What's wrong with me, a mage, loving to farm?

Chapter 126. The Gold-Eating Demon Insect, the Goddess's Curse

"A gold mine."

"...Is there a gold mine here?"

He couldn't quite believe it at first.

In the world of magic, gold has many uses, especially raw, unprocessed gold.

Gold coins are actually an alloy made of magic and some other metals, not pure gold.

Once unprocessed raw gold is discovered, major powers such as the church, the mage association, and the royal court of the kingdom will rush to mine it and claim it as their own at an extremely fast pace.

The fundamental reason is that gold is the most perfect ordinary gold, whether it is used to make the core of a puppet, the core of a magic array, or other materials needed for alchemical spells.

As for the more advanced materials like adamantite, mithril, mountain copper, and star iron...

Those are already considered magical metals, special substances that can only be found in magical mines, far beyond the reach of ordinary people.

If Kroya had enough raw gold right now, he could melt it down and start making his own golems and puppets.

He still had the bark of the simulated magic tree in his possession, which was the best material for making puppet shells, bar none.

That's why he lost his composure when he saw the gold.

"How much are these reserves?"

Kroya took a deep breath, placed her fingers directly on the ground, moved all the ants aside, and then began to use her earth-shaping technique to push away the seabed silt.

With the frantic infusion of magic, a pit was quickly "dug" out of the ground, revealing a long, strange, black strip of substance inside.

"Hmm?" He frowned.

This appears to be igneous rock formed after volcanic lava cooled. Its surface has many irregularly arranged pores, and you can vaguely see some tiny gold fragments embedded in them.

Seeing this, he pondered, "Could it be gold deposits brought by a volcanic eruption? The quantity probably isn't very large."

"Hmm, there is a volcano in the distance. Could it be a remnant of a past volcanic eruption?"

To confirm his hypothesis, he continued digging deeper, pouring all his magic into the earth.

His cultivation over this period of time has almost condensed the fourth magical energy vortex, so when he exerts his full strength, it has already taken on a tremendous... initial form.

The earth was turned upside down by an invisible force.

They dug deeper and deeper into the black magma rock, which was five or six meters wide, five meters, ten meters, twenty meters...

After digging for about thirty meters, they finally reached the bottom of the igneous rock—a whole, seemingly endless igneous rock layer that was already part of the seabed.

He tentatively dug around and discovered that the surrounding underground was also full of this igneous rock.

In other words, this flat seabed may have once been covered by lava, but it is unknown how long it took for it to be covered by mud and other things washed in, which formed the seabed we see today.

The only problem is that in such a long strip of igneous rock, you can only see tiny gold nuggets; you can't see any other minerals.

Although Kroa doesn't know much about these things, igneous rocks should theoretically contain a very rich variety of minerals, such as olivine and greisen.

Why are there only gold nuggets?

Is it in this river?

He couldn't understand the situation, but that didn't stop him from ordering the ants to mine the small gold nuggets inside, while he sat aside to supervise.

Soon, the gray ants carried tiny pieces of gold to him.

At first, he was in a good mood when he saw the gold being moved over.

But as these tiny pieces of gold gradually accumulated in front of him, his expression became increasingly strange.

Finally, he couldn't help but mutter:

"Isn't the purity of this gold a bit exaggerated?"

He picked up a grain, and with a gentle squeeze of his fingers, he could deform it. The brilliant golden light contained not a single impurity, its purity giving it an odd feel.

Can gold in igneous rocks reach this level of purity? Logically, unrefined gold ore shouldn't be this pure.

Is it truly formed naturally, or...?

"Could there be something else inside that caused this?"

Increasingly puzzled, he stared at the huge magma rock, then simply ordered the ants to get away, and then pressed his finger on it.

From the point where his fingertips touched the magma rock, crimson and orange magic mingled, one on each side.

It gradually formed a strange magic pattern the size of a palm.

Like plant roots, more and longer tendrils extend from the palm-sized magic pattern, eventually merging together to cover the entire igneous rock.

This is one of the derivative spells of Earth and Stone Shaping, a level four spell called Earth and Stone Shattering. The principle is to infuse magic power into these magic runes to blast apart huge rocks.

It's similar to the principle of drilling a hole and then inserting explosives.

"Let me see what's inside."

After the Earth Shattering spell's runes took shape, Kroya poured magic power into them.

It was accompanied by a loud "Boom!"

The massive magma rock had already shattered into countless irregular small pieces, which lay quietly on the ground.

"There really is something there."

He went closer and saw some plump worms lying inside the black magma rock.

Each of them is about ten centimeters long and five centimeters wide, covered with white patterns that stand out clearly against their grayish-brown skin.

"Gold-devouring worms?"

Kroya learned their names through the Astral Imprint Technique. This time, he didn't need to buy information from the Holy Spring Merchant Guild because he had seen these magical insects before.

It's still in that book, "Wendy's Travels".

A bard named Wendy saw these insects in a mine. They would devour raw gold ore and then transform it inside their bodies into gold of extremely high purity.

It is said that this habit of theirs comes from the curse of the goddess of wealth, who once invited all living beings in the world to her banquet.

As a result, the ancestors of the gold-eating worms were not interested in the delicious food that the goddess invited the god of fire and cooking to prepare. Instead, they began to gnaw on the golden table and chairs that the goddess had used to entertain her guests.

The goddess was naturally furious at this situation and immediately used her divine power to curse the gold-devouring worm:

You will forever be on the road to find gold, but you will never be able to eat it. Your hunger will never be satisfied, and people will steal your gold!

As a powerful deity, the Goddess of Wealth could easily influence a race—the protectors of insects—while weaker deities dared not utter a sound.

Thus, the descendants of the gold-eating worms are all affected by this cursed power. They will find gold and devour it, but in the end they will spit it out and turn it into gold of higher purity.

Whether this story is true or not is unknown, but due to the characteristics of the gold-eating worms, people can find gold if they can find them.

It is said that quite a few people have made a fortune because of this.

It is one of the miners' favorite magical insects.

Of course, given their insatiable hunger, there is almost no way to keep them in captivity unless they are provided with a sufficient quantity of raw gold ore.

Otherwise they'll cause trouble and crash into themselves.

"What a pity, if only I could raise it..."

He watched the Gold-Eating Worms crawling around, trying to burrow into the ground to escape. He habitually used his Astral Imprint technique to observe them, and discovered something inside the simple bodies of these worms…

A strange mark.

It resembled a standard round gold coin, with the image of a goddess on it—a goddess wearing a magnificent golden crown, smiling as if gazing into the distance.

He could see the goddess's face and instinctively think she was beautiful, but he couldn't recall her exact appearance at all.

Nose, eyes, eyebrows...

Any attempt to recall it would only result in a jumbled mess.

Moreover, the portrait was covered in dim light, like a funeral portrait.

Its outer ring was surrounded by incredibly complex magic runes. Although nearly nine-tenths of these runes had dimmed, leaving only a tiny bit, they still shone on the Gold-Eating Worm's celestial body like the sun.

It was as if something was being suppressed.

[Engraving complete, the spell of the Goddess of Wealth.]

[If this moment is imprinted, the Gold-Eating Worm will be unable to accumulate enough metallic magic to transform into a butterfly, and will forever be toiling on the path of searching for gold.]

The goddess of wealth has fallen, her divine power fading.

Perhaps a power that is similar, but not exactly the same, can blind the goddess.

A familiar notification came, just like the yam blessed by Mother Earth.

The only difference is that the object has changed to the Goddess of Wealth, and at the end of the prompt, a method that might affect this imprint is specifically mentioned.

I don't know if it was because Kroa sensed something that caused the change.

The celestial being of the Gold-Eating Worm transmitted its consciousness—

"Help."

"End my suffering."

"I'm willing... to give you gold!"

The worms all emitted a unified message, then wriggled their bodies toward Kroya, rubbing their heads on the ground as if they were bowing to him.

Kroya remained silent for a long while, then sighed softly.

"Oh well, what can I do? I'm just so helpful."

He pondered what method could be used to resolve this matter—to obscure the goddess's eyes, then an illusion? Or mental magic?

After thinking for a while, he suddenly clapped his hands.

"That's it! We can use this!"

Among the fourth-level spells, there is one called Blindness, which actually makes people blind.

This blindness doesn't just mean that the eyes can't see; it also means that the senses of touch and hearing will be completely blocked. It's a prerequisite spell for the level 5 magic "Five Senses Deprivation".

Is it possible to use this magic to double-engrave the mark, making it undetectable to the goddess?

Now the power of the goddess's curse has merged with the astral body, and in a sense... it can be considered a part of the astral body.

Any astral spirit can be imprinted!

He also had ideas about the power needed to cast this spell.

We can definitely use the power of the Sky Crystal.

(End of this chapter)