Ch.9090. Copper Mine

Lulu seemed to have updated her information after completing one main quest.

“Master! I remember where the copper mine is!”

“Really?”

This really isn’t a game.

I’m spending time in the Rift Dimension without even thinking it’s a game, but seeing things like this makes me philosophically question what the boundary of a “game” even is.

Well, pondering it won’t change anything.

Accepting it naturally is probably best.

“I’ll mark the location roughly on the map for you!”

“You can do that?”

“I can now that you can see the map!”

A large X appears in the western part of the Level 0 biome, in a dark area I haven’t visited yet.

“It should be around here.”

“Hmm. Shouldn’t be hard to find.”

“But be careful, there are many mountains in the west.”

“I’ll be flying there anyway.”

Looking at the map, I can see that quite a bit of the Level 0 biome has been revealed.

To the northwest is the village. To the northeast is the orchard. To the east are the sewers and the goblin mushroom farm. And connected to that is the Level 2 biome with the Balmosoo water source.

The south extends all the way to the Corrupted Forest—evidence of how diligently I’ve been exploring.

The map is still vast, so I’ll need to explore more thoroughly to complete the achievement quest.

But I’ve found almost all the key points.

“Once I find the mine and the lake, I’ll have discovered all the key points in the Level 0 biome. The lake should appear if I follow the river.”

“That’s right. You’re so fast!”

“Oh, how do seasons change here? Is it in 30-day cycles?”

“Yes. Seasons in the Rift Dimension change every 30 days. Different biomes have different seasonal applications, but that’s probably how it works here.”

“Okay. Now you’re finally acting like a proper helper.”

“Hehe. If you help me grow as a fairy, I can be even more helpful!”

“Maybe later.”

In typical Farming Worlds, there are essential points that always exist in Level 0 biomes.

No matter which map you explore.

No matter the difficulty level, these points are always there.

Would the Rift Dimension be any different?

The sewers were like that, the goblin territory was like that, and the orchard was like that.

The orchard, whether created or modified by the previous owner, was larger than I expected.

Then there’s the village and the mine.

Among these, the mine could be considered essential for advancing to the next biome.

The basic [Wooden Tools] provided.

To upgrade them, you need a blacksmith and [Copper] ore.

While Farming Worlds contain various types of ore, this core progression—whether copied or not—is always included in these farming genre games, and this system is one of them.

Copper-Iron-Silver-Gold.

This simple yet familiar ore progression route represents the core minerals of each biome level.

So to fully explore the Level 0 biome and move on to gather resources in the Level 1 biome, you need to mine copper.

Though in reality, with my D+ basic tools combined with S+ strength, I probably wouldn’t have issues even in Level 2-3 biomes.

Still, I should follow the tech progression for completeness.

“Finding the mine last of all things.”

That’s why people usually find the mine first.

After finishing farming, if you have time left, you go to the mine to extract ore and upgrade tools to gather resources faster and in greater quantities—that’s the basic growth pattern.

Thanks to my somewhat twisted growth pattern, the copper mine has been relegated to just a place to visit for tool upgrades.

“Oh! Master! Would you like to try turning on the location marking feature on the map?”

“Oh? This works here too?”

“Yes. It’s a feature you need to activate yourself.”

Lulu’s information was more useful than I expected.

The location marking feature was originally part of Farming World.

When you open the map, you can see the positions of NPCs belonging to your farm and slaves, and since you can’t just wait endlessly to see if NPCs who went exploring are dead or alive, it’s a necessary feature—but here, opening the map only showed the bare map, so I thought it didn’t exist.

More precisely, I didn’t even think about its absence because it was such a basic feature.

When I turned on the location marking feature, not only my position but also Kim Sujeong, Lulu, the goblins, and the Black Monkeys appeared as dots on the map.

“That’s nice.”

“Hehe. Now I can see your location too!”

“Is this a location tracking app?”

“Please turn it on when you go to dungeons or explore far away.”

“Hmm. I’m not fond of clingy girlfriends.”

“…Eh…?”

“Fine.”

If it makes her feel better, why not.

She doesn’t need to know what I’m doing where—just seeing my position move even slightly confirms I’m alive, which helps ease her anxiety.

It’s not difficult, and it’s convenient for me when managing the farm, so I decided to keep the location feature on.

Besides, Lulu said even she couldn’t see the map if I revoked the permission.

“I can share the map with Sujeong too, so she can see it.”

As the host of this map, I have quite a lot of functions.

It suddenly struck me how much power I had in my hands to control many things.

“I’m really going now.”

“Have a safe trip!”

Finding the copper mine wasn’t difficult.

————————

Flying is also a skill that requires practice.

Just as wing-flapping needs to be done consistently, maintaining [Leap] in mid-air was similar to wing-flapping.

I’ve become comfortable with falling at a moderate speed due to gravity and then using [Leap] again to move—it all feels natural now.

The advantages of traveling by air need no explanation.

There’s a reason why the ultimate farming in Farming World is called “flight farming.”

Running across vast, wide maps isn’t easy even with all SS+ stats and movement skills.

More than difficult, it’s tedious.

Obstructed views across different biomes.

Uneven terrain.

If it were just straight distances, you could tame fast monsters as mounts and race along like on a highway, but unfortunately, Farming World maps aren’t like that.

After traveling some distance, the biome changes and a new environment appears.

Some biomes are uncomfortable just to walk through, while others consist of more than 80% water.

The best option is to choose the sky, which isn’t affected by these environmental variables at all.

Of course, some biomes do have restrictions on aerial movement, but they’re extremely rare, and even those have workarounds—that’s why “flying is divine” has become an axiom in Farming World.

So I’ve essentially obtained “flight transportation” in the Level 0 biome.

Well, ultimately this is still movement using temporary mana, and I’ll eventually need to find a mount that can fly for me.

“Would have been tough if I’d walked.”

The west was mountainous, just as Lulu said.

It wasn’t like a continuous mountain range, but there were fairly high mountains spread out like a wide wall, making it clear that crossing on foot to the next biome in the west would be quite challenging.

And the copper mine was located deep within those mountains.

From the sky.

From the clear sky, I could easily spot a bare rocky mountain with patches of copper-colored areas amid the green trees—it was easy to find from above, but if I had been searching on foot, I might have spent days just in this area.

Anyway, what matters is that I found it.

The entrance to the copper mine was quite large.

Inside were the typical fixtures of a mine.

[Sub Quest]

[D-Rank Dungeon]

[You’ve discovered the copper mine. However, mining won’t be easy unless you deal with the mountain goblins guarding it. Defeat the mountain goblins and acquire ore from the mine.]

[Reward: Farming Stat +5, 500 Farm, ‘Mining(F)’ Activation]

A cute sub-quest also appeared.

It felt like a tutorial quest that should have been completed early on, so the rewards were modest—just the activation of the “Mining” ability and 500 Farm.

“Goblins here, goblins there.”

The Level 0 biome doesn’t have that many types of monsters.

There might be a few species I haven’t discovered yet, but the races classified as monsters probably won’t deviate much from what I’ve seen.

If anything else appears, they’d likely be beasts not classified as monsters.

Cows, pigs, chickens.

After all, even in Farming World, you need food, so people usually hunt these animals to fill their stomachs in the beginning.

I didn’t need to look for such animals since I started by slaughtering monsters for meat.

The mine was cleanly emptied.

After defeating the few mining goblins standing guard inside, there wasn’t much else to deal with.

There’s probably a village nearby, but I killed them all without thinking and didn’t leave any mountain goblin to guide me to their village.

“But is this really a mine?”

As I take out my pickaxe to try mining.

There’s something oddly disturbing.

Something that should be present in a cave.

My voice doesn’t echo.

It’s as if my voice is absorbed, disappearing mutely the moment I speak.

With a suspicion in mind, I quickly try using the pickaxe.

Along with the copper-colored ore, gray stones fall out.

“Could this be sound-absorbing stone?”

At this point, nothing surprises me anymore.