12 Digging to the End of the World

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The variety of tools available in the storage room of White Rock Church far exceeded Cen Jiu’s expectations: pickaxes for mining, iron axes for chopping, iron hoes for planting… She even found a rusty iron flail whose purpose she couldn’t discern. Judging by the condition of the items and the surroundings, the area seemed relatively peaceful… right?

Cen Jiu selected a pick mattock from among them. With limited backpack space and bulky tools, she could only bring a few items. Her top priority now was to gather materials; she could explore other tasks later.

Exiting the church grounds, she studied the map and headed straight for the town entrance, mindful of the loot she had yet to collect. Leaving it behind would be disrespectful!

There was no teleportation mechanic in the game, nor any means of transportation. After mentally noting "no teleport function" on her feedback list, Cen Jiu resigned herself to running all the way back to the town gate.

Passing the land she had purchased, she observed it from a distance. The area was covered with dense vegetation, situated on higher ground, bordering a riverbank and forest—a very favorable location.

It was truly excellent. Her desire to build surged within her, and she was eager to start constructing her home there.

But before that, she needed to confirm the game’s respawn mechanics.

...

She ran the entire way without encountering a single soul. Although she saw many small animals in the bushes along the path, they all scattered the moment she approached.

“Definitely not like the bread-begging birds outside…” Cen Jiu missed again. The game’s birds moved nimbly and were highly wary of humans. She found herself nostalgic for the bold, thieving fat pigeons of reality.

After multiple failed attempts to catch small animals along the way, Cen Jiu returned to the town entrance.

The battlefield was utterly clean—no corpses of fallen characters, no dropped items. Only faint brownish bloodstains on the white rocks testified that a fight had taken place.

Cen Jiu circled around, scrutinizing the area. Aside from the blood, there was truly nothing else. Had she triggered some mysterious side quest prerequisite? Perhaps a large beast had devoured someone and taken all their belongings?

Recalling the sea monster on the ship and the wooden stakes effective against it, Cen Jiu thought it wasn’t impossible for a legendary magical creature to appear. Yet, there were no supernatural clues in the vicinity. According to game design logic, they couldn’t have wasted such a classic horror setup, right?

Changing her perspective, Cen Jiu considered another possibility: maybe items dropped in this game respawned, but the bloodstains faded much more slowly. That made sense; sacrificing a bit of user experience for high gameplay freedom was acceptable.

She was quite satisfied with the game’s graphics and character interactions so far. The respawn of uncollected items was still within her tolerance.

The scimitar wasn’t too valuable, so it pained her to use it for experiments. She resolved to pick up important items promptly in the future.

However, only about four hours had passed in game time. The respawn speed of dropped items was much faster than she had expected. She wondered if the respawn was triggered by her moving a certain distance away.

Cen Jiu mentally marked the game’s “item respawn mechanics” with a question mark and planned to ask the liaison staff from Seven-Colored Strings after logging out.

Putting that question aside for now, she had to start mining materials—for her grand house!

The nearest building stone quarry marked on the map was northwest, at the northern edge of White Rock Town.

After running for about half an hour in game time, she was close to the quarry. The wide stone-paved road beneath her feet had turned into stone rails for transporting minerals, laid only on both sides.

The cracked rails had many repair marks, and the well-trodden soil in the middle bore many shoe prints, indicating frequent use by miners.

Footsteps approached from ahead. Cen Jiu finally encountered a living person since leaving the church and silently hoped it was a miner.

If so, she could discuss hiring them. Surely this game wouldn’t expect her to gather all materials alone? She still had some spare money in her bag; buying construction materials and hiring help should be doable.

If possible, she preferred to explore the map rather than endlessly gather resources herself.

Coincidentally, the group wore uniforms she recognized—the same as those worn by Ortega’s guards.

Not miners, then. What time was it? Still not off duty? Cen Jiu’s face fell.

The guards opposite stopped as they saw her alone. A stranger appearing on Ortega’s exclusive land was suspicious, but seeing her disappointment, they doubted she was an intruder.

“Hey, little girl? Adventurer?” The leading guard spoke politely, mistaking her for someone looking for a person. “What are you doing around here? If you’re looking for someone, you’ve come to the wrong place. This is Ortega’s territory. If you have no business, please leave quickly.”

No wonder they required passes—security here was tight.

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Cen Jiu cursed inwardly but promptly presented her pass to the guards. “I’m collecting building materials.”

The guards verified the pass’s authenticity and exchanged glances.

Someone really was buying land here?!

Cen Jiu seized the opportunity to gather information. “But I’m limited on my own. Do you know where I can hire miners or buy building materials?”

“There’s no large material supply store here. As for the miners, they only return to town at night,” the lead guard answered seriously, reminding her to be cautious about contracts. “Little girl, if you want to hire miners for raw material extraction, you need Mr. Ortega’s approval.”

And she actually believed that “discount” and came to collect materials herself…

The guards looked at Cen Jiu as if a legendary figure had appeared before them.

Feeling all eyes on her, Cen Jiu assumed it was routine scrutiny and didn’t mind. She took the initiative to ask, “Can I go now? I’m in a hurry.”

“Of course…” The guards stepped aside. “We’ll patrol nearby, but be careful, little girl.”

They were extra watchful of such a young, naive person—they knew if anything happened, her family would complain.

Thinking this was just polite game dialogue, Cen Jiu replied courteously, “Thank you!”

She bid farewell and didn’t run far before reaching her destination. The game interface popped up a notification.

[You have discovered a new location: White Rock Abandoned Quarry]

[Map information updated]

Before her stretched an empty open-air quarry. The mining area was arranged in neat, tiered steps carved into the mountainside. Mining tools were carelessly piled under drafty tents, covered in rust and dust.

Silva’s claim about the map being outdated was true—the information was really obsolete!

Not a single living character was in sight… no one to ask for intel. Cen Jiu guessed most miners had moved on to extract more valuable metal ores.

The map indicated several silver mines further into the mountains.

They were probably Ortega’s too; otherwise, why would patrols guard an abandoned quarry?

That old man was really wealthy… Thinking about how he’d squeezed her until only a few coins were left in her bag, Cen Jiu angrily swung her pick mattock and began mining.

Her mining technique was unrefined—just swinging the tool forcefully against the rock. Her understanding of the game’s resource collection mechanics was still rooted in past farming survival games, where as long as the player performed the action, the system automatically considered it done.

[You have learned a new skill: Mining]

[Granite Stone (small): usable for construction.]

After roughly breaking off a few small stone pieces with brute force, Cen Jiu stopped.

Something was off. Her mining was too slow—she had to strike three or four times to get a single piece, and her stamina was draining faster than expected.

Her stamina bar had already fallen to half; she needed to conserve energy.

Recalling how the game’s free-action cooking system gave skill experience when the character applied real-world knowledge to complete dishes, raising her cooking skill from zero to level two, she wondered if other skills had similarly detailed judgments.

She had mined several stones already, but her mining skill experience was still almost zero, far from leveling up.

Determined, Cen Jiu studied the quarry and planned to start mining from the easier parts—the last mining spots before abandonment.

She refined her pick swinging, using more efficient techniques: core power from her waist, leveraging gravity, focusing her mind and breath in sync with her actions.

“Clang—!”

With one strike, the rock shattered.

Her stamina bar barely dropped.

Encouraged, Cen Jiu repeated the technique, quickly breaking two more stones.

[Your mining level has increased to level two!]

Skilled mining had rapidly raised her level, but from level two onward, the experience needed grew significantly. At the current experience yield per stone, she’d need to mine over a hundred pieces.

Mining a hundred stones was no problem for Cen Jiu, but her backpack was an issue.

Clearly, the inventory system didn’t allow stacking of items. She had to find a way to transport the stones back to her land.

She glanced at the tools under the quarry tents and saw a toppled cart.

She tried pushing it; it creaked but moved steadily.

The cart was a bit worn but functional.

Feeling justified, Cen Jiu stacked the stones onto the cart. After all, these tools were meant for players. Besides, the game rules allowed players to use resources on old lands within a time limit. Borrowing an unused cart was perfectly reasonable!

The cart wasn’t full, so Cen Jiu continued mining efficiently. The distance to her land was about twenty minutes, so maximizing efficiency before pushing the cart back was best.

Soon, under her high-efficiency mining, the cart was piled full.

On the way back, she encountered no one. She wondered if meeting guards was preset for first-time scene entry or random. If random, their patrol range was impressively large, as she hadn’t met any others.

Cen Jiu unloaded the stones on her land and pushed the empty cart back.

As dusk fell, game time approached evening. She noticed she had a bit over a quarter of her stamina left and decided to mine a little more before returning to the church to rest. Maybe she’d meet miners returning to town.

“Clang!—clang!!”

Almost there—just a bit more.

She ate some berries from her backpack to restore stamina, planning to mine just a little more.

While repeating her work, she listened to the radio she had deliberately tuned in to, immersing herself to endure the game’s unaccelerated gathering pace.

One last stone, and the cart would be full!

Cen Jiu ate the last berry and prepared to head back, expecting to fully use her stamina today.

Raising her pick again, she struck. Black mist spread before her eyes, and a prompt appeared on the game interface.

[You have entered an overexertion state and are about to faint. Forced rest initiated…]

“...?”

Cen Jiu was bewildered. Her status bar showed no fatigue. Why was she about to pass out?

Worse, she had just used up her last food item, with nothing left to replenish.

Could she still enjoy this game?

As the game view faded to black, her character completely lost consciousness.

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