After searching around the forest for a long time, I finally found the cave where my gold mine was located. The eerie cave looked very frightening with dark energy inside it. It was an energy that even scared away any animals from entering. I didn't know what was inside there, but I was confident I could face whatever was inside.
"Nima, I have a really bad feeling, and my hair is standing on end.." Arin held onto my shoulder and hid behind me.
"hahaha, since when does a mithril-ranked adventurer get scared like this?" I teased her to distract her from her fear.
"heeeeei, that's too much. I'm human too," she whispered softly behind me.
"Don't worry, I'm scared too. You're not alone," I reassured her, feeling my knees slightly trembling.
"hihiii this dark energy is giving me the creeps. It's like a ghost's nest, I'm so scared of it," Arin pulled on my clothes to get out of that area.
I used the 'search' skill to find any creatures inside the cave but found nothing.
"It's really empty, Rin. My skill doesn't detect any living creatures inside, maybe this is just energy accumulated from the forest environment and stored inside until it became this terrifying. Do you want to go in first?" I tried to explain as rationally as possible to decrease our fear.
"Yeah, let's go inside and find out," she said, holding my hand as she bravely entered the cave.
The search for the source of this dark energy didn't take long because I used the 'search' skill, and it didn't take long for us to reach the center point of this dark energy in the cave. I thought of something after finding it. Because this is a gold mine, it could be a natural defense mechanism to keep people from entering my gold mine. Well, even though later I'll hide the entrance with illusion magic, it's still very useful.
I built a temporary resting place inside the cave with sufficient lighting and created many white steel golems to work in my first gold mine. And I created one mithril golem leader to manage these golems to work well. Because they are all golems, they don't need food and drink. They only consume magic energy from me, of course, if I create more golems, the more magic power they need.
But for now, it's still safe because my magic power is still abundant. Well, for now. By using my 'precious metal search' skill, I can map out the potential of each mine I own and how deep my golems need to dig the ground inside.
With the knowledge from the earth, I input my knowledge into all these golems so that this mine can continue to operate safely and not collapse because humans can use magic here, making it easier to secure the mine from buried possibilities.
Not only that, with this skill, I can also determine the exact position of precious metals in the ground. Since the beginning, when using this skill, I was a little surprised because in this world, all precious metals in the ground are shaped like rocks or large chunks and slabs. Unlike on earth, natural gold is usually in grain form like sand then processed back into gold bars.
But here it's different because it's already in the form of slabs and chunks of rock. The collection process will be easier.
I implanted knowledge about the positions of precious metals into all my golems, totaling around 120 golems. I also equipped them with skills related to mining and combat.
For mining, they can easily adjust their arms to become drills or other sharp weapons that can facilitate the mining process. As for combat, only buff skills can increase their statistics because basically their bodies are already weapons.
In this mine, I also found diamond and mithril content although less than gold. And of course, I won't leave anything behind in this mine hahaha.
After the golems started working, I began making all the equipment for the collection process and building a warehouse near the mine entrance close to our resting place. For safety, I made the warehouse with mithril materials from the entrance to the walls and floor, because I have a cheating skill, of course, I have to do it. After the warehouse was finished, I returned to the resting place and found Arin busy cooking dinner.
After cleaning up and waiting, the food was ready, and we ate and rested immediately. Because this was inside the mine, I forgot that there was no sunlight here. I forgot about time and slept without thinking about anything for almost 24 hours after using up almost all my magic power to prepare this mine. Arin was the same; she didn't move from the bed after cooking dinner for me yesterday. I made a clock to know the time from inside the mine. Because it could be dangerous without a clock hahaha. We could enjoy sleeping all day.
With the clock, we were very helped to return to normal activities. Since I left, the mine has been operating normally. Even though I left, the golem leader could easily manage the other golems. Is this what they call a true leader?
Arin and I tried to see the contents of the warehouse, curious about the results that the golems had collected. And surprisingly, in these two days, half of the large warehouse I made was already filled with pure gold chunks. I didn't expect the golems' performance to be so extraordinary.
"Nima, actually I don't want to be surprised anymore by your actions, but this... this is too amazing," she was surprised by the sight of pure gold mountains in front of her. Well, even though there's still a lot of dirt.
"Have you never seen the gold mining process? This is what you use for buying and selling and then making coins," I said.
"Well, I know, but the location of the gold mine is very secret for the general public, only the workers and the kingdom managing the asset know," she replied.
"Can a trading business have permission to manage a gold mine independently?" I asked curiously.
"Of course, I don't know if you know this or not. But ownership of a gold mine in this world is given to anyone who finds it first. And if the one who finds the mine is an ordinary person without much money to manage the mine, he can sell it to the nobles or the kingdom or with profit sharing. But it's different if the one who finds it is the kingdom, of course, it will be managed directly by the kingdom because the mine is very valuable."
"Well, of course, it's valuable. This is what drives the economy. Thanks for the information, Arin, turns out the knowledge of a mithril-ranked adventurer is extraordinary haha."
"Of course, adventuring without knowing anything is very dangerous."
"I forgot to mention, but there is another way to seize a mine, which is through violence. That's the most common and usual way. The security percentage of mines managed by the kingdom is the highest because of strict security throughout the mine area."
"Of course, it must be like that hahaha."
"You are really amazing to have a skill that can find precious metals in the ground."
"I'm lucky," I answered, turning my face away.