The heavy, rusted iron cage fell. They called it an elevator. It shrieked against the stone shafts, dropping straight into the blind depths of the earth.
Shaurya lay face down on the cold, unforgiving floor of the cage. The gravity of the deep mines did not just act as a physical force. It felt like a crushing psychological burden. His own father's sweet poison and Isabella's cold hatred sat on his chest like a granite boulder.
This gravity constantly reminded him of his absolute worthlessness in this world. It dragged his soul downward. Even taking a single breath in this darkness felt like a brutal punishment.
The cage stopped with a violent, bone-rattling jerk. Shaurya's head slammed hard against the iron grate. A sharp wave of pain shot up his spine and exploded in his skull. But he bit his lower lip until he tasted warm, metallic blood. He made a silent vow in his mind. He would not let out a single groan of pain in front of these hollow gods.
"Get out, trash!" A heavy, spiked boot kicked his ribs hard through the iron mesh.
The massive doors groaned open. Two guards shoved him out onto the dry, rocky ground. He found no soft blue lights or velvet carpets here. Only the sickly, yellow flames of old torches trembled in the Valerian mines.
Dry dust floated in the dead air. It stuck to the inside of his lungs like powdered glass. Shaurya coughed violently and spat a wad of bloody saliva onto the dirt.
Right then, in the middle of this suffocating nightmare, a completely absurd thought popped into his mind.
*'Man... I won't even get a cheap cup of cutting chai down here. How will I wet my dry throat?'* Even standing at death's door, his brain's sudden domestic thought made him smirk at his own rotten luck.
"Grab this pickaxe." A rough, grating voice echoed in the cavern.
The mine overseer stood before him. The man possessed the massive build of a wild bull, but his movements carried a strange, mechanical laziness. He clearly downloaded the 'Advanced Mining' knowledge through his Neuro-Link
. His eyes held that familiar, dead emptiness. That emptiness always comes from taking a shortcut, from gaining knowledge without shedding a single drop of sweat.
The overseer threw a heavy, crude iron pickaxe at Shaurya's weak feet. It weighed at least twenty kilos. "The daily quota is one hundred kilos of Luminite ore. Not a single drop of water goes down your throat until you meet the quota. And remember one thing, boy.
Your fiancée Isabella does not sit here to watch your little drama. We only have rocks and your death down here."
Hearing Isabella's name triggered a deep, smoldering ache in Shaurya's chest. The trauma tore through his heart. The previous owner of this body worshipped that girl. He treated her like his personal deity. Last night, she looked at Shaurya like he was a rotting, foul-smelling insect. She showed no love. She offered no sympathy.
Her beautiful eyes held only a cold, calculated disgust. She signed his death warrant—his transfer to these hellish mines—without a hint of hesitation. She did it as casually as paying a restaurant bill.
What kind of sick, twisted world was this? A father poisons his own flesh and blood just because the boy fails to meet society's fake standards of data capacity. The sting of this betrayal suffocated him. He felt the toxicity of their touch in his memory. It burned his skin like hot iron.
Then, the memory of his real mother pierced the suffocating darkness.
Back on Earth, they lived in a half-broken slum hut covered with cheap plastic sheets. He remembered a night of heavy, torrential rain. The cold wind froze his bones. His mother took her half-dry roti and placed it quietly on Shaurya's dented steel plate.
"Eat this, son. I am not hungry today," she whispered.
She stroked his forehead with her cracked, rough hands. Those hands held no magical powers. They carried no 'Neuro-Link' data files. But the warmth, the deep affection, and the selfless love in her touch held more value than all the wealth in Neurentia. That pure motherly love kept him human inside the furnace of endless labor.
That memory brought a sweet peace to his battered soul.
The memory of her selfless love made his red eyes wet. He compared it to this new world. He found only naked, shameless, and cruel deception here.
Shaurya wiped his tears with the back of his hand. His eyes lost their sadness. A fierce, wild fire replaced the grief. He gripped the rough wooden handle of the pickaxe with his trembling, weak fingers. His new body still screamed in agony, but the memory of that old lullaby turned his soul into an erupting volcano.
"I will show these hollow, downloaded geniuses," he ground his teeth. "I will show them the kind of beast that comes to life when you forge bone and flesh in the fire of real sweat."
He awakened the complete muscle memory of his past life. He lifted the heavy pickaxe with all the strength he could muster. He swung it down hard against the solid, black rock wall.
CLANG!
Fierce sparks flew into the air. The harsh impact tore the soft skin off Shaurya's palms. Bright red drops of blood fell onto the wooden handle, soaking into the splinters.
Instantly, a blue screen flashed right in front of his pupils.
[System Alert: Severe physical labor detected. Skill 'Basic Mining' learned.]
[100x Experience Multiplier Active!]
[Stamina +2.5]
[Muscle Density +1.5]
A strange surge of electricity shot through his body with that single strike. A pleasant heat blossomed right where his hands bled. His weak, torn veins stitched themselves back together. But they returned thicker. They emerged stronger. Every trace of exhaustion vanished into thin air.
The overseer turned around to walk away. He fully expected the 'trash' to faint in tears after two strikes. But then a relentless, rhythmic sound echoed behind him.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The overseer snapped his head back. His eyes bulged out in sheer confusion and dismay. Shaurya swung the twenty-kilo pickaxe through the air like a dry, weightless twig. Massive chunks of solid rock shattered and crashed to the ground with every single blow. Sweat completely bathed Shaurya's body.
His pale skin turned flush and tight. The faint outlines of dense, hard muscles began to rise on his narrow shoulders.
Shaurya felt a deep sense of meditation. Every time the iron struck the rock, the system fed him a hundred times the normal experience.
An ordinary miner with a Neuro-Link took months to learn the perfect angle of the strike. Shaurya mastered it in mere seconds. The painful blisters on his hands rapidly hardened into thick, tough calluses.
"This... this is completely impossible," the overseer muttered. He stepped back in fear. The sudden shock morphed into deep psychological disillusionment. "How can someone learn so fast without a data connection?
That body... it was pure trash!"
Shaurya did not stop his relentless rhythm. He did not just break Luminite rocks. He smashed the pain inside him. He crushed the humiliation.
He destroyed the lingering effects of the poison his own family fed him. He saw Isabella's arrogant, hateful smile on the rock face, and he shattered it into pieces with every single strike.
[System Alert: 'Basic Mining' Level Max!]
[New Ability Unlocked: 'Rock Crusher' - Your weapon strikes now carry a 10% bonus to physical damage.]
Exactly two hours passed. In a mere two hours, Shaurya completed the impossible one-hundred-kilo quota. The strongest veterans took a full day to mine that much. His legs still shook slightly.
His empty stomach cramped violently with hunger. But his eyes no longer held the fear of a hunted animal. They gleamed with the sharp intent of an apex predator.
He took a deep breath. He aimed for a strange, deep black fissure in the wall. He swung the pickaxe one last time with all his remaining might.
Suddenly, the iron tip did not hit rock. It slammed against something that felt like an incredibly hard metallic shell. A terrifying, blood-red light erupted from the deep crack. The ground of the mine began to shake violently, as if a massive earthquake hit the depths.
[System Critical Alert: High-level energy source detected!]
[DANGER! A 'Blood-Scale Beast' woke from its slumber!]
The solid stone floor right beneath Shaurya's feet cracked open. From the pitch-black darkness of the pit, a massive, glowing red eye stared directly at him. That eye felt as cold and ruthless as death itself. All the other miners dropped their tools in sheer panic.
They screamed and ran blindly toward the tunnels.
But Shaurya planted his feet firmly on the shaking ground.
The wooden handle of his pickaxe snapped in half from the impact. He tightly gripped the heavy, sharp iron head in his sweat and blood-soaked hands. His body still lacked full maturity. But his 'System of Toil' acted like a starving wolf. It demanded more experience. It hungered for more power.
"So... you are my next training dummy?" A dangerous, bloody smile crept onto Shaurya's lips.