An Owl's Rise

With their plan of action towards the faction that seemed intent on harassing Evelyn, and by extension Bylur and Rehni who were her teammates decided on, Evelyn asked that Bylur show them the equipment that he had obtained to mine the magic crystals.

"I managed to get three devices that are meant to dislodge the crystals from the earth without damaging them. They were quite expensive and apparently use a great deal of magical energy, but they should make the work fairly efficient." Bylur said as he took the magic tools out.

They were not hat Evelyn had been expecting as for some reason she had the image of them using pickaxes and wheelbarrows.

'I suppose that my knowledge from earth do not exactly translate to this world all the time.' Evelyn thought while looking at the magic tools.

They honestly looked more like science fiction technology than items that would be found in a world of magic, but Evelyn had long since gotten over how different the things she encountered in her second life were.

Instead of being like mining equipment she knew about from earth these items were long cylinders with spikes on the end of them.

They apparently would be stabbed into a bare area of rock where the magic crystals had formed and create an oscillation wave that would turn the rock into sand while not harming the magic crystals.

This would allow the crystals to be easily harvested in large qualities as depending on the amount of magical energy used large areas could be carved away all at once.

"Okay, let us begin with the farthest chamber. We want to secure the single silver as well as the purple magic crystals first." Evelyn said as she picked up her mining magic tool.

Bylur and Rehni followed her and the three of them made their way to the innermost area.

Once there they could feel that it had richer ambient magical energy than the majority of the desert thanks to the magic crystals that had formed in it.

"I will grab the silver one. You two focus on the purple ones." Evelyn instructed.

She then flew to the center of the chamber where the lone silver magic crystal jutted out of the ceiling.

It gave off a soft glow and Evelyn could tell that it contained an immense amount of magical energy. Likely more than her body could handle even now without the assistance of the Aethersphere.

'Around here should be good.'

Finding a bare area of earth right next to the silver magic crystal, Evelyn jammed her mining magic tool in with relative ease and began supplying it with her magical energy.

As Bylur had said it consumed a fair amount of magical energy in order to function, but Evelyn had far more than most at her rank and after nearly half a minute she had turned all of the ground around the silver magic crystal to sand and it feel from the circling.

With deft movements she dropped down and grabbed the magic crystal with her free foot and immediately stored it away.

Having secured the most valuable treasure within the magic crystal deposit Evelyn could not help but let a big grin form on her face.

Never had she thought she would come into possession of a silver magic crystal when she was still only at the awakened rank.

'I wonder how many other valuable resources sit underutilized or untapped in this world. The brass jackals were only using this place thanks to the higher amount of ambient magical energy and did not know what they really had. Perhaps I can go around taking out groups that have taken over areas like this and do not know exactly how valuable what they have is?' Evelyn thought.

Certainly, the Roost was a great environment to grow with access to many stable items that all beasts needed, but it did not have certain very rare resources like the stable magic spring. If she wanted to reach her full potential faster, then she would need to go out and find the best resources for herself.

Nevertheless, any grand plans were going to have to wait until she dealt with the faction that had set their sights on her.

She already had the magic crystal mine to deal with and adding anything else to her plate threatened to push her past her limits.

'Now how are Bylur and Rehni doing?'

Turning her head, she looked towards her friends to see how they were progressing.

Currently they had mined around half of the purple magic crystals, but they were starting to run low on magical energy.

"I think that is good enough for now. Let us collect the magic crystals you both dislodged before continuing." Evelyn suggested.

Bylur and Rehni were thankful for the break and leisurely they sifted through the sand that had fallen to the floor of the chamber and pulled out the purple magic crystals.

Time went on as they would mine until they had about twenty percent of their magical energy left and then took a break while collecting the magic crystals they had dislodged.

Soon they had gathered all fifty-eight of the purple magic crystals and were starting to become fairly tired.

'Even I am nearing my limit so they most both be terribly exhausted.' Evelyn thought, looking at her two friends who were trying to act strong despite being on their last legs.

They had not wanted to look weak in front of Evelyn and were determined to keep up with her even if it pushed them past their limits.

"I think that this is more than enough work for today. We have collected the most valuable resources here and can feel satisfied with our progress. Tomorrow we can gather some of the red magic crystals for our own personal use, but there is no current need for us to clear the place out. We will have to come back many times in the future to use the magic spring and can refill our supplies as we need."