Chapter 6: First Kill

TING!

The tip of the pickaxe hit the rock and barely penetrated two millimeters. Vimov was pushed a step from the recoil, repressed a grunt, tightened his grip on the wooden handle and swung again.

TING!

TING!

TING!

...

“This ... planet...” He gasped and continued. “It’s nothing like Ercas Mir ... Maybe ... it’s just the rocks ... in the Seventh ... Post ... Either way ... We must work!”

He tried to be a role model for the inactive Zax and the impassive Nulivs, as well all those others Ercas Mir’s survivors in tunnel No .9.

“Will I get something to eat if I’d work?” Nulivs inquired, tilting her head to make eye contact with Vimov.

TING!

“I’ll get ... You food”. Vimov reassured.

TING!

Without saying a word, Nulivs picked up her pickaxe and began to mine.

“Old man ... I felt your body when I help you ... It’s exceptionally resilient, so ... assist us, at least for the little girl”. Vimov hoped to persuade Zax, if anything than for Nulivs’s sake.

From his perspective the old man gave up on life, but Nulivs ... she was broken. Perhaps, if they will manage to pick all her pieces back together she will recover.

It was hard to determine if Vimov succeeded to press the correct buttons or Zax was simply going with the flow. Frankly, Vimov did not care. He was only glad to have Zax doing something productive, rather than risking getting marked as problematic.

TING!

The entrance to tunnel No .9 was like the base of a tree. Inside of it was a network of hundreds and thousands of tunnels wide and narrow, long and short, which split to more tunnels, like the roots of the tree.

It was all done for Gods know how long by the prisoners in Middle Sector No .131.

To avoid conflict on their first day, Vimov selected a spot for the three of them in an abandoned, thirty something centimeters deep crevice.

There was no artificial lighting in the tunnel. Instead, like New Earth’s Sun Stones, here were luminous pebbles that emitted dim glow in warm hues.

TING!

The three mined for hours. Vimov and Nulivs were consistently drawing on their diminishing wisps of mist energy. The latter was in a worse state than the former, but her behavior was monotonous and movement mechanical. Till now she believed that death here is imminent and if it is supposed to be by exhaustion, then so be it.

Zax, in contrast, was a lot better. Not only he was a bodily cultivator, he cultivated to almost the Peak of the Three Stages Of Hyper Physique’s Second Stage, a refinement technique that emphasized treating the body like a bottomless reservoir of dark attribute energy. Even if his current mindset made it even harder to absorb the worldly dark attribute energy in the Rakmon Penitentiary Star then it already is, and God Demirva and God Bimentia’s sealed anything related to his Immortal powers and Mortal Enlightenment state, should he find the desire he still can magnify his physique to match a fourth level Martial Mortal and sustain it, if constantly, for couple of years.

TUNG!

The tip of a pickaxe smashed twelve centimeters into the tunnel’s wall, in a single swing breaking past two thirds of the combined length the trio accomplished in seven hours.

Nulivs fell on her knees, flushed and grasping for air.

“Don’t ... activate the runes!” Vimov scolded Nulivs, but it was too late. The lass had not a sliver of strength to mine. “Tsk!” He clucked his tongue. “Rest, you are done for today”.

“But ... my food...” Nulivs leaned on her side and dropped on the ground. Not only the pickaxe’s runes required a great consumption of either mist energy, soul energy or vitality, once activated it will extract the precise amount even at the cost of creating a deficiency in of the three fueling resources.

“Don’t worry about it!” Vimov stopped mining to get her in a sitting position. “Don’t worry”. He said softly.

In his heart wondering where is that empathy for others coming from? The idea of they being his few remaining kin from Ercas Mir? The impact of losing his friends or loved ones? Or just his own coping mechanism?

He felt like the answer was something he would need to invest time to discover, and that knowing it will not necessarily do him better.

He took back his pickaxe and rejoined Zax.

TING!

At the seventh hour Vimov’s pace began to deteriorate.

TING!

In the twelfth hour he could not keep going anymore, he had to rest.

TING!

Only Zax steadily mined when the eighteenth hour arrived. In fact, only he kept mining and his progress alone expanded the crevice by sixty two centimeters.

“Enough, let’s go. Many had come and left after and before us”. Vimov said. “Nobody worked for eighteen hours straight...” He looked at Zax and realized that this old human was probably some exalted expert back in Ercas Mir.

“Here”. Zax reached out his hand to Vimov, in his palm was a glittering pile of Ever Pure Solid’s specks, altogether weighing a bit over one gram.

Vimov was stunned. By now he concluded that the crevice was discarded because it had zero concentration of Ever Pure Solid. He calmed down fast though. A gram of Ever Pure Solid was too little for the work they put, after all, if after eighteen hours they only found this much, how are they supposed to meet their weekly quota?

‘The longer tunnels are occupied by old and higher ranked prisoners ... are we to keep digging new ones until finding a profitable spot or is it possible to make a deal... ?’ He wondered.

“Can I see if we can spend it?” He asked Zax, thinking of buying food. More specifically something that can nourish second realm cultivators.

“Yes”. Zax coolly replied.

Vimov tore a piece from the shirt he was put on in the Lunar Splitter. It was elastic, fitting the alterations in size when beasts transform. He made a small pouch and stored the Ever Pure Solid in it.