When Jack filled out his quota for the Gnomes and Gremlins' quests, the area nearby was mostly devoid of monsters already. He got heaps of items from the kills. Plenty of copper coins and some silver, several pickaxes, and some trophy loots. The trophy from the gnome was their red pointy hats, while from gremlin he got their teeth. After picking up all the loots from the monsters, he was just about to leave the rocky area when Peniel called her to a spot.
She had been out in the open since Jack left the vicinity of the capital, without other Players, she didn't bother to hid in her pocket dimension. Even when Jack was in the middle of combat with the Gremlins and Gnomes, she was flying around without a care. The monsters didn't seem to care about her. She was also not providing any assistance to Jack during combat. She acted as if she was a bystander passing through.
Jack came over to the place where she was floating over.
"See the dark rock formation here?" Peniel pointed at a rock protrusion that seemed to be out of place with the rocky ground around it. The protrusion had a hard and shiny surface that was black in color.
"What about it?" Jack asked.
"You got a few pickaxes from killing the gnomes, right? Bring one of them out."
He did as Peniel requested.
"Now mine that rock," she instructed.
"Mine? This thing could be mined?"
"Yes, I was surprised that God-Eye thingy you wear hasn't notified you of the mining spots here."
Now that she mentioned it, he paid attention to his monocle screen, there was indeed green marking around the dark rock formation Peniel had pointed at, indicating a valuable thing. The monocle had been sending markings on all sort of the things he had passed in the city that he had starting to develop the habit of ignoring them.
He then followed Peniel's instruction to mine the rock. He swung the pickaxe on the dark rock which produced a clanging sound.
"Again!" Peniel said.
Jack swung the pickaxe again. After the third strike on it, a portion of the rock chipped off and fell away. Jack picked it up. It was iron ore.
"Wow, so I can get iron ore for upgrading armor from mining here?" Jack exclaimed.
"Iron ore is the most basic ore. It was normal for you to get them from mining. Keep on mining, you should see similar dark rock around this area. This place is mining heaven, you should make use of it since you are here."
Jack concurred with her thought. Not to let the chance go to waste, he got back to hit the dark rock with his pickaxe. After hitting a few more times, he got another two more iron ores. But on his next hit, the pickaxe broke.
Jack was startled, but Peniel told him it's normal. The pickaxe was not meant as permanent mining equipment. Luckily, he had got quite a bunch of these pickaxes from the gnomes. He checked his inventory and found out that there were still 11 pickaxes inside. He took out the second piece and continued with his mining process.
After getting the fourth iron ore, the dark rock formation crumbled and turned pale grey in color. Jack was startled again by the change. Peniel explained that was what happened when one exhausted a mining spot. It will take one natural day for the spot to recover again before it could be mined again.
Understanding the mining mechanic now, Jack proceeded to the other spots. He continued to mine all over the rocky area. After using up all the pickaxes, he had accumulated another 33 iron ores, 5 steel ores, and 1 copper ore. The former two ores were common materials, while the latter one was an uncommon material.
There were still some mining spots left, but he had run out of pickaxe. If he wanted to get some more pickaxes, he would need to go look for more gnomes to kill and hope for it to drop. But Jack decided against it. He had spent quite some time mining at this place. The sun was already starting to lower on the horizon.
He decided to continue on his journey Southward, he hoped to complete more of his hunting quests before the appointment at the ruins tomorrow morning. He met more Silver Wolves and Goblins on his way, and managed to fulfill his quota for those two monsters as well. Four down, another six hunting quests to go. He also got many Wolf's Fur and Goblin's Knife which were their trophy items.
"See that rows of trees over there?" Peniel said while floating on his side.
"Yes," Jack nodded.
"You can pass through there, that is the habitat for the Grey Sabrecat."
Hearing that was the place where he could find one of his hunting targets, he immediately went that way. When he came into the woods, he saw green markings on some of the trees and grasses around.
"Are those weeds and trees valuable?" He pointed for Peniel the ones that were marked in green in his monocle.
"Yes, you can harvest them just like when you did the mining before," Peniel answered. "The weeds will be corresponding to your Forage skill, while the trees are for your lumbering skill."
"There are lots of them," Jack commented.
"There are, you can do the foraging. But for the trees, you would need a lumbering axe, which you don't have at the moment."
"Where can I get one?"
"You can buy them in the tool shops in the city. They function much like the pickaxe, in which they will break after a couple of uses, so you will need to stock up if you plan to do lumbering. You can also buy pickaxes in the city. But are you planning to busy yourselves with these gathering jobs?" Peniel asked.
"Why not?" Jack asked back.
"There are limitless resources which you can gather in this world. If you plan to gather everything, you will end up spending too much time. You won't have enough time to hunt or do quests anymore. I suggest you pick one gathering job and simply focus on it, or two maybe. After all, out of four gathering jobs, only one can be upgraded to the highest level."
"What's the highest level?"
"There are four levels. After Apprentice, will be Expert, then Master, the highest is Grandmaster. Each level is divided also to three sub-levels: Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. Only one job can reach Grandmaster level, another one can only reach Master level. The remaining two will be locked at Expert levels no matter how many times you use them."
"I see," Jack said as he gave it a thought. "I assume this is also the same for the other Auxiliary Jobs? Like for example Artisan jobs, if I upgrade my Cooking job to Grandmaster, then my Blacksmith will be stuck at Master level, is that so?"
"You are correct," Peniel confirmed. "So you see, it is better for you to focus on one of them, rather than try to excel at everything."
"Okay then, let's just take things as they come. Since I don't have the lumbering axe, we'll forget about the trees. I'll harvest the grasses as we searched for the Grey Sabrecat."
He then approached the grass with the green mark.
"How do I do this? Do I just pull them up?" Jack asked Peniel.
"Technically, yes." She answered.
Jack then bent down and grab the grass with his hand, he tried to pull it. Instead of having the grass immediately broke out from the soil, there was a loading bar appearing. Jack couldn't pull out the grass no matter how hard he tugged when the bar was not full yet. After it filled up, the grass disappeared, and a single leaf materialized in his hand.
Green leaf (common ingredient)
That's quite fake, he complained in his mind.
He observed the leaf in his hand. Had he not learned an Alchemy recipe that used this Green leaf? Unfortunately, he did not have the mobile Alchemist Apparatus like Bowler's one. Otherwise, he could make his own potions as well. Nevertheless, he could gather these green leaves and then asked Bowler to make potions for him. That way, he could save coins from purchasing potions.
He then continued to forage as he made his way through the woods. As he was too focused on the gathering, he didn't notice a red dot coming towards him at a high speed. He only realized it when he heard a growl.
"Watch out!" Peniel shouted.
