The rest of the summer proceeded with training. There were no more expeditions to hunt monsters. My skills progressed slowly. At least, they seemed slow to me. I did find that Carving did wonders for my Small Blades Skill. I guess the chisel was a small blade, and carving meant there had to be a lot of control over it.

  My equipment was replaced, and Thran had already settled the account with the quartermaster. This made me a bit uncomfortable, but everyone just accepted it as reasonable. They didn’t really have much in the way of leather armour for someone my size, and there was no leather worker with the expedition. I was fine with going naked, but dwarven culture insisted I at least wear a pair of shorts in my Humanoid form.

  What I did do was get a number of belts and sew them together with some pouches so I could carry weapons and other things, like potions and an alarm whistle, etc. I was trying to work out a method of belts that I could use in my bear form to carry things. I liked the axe and wanted a way to carry one. These skills I am learning are great, but they all involve a lot of equipment. I am not sure I want to be bothered carrying a lot of equipment everywhere, but I do like some things.

  Mostly I like the axe and a way to cook things. Thon, our cook, has taught me some of my favourite recipes. This bumped my Herb Lore to Apprentice even though my Cooking is still Novice. I don’t think I will ever be a great cook, but I did want to be able to cook my favourites as Thon is not staying over the Winter.

  I started making regular patrols into the mine and picked up the Mining Skill. I don’t ever see myself as a miner, but learning to recognise different types of rock with Mineral Lore is useful right now. My main difficulty with the mine is that I only have Nightsight and, therefore, require a light source. All the dwarves have Darksight and usually work in total darkness.

  One advantage for me in this mine is that the Lightsteel ore emits a small glow, which is mostly enough for my now Journeyman Nightsight. I now carry a small piece whenever I go into the mine. That is something else I need a pouch for. Not all the tunnels follow the Lightsteel ore, as there are other minerals there. Plus, we are here to mine the Lightsteel, and the brightest ore is the richest.

  I was in the mine when I saw my first Rock Elemental.

  “Look here, lad,” Undoth the prospector said. He seems to have an uncanny feel for the rock and minerals. Prospecting is a specialisation of the Miner Class, but you also need scouting-type skills for it. Finding riches underground is the whole point of the class.

  I move closer to the rock wall and look carefully. “I can’t see anything.”

  “Yeah, it is almost impossible to see when it stops moving. You need more than Spiritual Perception. You need a Spiritual Sensing Skill. Keep watching.”

  He got out a small hammer and tapped the stone. A couple of seconds later, the rock seemed to move like a wave had passed through it. Then it stopped.

  “Where did it go?” I asked.

  “It went deeper into the rock, away from where I could hit it.”

  “So hitting the rock hurt it?”

  “Yes and no. All elementals are primarily Spiritual beings. Rock elementals of this type occupy the rock, and so they are the rock, but when they move, they leave the rock behind and occupy new rock. Moving costs them Spiritual energy, which is also their life force.”

  “I am not sure I understand,” I said.

  “We, as in you and me, are Physical, Mental and Spiritual. We are usually more Physical than the others, but we are all three. All creatures are all three, but Elementals are very strongly Spiritual with only a very small physical component. We think they are also mentally weak, about the level of animals.”

  “I didn’t see anything apart from the rock moving,” I said.

  “That is because it buried the physical part deeper in the rock. The moving rock you saw was not actually the rock moving, but the Spiritual energy it used to relocate. You saw it with your Spiritual Perception.”

  “To kill it, we need to destroy the physical part of it?” I asked. “What is that?”

  “That is not the only way, but it is the easiest as it is the weakest on a tiny Rock Elemental like that. The physical part will be a spiritual gem, probably about the size of a grain of sand. Larger elementals have larger gems and sometimes multiple gems, depending on the Spiritual Energy they have been feeding on.”

  “So they feed on Spiirtual Energy, so they are bad for the ore? They suck out the energy?” I asked.

  “Yes and No,” Undoth said. “It is more like the energy passes through the elemental, empowering them and leaving small concentrations behind. If you had Spiritual Sensing, you would see the energy this one left, but it is very tiny. They can form into the gems that we find in the ore. So the small ones are not bad. The larger ones can disrupt the energy of the ore if they are carrying different gems. For example, a Rock Elemental with Shadow-orientated energy would corrupt the Lightsteel ore.”

  “Are they monsters?”

  “Not those ones. They don’t have a monster core. The ones that are, get quite aggressive and territorial when they find rock they like. They can be driven off and sometimes killed, but we are off-topic. I will be bringing you down here regularly because you need to learn Spiritual Sensing to guard the mine over the winter.”

  “What attributes do I need for Spiritual Sensing?”

  “Not much at all,” Undoth replied. “Spiritual Perception and Spiritual Agility, but you have more than enough. I am quite frankly surprised you haven't learned it already. Most young people learn it early and use it to level their Spiritual attributes.”

  I shrugged. I never knew I needed to learn it. It took several visits to the mine, and Undoth directed me on where to look and how to use my Spiritual Perception. I got it eventually. Spiritual Sensing did not need Physical Perception to be at a certain level as it was not tied to a physical sense. Learning Spiritual Sensing gave me a point in Spiritual Perception, taking it to 15 which was the minimum for Clearsight. I still need to get my Physical Perception up to 30.

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  This opened my understanding of what was around me. The ground was not as still as it looked. This was an area of high spirituality, obviously. Not all areas are like this. Every time I went into the mine, I practised spotting Rock Elementals. Outside the mine, I could sense other people's Spirituality, but it was very blurry. I guess I need to level my skill and level my Spiritual Perception.

  The mine was a good place to scavenge. All the less valuable pieces were discarded in the waste hopper. I found a few gems that nobody had bothered to look for. There was a lot of high-quality ore, so if it looked below standard, it was just discarded. This is where I trained my Spiritual Sensing. I worked through the rock to sense concentrations of Spiritual Energy.

  I got to sense the different spiritual energies. Lightsteel ore was light, but Orichalcum was a denser green sense. They were digging more side tunnels as Undoth sensed different ores, and I think his high-level Spiritual Sensing was a big part of that. He did say he had a more specific skill, and the skills meshed together into something greater, but he wouldn’t tell me what.

  They also dug up Deep Iron, which was denser than Orichalcum but gave off a crude metallic feel to my low Spiritual Sense. They dug up a little Molybdenum, which has an extremely high melting point. It gave a cool feel to my senses. All these were minor deposits. The main ore here was a massive Lightsteel seam. I scavenged nuggets of each of these and a couple of small Light gems, one tiny Deepiron Crystal and a small Ori-crystal.

  I didn’t know what the ores and crystals were used for after they were processed, but I wasn’t a metal expert, and I don’t intend to be. Recognising these and using my pick and chisel to get down to the ore itself levelled my Mineral Lore and Mining to Apprentice. I had Thran use the forge to remove the remaining impurities, and I was going to keep them as a template for my senses. They all fit in one pouch.

  This bit of scavenging bumped my Hunter Scavenger class to 9 and one more, and it will be at the Journeyman Level. At that point, I could Specialise it. Better than that, though, was it gave me enough free points to bump my Physical Perception up to 30, with one point left over as I no longer needed it for Spiritual Perception.

  Yoboc was pushing for me to take Farsight. The Commander recommended either Farsight or Keensight, and he thought I was well suited for Keensight. None of them knew about Clearsight, which my parents had, and that my parents had insisted I get it as well.

  I don’t know much about it either. Maybe it is a Polar Bearkin thing? Maybe it is only useful in the Arctic snow? I know I survived last winter without it, but there were days of snow, mist and whiteouts where I had to hunker down and wait for it to settle. That was not bad, though. I like to sleep a lot in winter.

  The Artic is my home, so it makes sense to follow my parents' advice on what is needed to live here. These Dwarves will travel south for the winter, but I expect to live here. Maybe they will convince me to go visit their home, but it will be just that—a visit.

  I pull up my options and select Clearsight. Even though it is only Level 1, the skill feels like a veil has been lifted from my eyes. Everything is crystal clear and sharp. I felt the skill and used Identify, and it will work with Nightsight and any other physical perception eye skill I might get in the future. It has a passive effect that clarifies things in my sight, but it also has an active part that I can use to see through more translucent things like water and ice.

  One thing I really noticed was that Clearsight boosted my Tracking Skill. I could see things clearly.

  I went to test it. Autumn was approaching, and the ice shelf was growing as the temperature dropped. I cleared the snow off, and I could see right through the ice into the water, which was also clear. I would see further as the skill levelled and, I guess, through more opaque things. Wait—opaque things. I pulled out a light crystal and looked. I could see through the crystal and make out small cracks of imperfection. The Deepiron Crystal and small Ori-crystal were still too dense to see through, but as the skill levels, it would get clearer.

  Is Clearsight a secret jeweller's keep for their class? Undoth was vague about some of his skills, so it would make sense for other professions as well.