Aimless Ascension

?My stay in the underground facilities finally came to an end. Hold your horses! I haven't managed to escape. It was just that they had enough fun with me already.

After the Oldman had roughened me up with his vast magical power, they mostly left me to my devices. Almost like before, though, they stopped feeding me the blue potion. Perhaps I have angered the Oldman, and he decided it was a waste of his resources to use the potion on this ungrateful boy.

Mind you, I was a boy back then. Perhaps a few months older than you now, Linlin.

I'm saying this only for you to understand that many of the decisions I made back then were profoundly stupid. Well, I was stupid and hopelessly optimistic, even after my torturous experience.

In the back of my mind, I still thought they had some purpose in doing all this. Like why feed me healing potions if not for some experiment to see how good the portions were, or if they had some side effects? It wasn't every day they came across free slaves to do experiments on.

Well, for them, they do come across free slaves to experiment on every day.

They summon it from alternative dimensions every day.

While most of their summons were unsuccessful, however, every now and then, they succeeded and can have a mangled, torn bloke to show as a result.

I have seen plenty of corpses to conclude they weren't particularly good at this summoning business.

Anyway, I was bedridden for two whole days before I could twitch a little. Oh, by bed, I meant the hot stone ground, obviously.

After I could barely move, they had enough of me and decided to send me somewhere else. Thankfully, I wasn't alone on this journey. Apart from the guards, there were two more fellas. We'll get to that soon enough.

They had blindfolded me on this trip just to be certain I didn't use my big brain to memorise the path and found my way back to this hellhole.

I mean, were they stupid? Why would I want to go out of my way to return here? To get beaten up more?

Do they consider me a sadistic, masochistic bitch like themselves?

Well, even if they left me open, I don't think I could remember all the twists and turns they had to take to get me out of there. Still, I was relieved that they blindfolded me. My thought process was: since they bother to take this precaution, their intention shouldn't be to kill me.

I didn't see any reason for them to free me either, nor did I possess any other qualities for any other possibilities, save for being a lab rat.

However, I was delighted that my days as a lab rat had finally ended.

"Achievement unlocked! Just ten days into the mysterious world of magic, and you managed to lift your position from a Lowly Lab Rat to a Lowly Slave Miner."

That had earned me a kick in the butt. I squirmed on the new ground as nobody came to help me out. Apparently, the guards didn't understand my humour; well, it wasn't their fault. They hardly knew our language and culture.

However, the other two earthlings with me were impassive too at my joke. They were too worn out to do more than lift an eyebrow in my direction. Well, one of them was my predecessor, the insane Bardi Tuon Sai. Failure 303.

While the other person was another man in his middle-aged years, his number was Tuon Siani, which was 316. Only three survivors from the numbers 303 to 316.

He was barely here for a day and didn't have to go through the ball-crushing ritual even once. He was one lucky fella. I was completely envious of his fortune. He just got in, had a healing potion and slept for the whole day, and now he was here with us.

He skipped the torture quest altogether. I wish I had known about this cheat a few days ago.

Well, his condition still seemed severe. I wasn't particularly certain who between us two was more mangled when we first arrived here, but to my credit, I healed better than him, although I bore countless scars all over my body.

My left hand was still unusable. It had too many injuries to heal so easily. 𝘧r𝑒𝘦𝒘𝘦𝙗ｎovel.𝐜o𝒎

Anyway, to our new task, which was to mine glittering stones out of the mine. They hadn't instructed us yet, but I could already guess with the many other slaves I saw after they removed my blindfold.

Countless men and women—collared with the chains like us—were pushing trolleys full of glittering stones in the lanes. They didn't even lift their heads to look at us and showered us with curious glances, proving how hard life was here and this wasn't the first time it was happening.

It wouldn't be as bad as the torture quest, I told myself and hoped.

I waited there with them, gazing at the massive mining facilities. The atmosphere was still on the warmer side, though a lot fresher than before. Rows of bright gemstones were drafted on the high walls and the side walls, which were the only sources of light. They had no wires to power them up, though, leaving me with thoughts of how they work.

Obviously, this world ran on different laws than my own. I was curious about everything new I saw. I wanted to know how they work, and perhaps through that, I would be able to gain some magic power somehow.

Remember, I mentioned I was young and stupid? Hopelessly optimistic? Yeah, you get that now, right?

Our wait finally ended as three men came to receive us. The one in the front was a round man who seemed alone to take the spaces of two grown men on his own. Well, looks could be deceiving. I learned that lesson recently. The lesson hadn't come easy, as it still ached my body.

Behind the fat man were two others. Both men are in their early thirties. They had no particular thing about them, just that they were in better health than the slaves, wearing grey robes contrasting with the fat man's purple. Well, I was too worn out to notice anything else then.

The round man exchanged a few words with the guards, while the other two carried on ogling at us three. After their exchange ended, the guards left, leaving us in the care of the round man.

The round man turned to us after a while and started to speak gibberish to us. Well, he was probably introducing the perks of a lowly slave to us. That's very nice of him. Perhaps I was wrong all along to judge him by the shape.

However, as the fat man finished, he turned to the man on his right, who came forward and started speaking in English, startling all three of us.

"My fellow earthlings, all of you have terrible luck in ending up here. Fortunately, you are not alone."

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Monthly Privilege Chapter Unlock Goal: 685/1000

7 more days to go, can we make it to the mark?

Three more of these flashbacks and we'll go back to the current timeline.