The five acolytes took turns in mining while the three acolytes from Zaiueo mostly fought the incoming level 3 ugly creatures. Once they had finished one deposit, which didn't offer a lot of titanium to be extracted, they moved on trying to find more of the large black rock that had spots of silver-colored substance on the hill.
Whenever it wasn't Emery's turn to mine, he watched the three Zaiueons and became even more impressed as time passed by. He was extremely fascinated by their usage of the unique weapon called firearm, which was very useful on its own, but the way they also communicated using hand signals as they took the lead in scouting and eliminating the skyglazers that came their wave, making their movements efficient in setting up ambushes. The hand signals appeared to be a universal knowledge in their world.
In addition, another interesting fact was that during one of their searches for more deposits, the three Zaiueons had mentioned they had only met each other in the Magus Academy like how Emery and his friends had met each other. Hence, Emery and his friends thought all of the people in their world looked the same. But if so, then how could they even distinguish a person they knew from someone they didn't? Julian had tried to get an answer from Zuna. Zuna pointed to a specific part of Zidi and Zaku's faces, saying it was their distinguishing feature. However, when the rest of the group looked at the pointed part, they couldn't see anything different even after squinting their eyes to the hardest they could! It was virtually impossible for Emery and the others to identify who was which.
After spending more than three hours on the hill, they had managed to take out more than 300 skyglazers. However, the total collection of titanium from them had only reached 1 ton.
"Only a ton of titanium and a hundred plus spirit stones, the task is actually harder than I thought," said Thrax, stretching out his sore limbs from hitting the hard lump of rock with the pickaxe.
"Well it's not really hard, but it's quite a chore," said Klea on the other side of the crumpled black rock who was sweating all over, making her exotic bronze face glisten.
They wanted to switch places again since everything here had been depleted of the black rocks that had titanium but as they got ready to leave the area, a high pitched wailing resounded from the previous deposit they had finished before this one.
Hiding themselves on the corner of the rock valley, they peeked on the edge and saw that the wail came from the dozen of odd looking creatures that looked like a blob of greenish water with two eyes on the front. It had a gooey texture and moved by spreading out its boneless body on the ground and pulling it back together.
Klea seemed to have shuddered as she said, "I'm starting to hate this place even more. What's that disgusting creature!"
"It looks like that's the other creature we should look out for according to the bartender," said Emery calmly. He checked the symbol on his hand, scanned the new creature and a piece of information appeared.
[Duma]
[Level 5 beast]
[Battle power 50]
"Yes, that's the one," confirmed Emery with a nod. He put away the information and turned to others asking, "Should we go back then?"
From the information, these creatures were scavengers. They had an excellent sense of smell dedicated to sniffing out carcasses and fresh blood, which was their main diet. The group watched as one of the blobs rolled over one of the skyglazers carcass into its semi-transparent body and melted the flesh of the skyglazer within seconds, turning it into bones before spitting it out and moving to the next carcass.
"We should test its power first. See if we can manage to defeat one. Shouldn't trust a stranger that easily, I guess," suggested Zuna, placing a fresh ion battery on the firearm. Zaku and Zidi did the same.
Repositioning themselves behind another large yellowish rock, Zuna, Zaku and Zidi aimed their firearms at a lone duma and then fired simultaneously! Three bursts of light punctured holes at the greenish body of the duma, that however, didn't seem enough to kill it, as expected of a level 5 beast. The three once more fired simultaneously but after dozens of shots, riddling it with holes, the monster was still alive and started to crawl toward them. As it neared, they could see the holes the bursts of lights had made seemed to be filled up with the rest of its greenish texture after a few seconds.
Zuna placed the firearm back in his storage ring. He raised his hand and the wind surrounding them converged onto a ball on the top of his palm, he then threw it at the monster and the wind transformed into a sickle-like shape. The tier 3 spell [Wind blade] went right in the middle of the duma and the lone duma became two pieces, slicing the monster in half! They had thought it was dead, however, its two pieces suddenly twitched and it crawled toward each other and became whole again!
Seeing that the duma was still alive, Klea issued her strongest spell and shot out the [Lightning bolt] with loud crackling. The duma stopped and issued a high pitched wailing, it seemed to have been hurt but after it finished shivering and the lighting dissipated, the blob continued crawling over the next skyglazer carcass as if it hadn't suffered any sort of damage.
They watched as it once again swallowed another carcass and turned it into another pile of bones. It moved slowly as the information had mentioned and indeed could be dangerous if they were caught into its body. It being a level 5 beast was not for show as the two spells it had just taken were tier 3 spells from rank 6 acolytes.
This, however, seemed to rile up Thrax who had been wanting to do some more fighting on top of the three hundred skyglazers they had eliminated. He summoned this time a long spear and raised it above his head. Thrax then used for the first time a tier 2 fire spell [Fire infusion], which enhanced the weapon's attack, burning the whole spear.
He ran with a loud battlecry toward the blob, ignoring Julian's warning to stop what he was doing. As he neared, the blob seemed to have finally noticed Thrax's presence and it wailed with its high pitched sound. Thrax almost stumbled but continued moving forward and thrust the burning spear into the insides of the lone duma.
The creature wiggled like how it had reacted when Klea had struck it with her lightning bolt. However, after a second, the creature again gave out another high pitch wailed, making Thrax drop to his knee.
It turned its attention to the stunned Thrax and spread out its gooey body, seemingly wanting to swallow Thrax. Everyone had seen how it could melt any flesh into bones in an instant. Thrax was in a dangerous situation. But then, without anyone realizing it. Chumo appeared behind Thrax and snatched him just before the duma landed on where Thrax had been kneeling stunned. Chumo ran back to the group with Thrax in tow.
The duma seemed to have lost interest since it didn't chase and proceeded to make its way slowly toward the nearest carcass. From this exchange, they concluded that attacks with elemental damage such as fire or lightning were able to hurt it. Wind, however, was an exception.
Not far from the lone duma were still more blobs of the gooey creature and even further than that, a dozen more seemed to have been attracted to the carcasses of the skyglazers. It looked like they would have to find another spot with lesser carcasses or wait it up until the creatures had finished feeding off the carcasses.
For now, the group decided to go down the hill to discuss and regroup. After having spent at least three hours alternating between mining and fighting, with the rate at which they were going, they needed to come up with a more efficient strategy in battling and gathering the material to finish it within 48 hours.
The group found a hidden spot at the foot of the hill wherein it provided cover against the burning sun above. Staying on an open location of a savage planet where beasts could be lurking around the corner wasn't a good idea after all. Once they had made sure the place was secure, they checked how many spirit stones and titanium they had managed to gather so far.
There were one-hundred-twenty spirit stones in total, dividing it into eight people, it was fifteen stones each person. As for the titanium, it was also shared equally among them. They put down their numbers and it looked like some had managed to mine more than others.
From the total 1.5 ton they stored collectively on their rings, apparently one-third of them was gathered by Emery. And just like, with a unanimous vote, Emery had been assigned as the dedicated miner.
