Depthless Hunger

Chapter 157: The Truth of the Crystal Mines

At first Kai wondered where the light was coming from, since he didn't see any lanterns, then he realized that the walls themselves glowed softly. They were a dark gray, like the cloudiest quartz, but they were emanating light at such a low level he almost didn't perceive it.

That light allowed him to see the miserable people clustered around him. They certainly looked Krysali when it came to their dusky skin and straight hair, but instead of fine wraps, they had filthy rags hanging off their bones. He hadn't realized just how healthy and well-formed most Krysali were until he saw this group, which ranged from skeletal to the wiry bodies of laborers.

"He could be a crystallier," one of the women whispered to another. "Some kind of test."

"But that injured?" the other said. "He should be dead."

"How do we know? They could have a magic potion to fake it."

When Kai tried to speak his throat hurt and he had to cough before continuing. "I'm not a crystallier," he told them. "Where is this place?"

They drew back at his voice and shuffled nervously, then an old man spoke up. "They call these the N District mines."

"I... don't know what that means. Are you near any city state I might know?"

"We're not part of no city, boy. And now neither are you."

Many of those watching began moving away, now that they'd confirmed there wouldn't be any dramatic surprises. Kai flexed his body and grimaced as he felt the aches through his muscles. He might be intact, but it was going to take a while to fully recover. When he tried to sit up, a middle-aged woman pushed his shoulder - with surprising strength - to keep him down.

"You just stay there and rest up. Take this." She shoved a rough bowl filled with hot liquid into his hands. "Damn hard to get anything into your mouth while you were asleep, so eat up."

The liquid seemed thin and didn't smell particularly good, but Kai's stomach rumbled as soon as he smelled the fatty scent. There was no spoon, so he raised the bowl to his lips and began drinking it directly. While he drank, the woman kept talking.

"The others may not give you their names because they don't trust you yet, but I will. I'm Nanny Troggup, and you'd better remember it. We may not have fancy laws down here like the cities. But folks still need to eat, and I'm the only one who makes sure it happens."

"Thank you." Kai pulled the bowl away long enough to ask a question. "Are all of you really imprisoned down here? I was in Krysal for months and I had no idea..."

"That's the long and short of it. Is what it is." Nanny Troggup shrugged her heavy shoulders. "Some of these folks have never been out, but I used to be a washerwoman in Philaster. Couldn't keep up and got sent down here."

"They told me that criminals got sent to the mines. I guess I shouldn't have believed them..."

"Oh, that happens from time to time. A real bad show for the rest of us, believe me, but they stay away from these parts. Most us were either in here from the beginning or just fell on hard times. You don't keep everyone healthy and happy up there without sending a few below."

Kai finished the bowl and swallowed a few slimy lumps at the bottom, trying not to think about what they might be. A little food only made him more hungry, and he could have eaten ten of the bowls, but it didn't look like there was any more coming.

While he finished, Nanny Troggup kept chattering to him. She seemed to be cutting up some sort of hard root with a stone knife, struggling with each cut. Not because of weakness - her arms were corded with thin muscle - but because the root she was cutting seemed to be barely edible. Half of what she said was just complaining about her aches and pains, or how her son didn't visit her much, or how hard it was to find someone who could do repair work.

Her words left Kai filled with rage and shame.

He'd thought of himself as worldly, capable of traveling to a new nation and adapting, even joining their higher ranks. Maybe his Goralian ideas left him naive, but he'd never even imagined that Krysal would have a system so atrocious. Just how many people were trapped underground in dimly lit mines? Now all the crystals he'd seen, from the sides of airships to the toys of children, seemed much less bright and pure.

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Part of him wanted to get up right that second, run out of the caves and fight his way through anyone who tried to stop him. Kai forced himself to slow down and think, since it was making assumptions that had led him to overlook these people in the first place. Before he took action, he needed to understand what was going on.

The one thing he could control was himself, so Kai started with another look at his soul.

Name: Kai Clanless

Total Power: 228 (110)

Cultivation: Body Refinement 1% (100)

Physique Level: E-4 (92)

Soul Level: 6 (36)

Monstrous Hunger - VIII (theta)

Behemoth's Heart - III (gamma)

Direboar's Strength - VI (zeta)

Isulfr's Bite - V (epsilon)

Tyrant's Claw - IV (delta)

Infernotoad's Burst - III (gamma)

-

Wallcrawler's Feet - I (alpha)

>

For the first time he'd ever seen, his Total Power was rated with a lower number, as if it was worth less. What Suortril had done to him had been designed to destroy him irreparably, so it made sense that he couldn't recover from the damage instantly. He was relatively certain that his strength hadn't been permanently reduced, he was just temporarily weaker.

Based on how he felt, Kai guessed that he might actually be down to the level of a normal crystallier, at least minus his monstrous abilities. Behemoth's Heart was still pumping steadily inside him, working toward full recovery. Perhaps it would be best not to draw on those abilities too hard.

That gave him a time frame: Kai resolved to learn and prepare until his strength was fully restored.

Eventually Nanny Troggup had other work to do and moved away after exhorting him to rest. Kai waited until she was out of sight and then stood up. This part of the cave appeared to be for the sick and dying, and he saw several others sleeping on rags nearby. One woman hacked a nasty cough while another man might just be starving.

If he had any healing skills, Kai might have done something for them. He'd never heard of any healing monsters, and he had no choice but to move on.

Outside the infirmary, if it could be called that, the caverns spread in many directions. Everything he saw looked residential, with miserable people sitting in place or going about their business wearily. The walls were all the same cloudy stone, but he saw more jagged pieces and areas that showed clear signs of human tools. It looked like some of them were working at chopping away one wall to form a new house.

Presumably they lived in this depleted part of the mine. Kai confirmed that theory as he searched further and discovered other corridors that hadn't been smoothed, still jagged with crystals. None of them looked like the qi crystals he'd seen, however, not even in the depleted mine where he'd taken a job. When he experimentally broke off one it proved resistant, as if the mess of stone and quartz on top of it interfered. Now that he thought about it, the Krysali had said something about crystals needing refining.

How many of them could there be in the mines? He'd already seen hundreds of miserable workers and he'd barely begun to explore.

As he wandered through the tunnels, getting his bearings, Kai wondered about what was going on outside. Zae Zin Nim should hopefully be safe for a while, since they had finished off the cultivators, but what would she think about his absence? He feared that Suortril might have tried to attack her before reassuring himself that she hadn't been drained and could have fought back.

If she knew his location, she would find some way to come for him and life might go in a very different direction. Kai decided that he would operate on the assumption that he'd vanished. Suortril might be petty and cruel, but he wasn't stupid enough to leave an obvious trail.

Most of the people Kai passed looked at him suspiciously, for good reason. He was much taller and more muscular than they were, though many of the workers looked strong. When Kai began to examine their souls, he immediately noticed something odd. Instead of trying to look at everyone, he focused on a single worker picking away at a wall.

Name: ???

Total Power: 53

Physique Level: F-8 (46)

Soul Level: 3 (9)

>

The man had a surprisingly high level of Physique for someone who wasn't a trained warrior. When Kai examined the others methodically, he was surprised to find that practically all the workers were in the F ranks. His best theory was that the physical labor involved in their work served as training, but that would have to be tested.

A teenage girl, barely an adolescent, trotted through the room carrying a box. She looked spindly but when he checked her soul he got a shock.

Name: ???

Total Power: 38

Physique Level: F-2 (34)

Soul Level: 2 (4)

>

She had a Power rating of 38, which was more appropriate for an adult. For that matter, it was easy to forget when he was facing warriors regularly, but those who didn't engage in combat rarely had any Soul Levels. Everyone he saw was rated at 2 or 3, which matched some older hunters.

Yet, no matter how many people he looked at, he didn't see a single speck of crystal cultivation. Not one had a Class or any other kind of gift. The workers appeared to be monsters of Physique and yet he wasn't sure how much it helped them. They weren't trained fighters and, despite the Power ratings, he didn't think he would bet on them against Goralian hunters with similar ratings.

If the Krysali underclass had immense strength, they would have already had a successful uprising, so something must be limiting them. Maybe this was just the level of strength required to mine crystals, or maybe there was another piece of the puzzle he hadn't uncovered yet.

Despite everything that had happened, Kai smiled grimly. Time to learn the truth.