Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Chapter 476: Thora’s Guide To Mining [Bonus Chapter]

Tasmin shook her head, raising her hand to signal the column. "Hold your mounts at the threshold."

She swung her gaze back toward the massive construct that had come to a halt ten paces out.

"Golem, halt," she ordered.

KRRR-CLANG!

The Phase 2 Golem locked its limbs, the pneumatic hiss of its internal mana vents venting a cloud of white steam into the freezing morning air.

It stood motionless with its wide armored chassis looming over the wolves.

Tasmin looked at the mouth of the cave, then back at the construct.

She remembered the briefing Thora had given them by the foundry fires early that morning.

The dwarven forge master had been ruthlessly practical about the logistical hurdles of the day.

’Listen close, because I won’t repeat myself while the ale is wearing off...’ Thora had barked, leaning over an iron workbench. ’The Umbral Basin is riddled with fracture-tunnels... Some cavern mouths are broad enough to march an entire battalion through abreast but others like BVR Star have choke-points. Narrow throats where the bedrock squeezed tight centuries ago as a Phase 2 chassis in its four-legged form is broad as an imperial carriage... If the mouth pinches, it gets jammed.’

Thora had tapped the schematics with a soot-stained knuckle.

’So I built in an override... It’s called the Phase 3 Protocol. It splits the core mana loop, uncouples the secondary spine, and separates the Phase 2 unit into two smaller independent Phase 3 quad-units. They can squeeze through the narrow fissures, crawl through the throat, and then lock their cores back together once they reach the primary chamber. You have a second option, of course... you can order the golem to simply smash the opening wider with its siege fists but frankly, Rowenna and I haven’t coded enough structural intelligence into their core yet. If you tell a golem to widen a tunnel, it’s just as likely to bring down fifty tons of ceiling on your skulls so don’t be stupid and use the split protocol.’

Tasmin let out a slow sigh, looking up at the construct.

"Protocol Phase 3," Tasmin commanded. "Decouple."

WHIRRRR-CLANK!

The central amber optic on the golem’s brow flickered wildly.

Deep within its stone torso, heavy mechanical latches snapped open with the sound of snapping iron bars.

The central alloy spine hissed, venting a violent burst of pressurized mana from its midline.

Before the eyes of the wide-eyed recruits, the massive twelve-foot-wide construct began to structurally divide.

The thick interlocking basalt plates along the sternum parted cleanly as the auxiliary limbs shifted their weight, swinging outward on heavy ball-and-socket joints, while the secondary mana conduits re-routed their flows.

Within five seconds, the singular siege engine had separated into two sleek low-slung six-foot-tall Phase 3 constructs, each carrying half of the modular alloy storage bins on their backs.

They looked like heavy four-legged stone hounds, their smaller amber cores blinking in synchronized unison.

"Holy shit..." one of the recruits whispered, her knuckles whitening on her wolf’s reins. "It just... broke in half and grew legs."

"Shut your mouth and keep moving," Tasmin chuckled, nudging her wolf forward. "You’re in Blessed Land now so get used to the impossible."

Mine BVR Star was a relatively modest excavation site compared to the sprawling industrial zones of the basin.

Because of its constrained footprint, Silas had allocated only a single Phase 2 unit to Tasmin’s team.

Brida, who had been deployed to the crags miles to the south, had also received a single unit.

The Phase 1 golems... the true behemoths capable of hauling a lot of loads had been reserved for the high-priority targets. One had gone to Mine KB-22, where Lord Silas himself was leading the primary excavation into the massive Mana Diamond clusters.

The other had been assigned to Mine XVIT, a completely unmapped high-risk one far to the northwest where Goddess Eluned and Morwenna were overseeing the harvesting of living spirit-ores and unrefined void-veins.

Tasmin led the column beneath the jagged stone arch of the cavern mouth.

The two smaller Phase 1 golems followed in single file, their stone pads clicking softly against the frozen rock, their reduced profiles clearing the narrow granite overhangs with inches to spare.

Once the entire squad, the wolves, and the constructs had navigated the thirty-yard entrance throat, the cavern suddenly opened up into a massive vault.

It was a vast natural stone amphitheater.

The ceiling vaulted thirty feet overhead, supported by thick, natural pillars of black basalt that were slick with moisture and the air was strikingly still, noticeably warmer than the howling blizzard outside, though it carried a strange smell.

Tasmin reined in her mount and turned back toward the two smaller golems.

"Phase 2 Protocol," she commanded. "Reconverge."

CLANK-HISS-CRUNCH.

The two stone constructs stepped side by side, their internal magnetic arrays drawing them together with terrifying hydraulic force.

The central spine locked shut, the heavy alloy plates slotted together with a series of thunderous, metallic snaps, and within seconds, the single monolithic Phase 2 Golem was whole once more, standing tall and immobile in the center of the chamber.

Durna swung her leg over her wolf, dropping heavily to the stone floor with a sharp clatter of her steel-toed boots.

She walked forward, waving a hand toward the surrounding walls.

"Take a look, girls," Durna grinned, her voice echoing off the cavern ceiling. "This is what you’re sweating for."

The women dismounted, their eyes wide as they took in the chamber.

BVR Star was not simply an empty hole in the ground...

Embedded deep within the dark basalt walls, and even protruding in massive ridges directly from the stone floor, were vast sprawling formations of Star-Iron.

In the dim light of their torches, the mineral was breathtakingly beautiful.

It didn’t look like common rust-colored iron, instead it was a deep midnight-blue metal, so dark it seemed to absorb the light around it, but its entire crystalline surface was flecked with microscopic glowing silver motes that pulsed softly in the gloom, resembling a living constellation of stars trapped within the stone.

In several alcoves, the ore had grown outward into massive tree-like crystal clusters that branched toward the ceiling like dark glittering coral.

"It’s... it looks like the night sky," a recruit breathed, reaching out a hesitant hand toward a nearby protrusion.

"Don’t touch it with bare skin, lass!" Durna barked sharply, causing the girl to yank her hand back as if burned. "Star-Iron is dense as lead and temperamental as an angry badger... You handle it wrong or strike it with brute force, and the mana lattice inside can destabilize. It requires a master forge to work, and it requires dwarven hands to mine."

The dwarf turned toward the massive construct idling behind them.

"Captain Tasmin," Durna called out. "Tell the big bastard to lay flat. If we’re hauling out three tons of this stuff today, I don’t want the girls breaking their spines trying to hoist fifty-pound chunks over an eight-foot bin wall and make sure it drops down before you pull the kit down... no sense denting the master’s tools on the bedrock."

Tasmin nodded, turning to the construct. "Golem, ground posture. Lay flat."

PSSSSSSSSSH.

The Phase 2 Golem responded instantly.

Its massive, four-legged joints folded outward with a deep hydraulic sigh, lowering its heavy undercarriage directly onto the cavern floor.

In this grounded state, the top edges of its reinforced transport bins sat barely waist-high... a perfectly level accessible loading platform.

Tasmin walked over to the side of the construct, her boots finding purchase on the alloy mounting rungs.

She scrambled up onto the back of the resting golem with feline agility.

Mounted securely behind the central mana manifold were two heavy-duty alloy chests.

One was packed tight with custom-forged dwarven pickaxes, pry-bars, and runic chisels, all crafted from tempered steel designed not to spark against reactive ores.

The other chest contained their work gear.

Tasmin flipped the heavy iron latches open with a pair of sharp clicks.

"Catch," Tasmin called down, hoisting the bundles of gear and dropping them smoothly to the waiting girls below.

The squad quickly set about stripping off their heavy travel furs.

The cavern was insulated from the freezing wind, and the friction of heavy mining meant excess fabric was a liability.

The custom mining attire that Thora had commissioned from the territory’s tailor overnight was a masterclass in functional and incredibly flattering design.

The girls peeled off their thick wool coats and heavy plate pauldrons, leaving themselves in form-fitting flexible undergarments made of a dark breathable stretch-fabric reinforced with fine steel-mesh underlays along the vital zones.

Over this, they strapped thick supple leather harnesses that crossed tightly over their chests, supporting their torsos and cinching snugly around their waists and muscular thighs to distribute the strain of heavy lifting.

"Gods, these straps are tight," a blonde veteran muttered, twisting her torso as she pulled a leather buckle through an iron loop.

The harness pulled the dark fabric taut across her prominent, sweat-sheened chest, pushing her cleavage upward while accentuating the sharp defined curve of her waist.

"Thora definitely didn’t leave much room for modesty."

"Modesty doesn’t haul iron, Lyra," another girl laughed, sliding into a pair of tight steel-reinforced trousers that clung snugly to the heavy curve of her hips and thighs as she bent over to lace her boots. "Besides, if the Lord drops by for an inspection later, I certainly won’t complain if his eyes wander."

A chorus of breathless giggles rippled through the squad as the women adjusted their gear, checking the tension of their thigh holsters and securing their hair into tight braids.

There was a raw unashamed vitality to them... strong and beautifully toned bodies honed by brutal combat, now bound in dark leather and steel mesh that showed off every flex of corded muscle and feminine curve.

Once the squad was fully suited, Durna stepped to the center of the chamber, holding a polished dwarven pickaxe in one hand.

"Gather round, you lot!" Durna shouted, her voice snapping the girls out of their playful banter. "Listen up, because this isn’t standard trench-digging. You don’t take a pickaxe to an Umbral Basin vein the way you’d hack at firewood... Master Thora’s words are law in this territory and as she said, You don’t fight the mountain... You simply read it."

Durna walked up to a smooth, vertical slab of black basalt where a massive cluster of Star-Iron protruded like dark crystals.

"Step one," Durna said, pressing her bare palm flat against the cold, unrefined rock face.

She closed her eyes, her weathered features settling into an expression of deep meditative concentration. "You press your flesh to the stone with no gloves. You close your eyes, and you feel the vibrations. The rock has a grain, just like ironwood and the mana flowing through the subterranean aquifers creates micro-tremors so you have to find where the stone wants to part."

The recruits watched silently, leaning forward with keen interest.

"Step two," Durna continued, opening her eyes and tracing a blunt, calloused finger along the surface of the basalt, about eight inches to the left of the midnight-blue ore. "Look right here. Do you see this faint discolored gray track? That’s what we call the bleed-line..."

"What makes it gray?" a recruit asked, squinting at the rock.

"Heat and time, lass," Durna explained. "High-density mana crystals like Star-Iron generate internal spiritual heat over centuries... That heat slowly cooks the surrounding rock, pushing all the mineral impurities outward into a distinct brittle fault line. Now... this is the most important rule in dwarven mining... Never strike the bleed-line directly."

"Why not?" Tasmin chimed in, crossing her arms over her chest to emphasize the lesson. "Tell them what happens, Durna."

"If you hit the bleed-line directly," Durna said, her voice dropping into a stern growl, "the shockwave doesn’t break the stone... it travels straight down the fault path like lightning and violently detonates the crystal lattice of the Star-Iron behind it. You’ll shatter fifty pounds of high-tier enchanting metal into worthless inert gray dust before you ever see it. You’ll ruin the yield, and Thora will personally skin you alive."

Durna raised her pickaxe, stepping back.

"Instead, you measure roughly six inches outside the bleed-line which is... right here." She tapped the dark basalt with the tip of her boot. "And when you swing, you don’t use your back and you don’t channel mana either. You need pure technique... Let the weight of the forged head do the work, and snap your wrists right at the point of impact."

Durna planted her feet.

Her posture was relaxed as she brought the pickaxe back in a smooth effortless arc, letting the tool drop toward the stone.

Right at the apex of the swing, her wrists snapped forward with clean whip-like precision.

TINK!

It wasn’t a deafening bone-jarring crash... instead it was a single high-pitched metallic chime that resonated cleanly through the vaulted cavern.

For half a second, nothing seemed to happen.

Then, right from the point of impact, a series of microscopic hairline fractures spider-webbed outward in a flawless geometric circle.

CRRR-SLIDE!

With a clean scraping sigh, an entire two-hundred-pound slab of outer basalt separated from the bedrock, sliding smoothly down the wall and landing harmlessly in the dust.

Behind it, completely exposed and undamaged, lay a massive, twelve-inch branch of glowing midnight-blue Star-Iron, pulsing with tiny silver constellations in the dark.

The recruits gasped, their eyes shining with pure awe.

"That..." the young chestnut-haired girl whispered, "was incredible."

"That’s craftsmanship, lass," Durna smirked, tossing a spare pickaxe to the nearest recruit. "Now grab your tools, find a section of wall, and start reading the stone... Every five hundred pounds of clean ore loaded into the golem gets logged in your name. Get to work!"

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!