The Power of Creation
Copyright© 2026 by Vasantrutu
Chapter 4: Mining Part 2
For the next stage of my education, Iron Hauler once again took me to the storage shed.
This time, he showed me the crystals.
Unlike the ores, these were kept apart—sealed in padded crates and reinforced racks. Each crystal glowed faintly in its own way, some emitting warmth, others a subtle chill. There were fire crystals tinged with red veins, water crystals clear and cool, wind crystals pale and light, and raw mana crystals that pulsed softly even while dormant.
He explained their value carefully.
Crystals were not priced by weight alone. Purity, elemental stability, size, and internal fractures all affected their worth. A small, flawless crystal could be worth more than a larger one filled with cracks. Improper extraction reduced their value drastically—or destroyed them entirely.
Then came the rules.
“When extracting crystals,” Iron Hauler said, “you never use a shovel.”
He explained that blunt tools transferred force unevenly, causing fractures. Instead, miners used rods—long iron shafts with a reinforced handle on one end and a sharpened, spear-like point on the other.
Later that day, he led me to a different mine shaft.
Unlike the others, this one was naturally lit. Pale light filtered in from above through cracks in the stone, illuminating clusters of crystals jutting out from the walls like frozen growths. The air felt different here—thicker, charged, faintly humming.
Iron Hauler placed his hand against the wall and stood still for several seconds. His eyes closed slightly, his breathing slow and measured. Then he moved a few steps to the side and tried again.
After confirming something, he motioned for me to come closer.
“Feel that?” he asked.
The stone beneath my palm was warm.
“That’s one way,” he said. “Crystals change the temperature of the stone around them. Warm for fire. Cool for water. Sharp pressure for wind.”
He also explained that crystals constantly leaked mana, though in small amounts. Skilled miners could sense it—a faint pull, a pressure in the chest, or a tingling sensation in the fingertips.
But with value came danger.
“If a crystal cluster is too large,” he warned, “it attracts beasts.”
Unlike humans, beasts had no altars to replenish their mana. They fed on ambient mana instead. Large crystal deposits acted like beacons, drawing creatures from deep underground and beyond.
“For that reason,” he continued, “we never open new crystal caverns unless there’s an order.”
Crystal mining was tightly controlled. Opening a fresh cavern risked attracting beasts, destabilizing tunnels, or flooding the area with mana surges. Crystals were only extracted when requested—and only in known, controlled shafts.
For my education, however, he had special permission.
We worked in that crystal shaft for only a single day.
He showed me how to angle the rod beneath a crystal, never striking it directly. The point was to loosen the stone supporting it, not the crystal itself. With careful pressure and precise placement, the surrounding rock cracked away, allowing the crystal to be lifted free intact.
One mistake, he told me, and the crystal shattered.
By sunset, the lesson was over.
We sealed the shaft, reinforced the markings, and returned to the ore tunnels.
Crystal mining, I learned, was not about force or speed.
It was about restraint.
And while ores built foundations, crystals carried consequences far beyond the mine itself.
At the end of six months, Iron Hauler finally declared that he had taught me everything he could about mining.
“That doesn’t mean you’re done,” he added immediately. “You’ll still work under me for another three or four months. That’s how I know whether you actually learned anything—or were just listening.”
I nodded and told him I understood.
For the first time since I had entered the mine, he told me to take a break. I had been working without pause for half a year, and even he admitted that rest was necessary.
The next day was my break day.
Not knowing what else to do, I sat near the storage section where my father usually worked. Compared to the tunnels, this area was quiet. There was no constant clanging of tools, no echoing chatter—only the occasional sound of ore being stacked or weighed.
I was lost in thought when shouting suddenly echoed from deeper inside the mine.
It came from the third shaft—the gold shaft.
I saw the expression on my father’s face tighten, and without a word he started walking toward the noise. Curious, I followed a short distance behind him.
The moment he entered the shaft, the shouting stopped.
Two haulers stood facing each other, breathing hard, fists clenched. The rest of the workers stood back in silence. A single, quiet cough from my father was enough to remind everyone who held authority there.
He asked what the dispute was about.
After a brief hesitation, the truth came out. A new gold vein had been discovered. One hauler—newer, younger—claimed he had found it first. The other, older and more experienced, argued that his years of service entitled him to priority.
My father listened without interrupting.
Then he turned to the witnesses.
Every one of them confirmed the same thing: the new hauler had discovered the vein.
That was enough.
My father’s expression hardened. He declared that the older hauler was abusing his seniority to undermine another worker’s rightful claim. Using experience as a weapon, he said, was no different from theft.
As punishment, the older hauler was banned from mining for one week.
No shouting followed. No protests.
The ruling was final.
The rest of the day passed quietly after that. No one spoke loudly. No one argued. The mine remembered its rules.
At the end of the shift, as the haulers began leaving, I noticed them stopping near a man seated at a small desk, carefully writing in a thick journal.
That evening, I asked my father about it.
He explained that every ore hauler was required to have their haul measured and recorded at the end of the day. The journal tracked the weight, ore type, and quality. Based on that, credits were issued.
Payment wasn’t immediate.
At the end of each week, the accumulated credits were converted into coins.
“One credit equals one copper coin,” my father told me.
I hesitated before asking my next question.
“How many credits did I earn?”
He smiled faintly and explained that all of my credits were being given to Iron Hauler as compensation for training me. That was the rule for apprentices.
I nodded in understanding.
That night, as I lay down to sleep, I realized something important.
The mine wasn’t just stone and ore.
It was a system.
The next day, early in the morning, a runner arrived at our village.
His clothes were dust-stained from travel, his breath still uneven when he reached the central square. Not long after, my father was summoned by the elders. Curious about the sudden call, I followed quietly behind him.
The runner carried a sealed requirement list.
It stated that the blacksmiths of Ironspine had placed a large order—an order equivalent to ten tons of refined iron.
That single line sent a ripple through the elders.
Refined iron meant loss during processing. To meet such a demand, the village would need to extract at least fifteen tons of raw iron ore, possibly more if impurities ran high.
With that, the atmosphere in the mine changed.
What followed was no longer training.
It was endurance.
Iron Hauler took this opportunity to push me harder than ever. He taught me advanced vein logic—how to prioritize extraction paths, how to minimize wasted strikes, how to judge whether following a vein deeper would save time or cost lives. During those three months, we worked double shifts.
Fatigue became normal.
Somewhere during that time, I discovered a massive iron vein not far from the mine entrance. It was thick, stable, and clean. It was marked under Iron Hauler’s name, and the work intensified.
One night, after hauling basket after basket of iron on my back, my legs shaking with exhaustion, a thought struck me.
Why should I haul stone ... when the stone could haul itself?
I lay awake, replaying memories from my previous life on Earth. I searched through decades of forgotten knowledge, chasing ideas born in a different world. Somewhere deep in that haze, I found it.
A game.
Minecraft.
I focused on that memory—not the game itself, but the logic behind it. Rails. Carts. Simple physics. Minimal force. Maximum efficiency.
The answer was suddenly clear.
A minecart system.
I got up immediately and went to find my father.
He was still with the elders, discussing logistics and workforce allocation. I waited patiently nearby until their discussion concluded. Once they parted, my father turned toward home, and I walked beside him.
“So,” he said calmly, “what do you need, son?”
“Dad,” I said without hesitation, “I need some iron. And whatever other metal you can spare.”
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