"What do you mean by rich" Nathan asked, confused.

  Ruben seemed giddy at the question. Most members of the squad shared looks with each other, joy apparent on their faces and a little bit of relief. The glow of the ore vein in the mine illuminated their faces, making their expressions easy to read.

  "Who wants to take this one?" Ruben asked giddily. "Aye, Pirlo take this one.”

  "Sure pass the lecture to me " the rogue muttered grumpily."So, Tora is the creation energy of the world as we know it, the energy that powers the apocalypse, the catalyst for every skill —"

  "Too slow," Ruben said, interrupting the rogue. "What this old soul trapped in a young body was trying to say is that Tora is dope, bro. It's like this power that is everything and everyone, enhancing our potential and making us better in every way imaginable."

  "That's what I was saying," Pirlo mumbled.

  "But I'm doing it better, anyways. The ore is simply a vessel for the energy. The ore itself doesn't utilize Tora like we do," the berserker pressed on. "It doesn't burn off the energy, converting the energy into another form like other entities do, for example, us humans. We convert that energy into health after leveling up. The system converts that energy into skill books, tomes, treasures, artifacts, strongholds, dungeons, towers, and a lot more."

  "Okay, so it's basically like the ultimate battery?" Nathan asked.

  "Nate, Nate, Nate" Ruben said shaking his head from side to side in mock exasperation. "Tora itself is way more than just a battery, it's the very thing that makes up the world, it's invisible to us humans… well it was but this ore — Tora ore — stores the energy and makes it become more real to us —"

  "What the blabber-mouth is trying to say is that the Tora ore is a physical manifestation of the energy that makes up this world," Ciara said. "It has gone from something intangible to something we can see and touch"

  "Woah, seems deep" Nathan breathed.

  "As I was going to tell you before I was so rudely interrupted," Ruben said, shooting a glare at the mage, much to the amusement of Pirlo who cracked a smile at the irony. " Anyways, that's not everything that Tora ore is, The ore imbued with creation energy itself has become something that is highly sought after, the possibilities of such an ore are endless."

  Nathan could see the look the Berserker was giving him and had to resist the urge to roll his eyes at it, Ruben was eagerly waiting for him to ask about the possibilities of The Tora ore, and as much as he didn't want to give the Berserker the satisfaction he had to admit that he himself was very intrigued and the uses of such a thing was something that he'd pay good money to learn and so he begrudgingly indulged the very willing … teacher.

  "What are the possibilities ?" He asked.

  "Glad you asked," Ruben grinned. "You see my good man, Tora ore is used for crafting exquisite armor and weapons in grades ranging from rare to Legendary. The ore's ability to soak up Tora like a sponge and keep it within itself makes it the perfect metal to craft high-grade weapons from, especially the type of weapons needed to hold runes or powered attacks —"

  "Wait a minute, runes or powered attacks ?" Nathan asked quizzically.

  "Tasha," Ruben called out, glancing at the ranger.

  "Why did you have to draw me into your lecture" she mumbled before facing Nathan. " Yes, runes or etch a sketch. Like the ones on the fireplace are a common thing in the higher grade weapons and armor, most of those runes would be made and activated by mages who choose to take the enchanter class, or blacksmiths with the enchanter's class… basically runes will be handled by enchanters —"

  "But we don't have blacksmith Archetypes " Nathan pointed out " I wasn't offered that Archetype."

  "Well, that's true," The ranger said, after a moment of letting the effects of Nathan's interruption simmer down. "However there are Blacksmith Archetypes, merchanting archetypes, Tailoring Archetypes, and basically a whole lot of archetypes that make surviving an apocalypse a lot harder than it has to be. Those Archetypes are offered to very few inhabitants in every integrated world, usually around seven to ten percent of the world's population are given that choice. Most prefer to go for more practical Archetypes like Ranger, Berserker and the like so the percentage of a world's population that ends up with non-combat related archetypes at the end of selection sits around three to five percent."

  "That low huh" Nathan mused.

  "You can't blame them, the safeguarding lives are even more dependent on others than priests and priestesses, plus most of those archetypes need to be in a stable environment — a stronghold — to actually thrive," Ruben said. " Well, until any of them can afford a mobile version of their workshops. Unfortunately, workshops like that are usually around the Epic to legendary grade so it's definitely not going to happen for them anytime soon."

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  "Pros and Cons, should've gotten a yellow legal pad."

  "Whatever," Tasha said, " As I was saying, runes belong to enchanters, powered attacks on the other hand are a different matter altogether. When it comes to storing attacks in weapons or armor there is a constraint, the weapon or armor must be soul-bound to a single person, meaning that no other person can utilize the weapon or armor to its full potential except the one soul-bound to it, for anyone else it'd just be an ordinary piece of equipment."

  "So the weapon or armor becomes useless after whoever is soul-bound to it dies?" Nathan asked.

  "Not necessarily," Diane chipped in; the priestess had been quiet for the most part. "A soulbound weapon or armor can become semi-sentient or sentient given enough time with the one they are soul-bound to. After death, the weapon or armor would have gained an imitation of a soul and become sentient enough to choose the new owner to bind themselves to."

  "Wow, that's a lot of information," Nathan breathed. "Question, you said the weapons can become sentient; what does that mean?"

  It had been one of the things that had been bugging him for a while; he wasn't sure what semi-sentient meant, but he had an inkling. A weapon or armor becoming fully sentient, on the other hand, was something that was mind-boggling, to say the least, and he had to confirm if his understanding of the subject was in line with what was the actual reality of the situation.

  "It'd become able to communicate to the wielder or wearer, and it'll grow a personality probably just like Rubens and annoy everyone," Daniel said.

  An overexaggerated mock expression of hurt crossed Rubens's face at the jab, but no one paid any attention to the Berserker's act, causing the teen to drop the act, disappointment evident on his face, but Nayhwn didn't know if that was an act too.

  "You wound me, Daniel," Ruben said. "Anyways, that's it for weapons and armor. I trust that you don't have any other questions on the subject.?"

  "Nope."

  He did have more questions on the subject but at the moment it wouldn't do to push forward by asking questions that would just derail into interesting but ultimately unimportant and time-consuming information.

  "Great, onto the next slide," Ruben grinned. "So armor and weapons aren't the only major uses of Tora ore, just the most common. Tora ore is also used to power ships and floating pagodas."

  Pagodas?.

  "What the hell is a pagoda?" he asked.

  "It's more of a flying island or a stronghold; it's purchasable for A-ranked strongholds," Ruben chuckled.

  Well, shit. Nathan grimaced; his stronghold was currently only F grade at the moment, meaning that he was very far away from having anything close to a flying stronghold, which was a shame, as something like that would be really cool. Why would he need a way to get off the island if he could just travel around using the island itself?

  That's certainly something to look forward to in the future.

  "So Tora ore is the real deal, "Nathan said.

  "Ding, ding, ding, and we have a winner," Ruben said. "In truth, it's more like what backs the Ra'hal coins, just like gold did the US dollars."

  "So what's the worth of this mine?" Nathan asked, eager to crunch numbers.

  "In dollars, about five billion; in Ra'hal coins, about four to six million," Ciara said.

  "Damn, we really are rich."

  Nathan's eyes widened like saucers at the figures the mage had just said out loud; sure, dollars weren't the currency in use anymore, but a comparison like that was setting off bells in his head. Three billion dollars was a lot of money, comparable to the contents of a whole vault belonging to the world powers of the old world. Of course, the system had done away with that currency, making things like dollars worthless, maybe even gold too.

  But Tora ore, this is the new gold.

  The blue glow reflected on his face, pulsating just like Nathan's heart was at his new reality, from flipping signs to becoming part owner of a mine worth about five hundred lifetimes of him flipping signs on a corner. He liked this new world, and a part of Nathan hated himself for it; so many people were dying every day in this godforsaken apocalypse, and it was still money that was on everyone's mind. Sure, the currency changed, but the concept had remained, and so had the greed.

  "So who exactly do we sell to?" Nathan asked.

  "Merchants, Blacksmiths… Miners," Pirlo said. "I wouldn't go with the last option due to obvious reasons."

  Nathan nodded his head sagely at the rogue's words; blacksmiths and merchants it was going to be, although at the moment he hadn't seen anyone or anything with those particular archetypes, and he highly doubted that he'd see anyone on the island, and if they couldn't get to him, he'd have to get to them, and he might just have a means; reaching into his bag of holding, he brought out an item that caused Ruben to gasp dramatically.

  " Nathan's got a Racron ship," Ruben gasped.

  He wondered how the Berserker had managed to identify the ship since he hadn't even held it up for anyone to see what it was.

  He found out the answers a couple of moments later when he analyzed it himself.

  [ Racron ship:

  This is a deep-water transportation vessel, equipped with golems for running the ship. This vessel requires Tora Ore to be operated.]

  "More and more surprises; today might just be blessed." Tasha grinned.

  It must be.

  "Let me guess, it's just like the vats?" Nathan asked.

  "Ayee, look at that, my first student already coming to the right conclusions on his own," Ruben said. "Yep, it's compressed as it is; there's the decompression rune, but I won't be activating that till we're out of here."

  "That checks out," Nathan nodded in agreement. "Alright, let's leave the mine; I have one more thing to show you guys before we call it a day."

  A few grumbles echoed in the group, but no words were spoken. Nathan led them out of the mine and into the warehouse that contained the mined Tora ore, causing the squad to exclaim in surprise and joy.

  "It's a lot of Tora. We are so fucking rich!!!" Ruben screamed.

  "Relax, Ruben," Nathan said to the giddy Berserker before turning to face the rest of the squad. "So that's it for the miner's settlement. What do you guys think we should do?"

  "Return to Blood Rock Wash and get some sleep," Pirlo muttered.

  "What about the mine? The Tora?" Nathan asked.

  "We leave them for later," the rogue raised a hand to quell any objections. "We're the only sentient creatures left on the island, and we just finished decimating a camp filled with gremlins, dwarves, and demons. What other thing can challenge us?"