the entrance of the mines.

Back when Julia and Elaina visited the place, they had not entered the mine itself due to their needs already fulfilled on the quarry alone and they never returned again after that, leaving the exploration of the mines completely out of order.

Now, she has the opportunity to explore the place this time around.

"Almanac, guide me."

Snapping her fingers, the Almanac appeared before her eyes and a map detailing the mines appeared before her. But she was surprised to see that this is a place that is not similar to a real mine...but more similar to the labyrinth. The fact that there are multiple floors with the bottom still labeled in question marks means that this is just like the labyrinth.

"Wait...is this place even safe?" Elaina put the pickaxe in her storage bag and gripped her sword tight.

"[Be careful Elaina. It seems there are indeed monsters there.]" the Goddess of Taming said, seemingly warning Elaina about the dangers lurking there.

Elaina sighed and slowly entered the mines. Her first purpose is just to find some silver ore and a bit of aquamarine as well for her gadgets to build, but it seems that danger lurks everywhere she goes.

Stepping through the mine’s entrance, the temperature of the place is much warmer compared to the outside. It was like she was inside the house currently under the effects of an efficient heater. It was kind of weird since Elaina knew that most of the mines that she had entered before were cold or just slightly warm, not the kind of warm she was experiencing.

"This is a weird one. Is there a hot spring deep into the mines?"

She is not sure but she is now curious whether her guess is correct.

Walking through the first floor, she soon found a few nodes scattered around the walls and on the corners of the mines. They are much bigger than the small nodes outside that appear on the quarry. She checked them and most of them are pure iron without any tinge of scrap iron on them.

"I am surprised that these mines have not been discovered so far by anyone!" Elaina smiled seeing the pure nodes that she had passed as she got deeper into the mines.

She does not need them at the moment but Elaina made sure to mentally take note of them as she felt like she would have a use of them in the future.

Exploring deeper and soon enough, she stumbled over the ladder that leads to the next floor of the mines. There are no monsters so far but she didn’t let her guard down at all and decided to descend and continue her search.

Descending to the next floor, the surroundings remained the same but this time, it was lit up by some red gems that were transfixed by interval on the walls. It was like they acted as torches. They naturally formed on the walls so Elaina was amazed that it happened like they were placed by someone even though they weren’t.

But this time around, Elaina is no longer alone. Slimes are starting to move around. They have not noticed Elaina just yet but they are plenty in numbers.

"[Slimes! Oh wow, Elaina, these monsters can be good money-making monsters to have!]" the Goddess of Taming exclaimed.

"What? Slimes? Aren’t they pretty much useless? The gels that they left behind are barely used on anything and they are only processed as something as a byproduct and used as one of the ingredients in making low-level fertilizers right? How am I even going to earn much money with just that?"

"[Wait, Elaina. You are misunderstanding me. I am not saying to kill these jelly monsters and haul their "corpses" to sell. What I mean is get their eggs and make them produce slime eggs. They are mainly used for creating various alchemy items but they are more popular to be used as dyes. Not only that but selling petrified slimes should also sell a lot as well.]"

"Eh? That’s a thing?" Elaina frowned. She never heard of this kind of method before and slime eggs being a thing to create dyes.

"You will not understand it at the moment, Elaina. And even though I wanted you to tame one slime at least, I will not recommend you to do so at the moment. If you don’t have a slime hutch to contain them, then we will have a lot of trouble with them as they eat any kind of items and digest them in the process. Leaving them out in the open like the Wild Cows will cost you of your farm’s plants, and environment as well.]"

"Slime Hutch?"

"[A specialized building built from a special ore that will allow you to grow slimes but control their growth and their population. We don’t have access to them so for now, don’t bother with them. But mentally take note of the slimes. In the future, we will need to tame one and haul a few for our benefit.]"

Elaina is not sure what they currently are but she decided to mentally take note of them.

To kill them before they became alerted, Elaina sprinted towards the slimes and quickly calculated all the locations of the slimes before she pulled out her sword in her scabbard and precisely destroyed all of the slimes that she passed every slash by destroying each core in one swift slice.

She made quick work of them and dispatched the group of slimes crowding the hallways.

"Ugh, they are kind of disgusting," Elaina shook her head before flicking her sword to the floor, removing the slime attached to the blade of her sword before returning it to her scabbard.

After she dealt with them, Elaina started checking the ores nearby that were being gathered by the slimes earlier. She heard that slimes love to eat precious stones in the mines which is why they are pretty common in mines.

Elaina started to hit the nodes one by one and she soon exclaimed in surprise the moment her pickaxe hit a light blue color on the node. Elaina continued to hit the node with her pickaxe until the light blue color mineral fell off, revealing it to be what she needed, the Aquamarine.

"Looks like the rumors are true. As for the rest of these nodes...these should be also gemstones as well."

Elaina smiled and started to exert some effort to mine the nodes one by one. Soon enough, the result was revealed to Elaina. All nodes have gemstones as yield with only one of them having double yield. A topaz from the top with a bit of silver hidden underneath it.

"Gotcha!"

As a result, Elaina finally got a lot of stuff and completed her objective. However, something is urging Elaina to keep on exploring the mines deeper. Something is beckoning her to continue her search.