Project Daily Grind (Mirror World Book #1) (9 page)

Chapter Nine

M
y first step into the dark depths of the cave was wary. It might have been a game but it felt just as spooky as in real life.

Once I blinked the darkness from my eyes, I realized that I could see perfectly well in the gloom. It must have been one of my racial properties. The mine that looked so scary and damp on the outside turned out to be warm and inviting. I remembered reading that the Ennans were natural cave dwellers. The game developers had apparently paid great attention to detail. Wonders will never cease! I'd never been known to enjoy closed spaces but here I was, loving the dark confines of the cave.

The abandoned location was in complete disarray. Oh well. Apparently agate wasn't the flavor of the day. Just my luck.

Yes! I saw my first stone! I took a powerful swing with the pick and grunted victoriously as I buried its blade in the ground. I tried to pull it out—no way. Admittedly, this was the first time I had ever had to handle one. I'd even watched a couple of online tutorials the previous night explaining how to use a pick.

As I repeatedly pulled at the handle, I began to panic. What had I thought I'd been doing, choosing this as my trade of choice? A Gardener or a Street Sweeper sounded much more like myself. But no, I'd had to join the Mine Diggers, then sign the most lethal of contracts.

Cursing myself to hell and back, I spent the next five minutes trying to prize the wretched pick free. The freakin' stone would not give. With an angry gasp, I dropped to the ground, about to howl like a wolf. No amount of four-letter words could express the degree of my agony. Wretched Mine Digger!

Mine Digger? That rang a bell. I frowned, trying to remember... got it!

I opened the info portal and selected the Apps tab. Where was it now?

There!

The Merry Digger bot

Price: 3 gold

Download: Yes/No

Yes.
I downloaded and opened it. I thought I'd go mad in the time it took the program to install. Finally, it was ready. I pressed
Run.

Greetings, Olgerd!

This is Merry Digger!

Please select mode:

Economy Mode

Rational Mode

Speed Mode

No Mercy Mode. Warning: Not Recommended!

I'd have to do it by trial and error. I forced a nervous grin. Then again, why not? That's exactly how jurors are elected, isn't it? Actually, it was irrelevant. I had to test this bot now.

I selected Economy Mode.

Please wait. Data analysis in progress.

The bot took over my body. It turned me around in the air, then froze me in place.

Data analysis completed.

Resources found in this location: agate.

Quantity: 2456 pcs.

So! And I'd only noticed one stone!

Would you like to calculate the time necessary to farm this resource?

That was useful. I pressed
Confirm.

Please wait. Data analysis in progress.

Data analysis completed.

Economy Mode: 29 hrs 48 min (time calculated without the use of elixirs, with occasional breaks for energy restoration)

Rational Mode: 15 hrs 12 min (with a minimum of 1 elixir; no breaks allowed)

Speed mode: 7 hrs 15 min (with a minimum of 2 elixirs; no breaks allowed)

No Mercy Mode: analysis failed. 85% probability of total energy depletion before farming process is completed.

Would you like to choose Economy Mode?

So that's how it was, then. This bot only gave me a 15% chance of not popping my clogs in the process of farming this wretched agate. Shame I couldn't check the approximate output and timeframe just for future reference. Apparently, the game developers were playing it safe. If not, why would they have created this No Mercy mode at all? By the same token, even cigarette packs came with warnings and all sorts of blood-curdling little graphics.

Let's give it a think. My contract specified that I’d be paid six and a half gold per thousand of resource value. Plus an extra percent for the resource's rarity. Last night I'd checked the auction prices for zero-level stones. Prices per thousand were eighty to a hundred gold. Ironically, Agate was one of the cheapest. Which only served to prove my [insert air quotes] remarkable good luck and observation skills. Or their complete lack thereof. What had I been doing, plunging into the mine head first without first checking which locations had turquoise and aquamarine?

Today I'd have to work here, but the following morning I was definitely going to search for turquoise.

According to Rrhorgus, the best I could make in a week was two hundred gold after taxes. If you deducted the expenses, then in order to make thirty gold a day I'd have to farm about forty-five hundred stones. Which meant brandishing my pick in Speed Mode for fifteen hours or so.

Oh. They might just as well bury me right here. Having said that... I remembered how I'd spent several months in Spain as a student, working in a field. We used to harvest onions. I still have dreams of those never-ending fields. You placed a six-gallon plastic basket between your feet, bent your body until your torso was parallel to the ground and started moving forward in a half-squatting position, wearing out a pair of thick leather gloves a day. The scorching Spanish sun blazed away overhead, a behemoth tractor followed you unhurriedly while you scooped the onions filling your basket, then poured them into the tractor's bottomless bucket. In order to earn five thousand pesetas—which had been the equivalent of twenty-five US dollars at the time—we all had to meet a quota of seven tons each.

I still shuddered remembering my first days at work. My muscles hadn't hurt anymore. My bones had. We slept on average four or five hours a night. Still, I'd made it. My body had been young and I'd been reckless enough to eagerly test its limits.

Ironically, now I'd ended up in a game where I'd have to live up to my old feat. My face dissolved into a smile. They say that the virtual world makes everything possible. Still, my virtual body's stats didn't offer much against the old me—the real-life Grinder of flesh and blood, young, reckless and tough.

I heaved a sigh and selected Speed Mode. After a thirty-second pause, my body began to move toward the pick still stuck in the rock.

It came out with surprising ease. I hadn't even made any considerable effort. It felt almost like cheating.

The thought surprised me. Was I going slightly mad? Sveta was going to laugh her socks off when I told her. Was I cheating on myself?

While I was thus busy soul-searching, my bot had already produced five little stones. No—six!

You've received a resource: Agate.

You've received +1 to your skill.

Yesterday morning I might have been dancing around the room, overjoyed, but today all that forum-reading had left its mark. Even a noob like myself gains a bit of confidence having spent some quality online time perusing the wealth of blogs, guides and user's manuals.

All of them claimed that although profession leveling in Mirror World was admittedly boring and mind-numbing, at the end of the day it paid for itself. Provided you did level up, of course. Zero-level resources only provided the base of your future prosperity. Farming them was in equal doses important, dangerous, cheap and tedious.

Location owners were the only people who profited from start-up resources. Forum members engaged in lukewarm discussions saying that it wasn't fair when one had everything and all the rest had to bust their guts for him for peanuts. They were predictably told that no one prevented players from buying Gold plans and paying extra for their choice of minerals, then they'd be all set to make a quick buck.

When the game had only just started, they apparently used to have some sort of a free zone. Still, it didn't last. The stronger players formed several powerful clans and indulged in turf wars, plunging the area into the Middle Ages. The game developers' mail boxes were snowed under by tens of thousands of complaints and letters of protest against this breach of justice. As I'd read these forum comments, I'd been dying to add my two cents and ask them if they thought there was any difference between Mirror World and real life. Did they really think there were any unclaimed territories left on Earth? Didn't the whole world abide by the same principle,
one man rakes it in while millions have to toil
? And where could I find an admin to complain to about this disparity?

Not everyone had been interested in joining clans, and not all clans could boast any clout. Still, everyone needed to level up professions: this was one thing you couldn't get around. Either the admins felt the pressure from all the complaints or for whatever reasons of their own, but they'd created a large gaming territory and packed it chock full of mobs, resources and all sorts of instances. Now anyone could take the risk of visiting the new neutral zone nicknamed No-Man’s Lands in order to farm a rare piece of armor, an expensive resource or just earn a few week-long injuries.

Congratulations! You've received a resource: Agate

You've received +1 to your Skill

Excellent. This was a good start. Forum gurus had warned newbs against celebrating too soon when their skill began to grow after the first few farmed resources. Apparently, the first ten points came relatively quickly, but after that, a player would hit a plateau when he would have to pay with his own blood (sometimes literally) for every point earned. The overall advice was to
be patient, make sure you ate well and above all, keep your head on
.

Only when I'd read this did I begin to realize the significance of my additional skills. In light of this, I was even more surprised why no one had chosen an Ennan as their char.

Your bag is full!

The moment the message popped up, the Merry Digger bot turned my body around to face the exit. I decided not to resist it. I was quite curious about what I was supposed to do next. I hadn't even had time to mull over anything—and I'd already farmed forty stones! I dreaded to think how long it would have taken me without this undoubtedly useful app.

Two Skill points into the kitty.

I left the cave and headed for the terminal. A message appeared on the screen,

Greetings, Olgerd!

Would you like to declare your resource? Name: Agate. Quantity: 40 pcs.

I pressed
Confirm
.

As I waited, I watched my Energy bar grow. The bot knew what it was doing.

Thank you for your work! You now have 40 pcs. of Agate.

Rinse and repeat. My body turned round and headed for a new helping of pale blue stones the size of a small cantaloupe melon. Had I farmed turquoise, I wouldn't have had to spend so much energy—according to forum posts, it was even smaller. I definitely had to find a turquoise mine first thing tomorrow.

* * *

...Six hours of work had flown by. I had eighteen hundred-plus stones in the kitty. Skill level 6. Plus 1 point to Shrewd Operator. As for True Heroes Take Devious Routes, I was in for a surprise. Five out of eighteen attempts had been successful, raising my Shrewd Operator skill to 15. And this was only my first day at work! I could literally feel my virtual heart jumping in my chest with joy.

How had they created this illusion? Or was it my mind playing up? My own heart was far away now, deep inside my physical body floating in that gelatinous goo.

Your energy level has dropped to 40.

Would you like to drink a Stamina elixir: Yes/No

Tick the box if you don't want to see this message again.

I confirmed elixir drinking but I wasn't going to tick any boxes. I wasn't going to give this bot any more independence than was absolutely necessary. I preferred keeping an eye on everything myself.

The contents of the fat vial proved tasteless. Once I'd drunk it, the vial disappeared, leaving me for some glass blower who too had to level up his or her chosen profession.

* * *

... I'd been at it for thirteen hours now. The location's resources kept restoring promptly. It had been two hours since I'd drunk the second vial. My energy kept dropping, and even my frequent stops by the terminal didn't help anymore. It was probably my physical body reminding me of itself. I was pretty sure that if I drank another elixir, its effect wouldn't last for longer than an hour. Now I understood the connection between our physical and virtual bodies like never before. Or was it again my mind playing up?