Ning looked at the dungeon gate and frowned. "So it is actually a dungeon huh? And it even accepts people up to level 150. I wonder if I will even be strong enough to handle any fight inside."
The solo clear record was about 15 minutes, so the mine was surely very hard for him.
"Well, I'm not here to beat any records but to mine some ores. As long as I ignore the monsters inside, I should be able to do my job. If they turn out to be weak, then I can think about fighting."
Then, Ning entered.
He arrived in a massive cave that was about 10 meters wide and equally high. Multicolored ores shined from all around him, asking him to mine them.
Ning took out the pickaxe and looked at it.
[Regular Pickaxe (Common)
Can be used to mine metal ores and minerals.
STR: 30
VIT: 30
Rocky Stab: Has a 30% chance to deal 200% of your STR as Absolute Damage to rocks ]
"Oh," Ning thought. "So it works based on my STR value?" If he did damage to rocks then surely it used his STR stat, right?
He activated a random Uncommon card to get a chance to deal critical damage on hits.
He walked up to a wall and got ready to use the pickaxe. He hit the wall once and suddenly a number floated in front of him.
22%.
Ning was surprised. "That's not damage, is it?" He hit the same spot again and the number jumped to 45%. His suspicion of what was happening grew and he continued hitting 3 more times until the percentage reached 100.
[You have mined 1 Star Gold Ore.]
"Star Gold? Not Black Iron?" Ning thought. "Did I hit the wrong spot?"
Ning looked around at the wall where the colors weren't as prevalent and everything was dark. Surely this location had Black Iron, right?
He struck the place once and the number that appeared was 14%. "Oh, that's quite low," he thought. "Do these numbers have to do with my damage perhaps?" He wondered if he hit something rare.
He continued hitting the same place and slowly the number went up to 100 before an ore dropped in front of him. Ning looked at the notification that appeared in front of him and frowned.
"Obsidian ore? Not Black Iron?" he thought. He moved a little too the left and hit another spot, which he quickly cleared, only to end up with Abyssal Silver ores which were also black in color.
"Goddammit!" Ning thought. "How the hell is my luck so bad? I thought I had it average now."
He struck the wall again, and finally, he got a Black Iron ore. "I have to mine 4 different times just to get one of these? Dammit, that's just wrong," he thought.
He continued mining for a while and realized just how many ores there were in this dungeon. Aside from Black Iron, there was Star Gold, Abyssal Silver, Obsidian, White Gold, Scarlet Lead, Dry Tin, Light Zinc, and many more.
Ning realized that there was a percentage of the ore in every single wall of this mine, which was to say that he would need to have the incredible luck to get Black Iron every time.
Getting in on his fourth turn was in fact him getting lucky. Otherwise, normally it took anywhere from 8 to 9 tries to get it on average. At worse, Ning even went through 20 different turns without gaining a Black Iron ore.
Still, the rest of the ores weren't useless, and he could probably sell them. So, he continued mining in the cave despite the whole dungeon being ahead of him.
It took Ning a while to realize that because he had spent quite a lot of time mining here, he was taking longer and longer to mine for a specific ore.
So, he left the place and went further into the cave in search of better ores.
He found a rather colorful place with a lot of metals in the cave and got ready to swing his pickaxe when suddenly the walls moved.
Ning backed off and watched in shock as a giant, boss-sized monster made up of the rock there appeared in front of him.
Without hesitation, Ning used his Observer stone to see how strong the beast was.
From what Ning could see, the beast was named Ore Golem and was made up of the rocks and walls in this place. It had 130 levels, over 500 STR stats, and over 600 DEF.
Fortunately, it had no INT, but it did have high vitality, rendering it to have a rather high HP. It also had mana so there were skills, but Ning wasn't sure how strong the skills could be.
Ning was about to equip his sword when he remembered Pickaxe's skill. 'Oh!' he thought to himself when he finally realized why there was an Absolute Damage value for rocks.
This monster was the reason.
Ning activated a card that gave him full mana and got to fighting.
"Chain Lightning!" he shouted, dealing over 600 damage at once. "What?"
Ning wondered why he did so much damage when he just had 500 INT, but now was not the time to think about that.
Ning ran forward, dodging the beast's slow attacks, and hit it with the pickaxe. Unfortunately, due to their difference in STR and DEF, Ning was barely able to deal 150 damage to the beast.
For a person with over 400 STR, his damage was disappointing, maybe even demotivating.
Ning looked at the beast's HP and frowned when he saw that he had barely chipped 5% off it after those two attacks. The fight was going to be tough, but he wasn't discouraged.
Ning slid underneath the beast before jumping onto its back and started hitting it with the pickaxe. Occasionally, he dealt about 800 Absolute Damage, immediately removing a massive chunk of the beast.
If he could continue that, he would be able to beat that in no time.
