Ashton shook the magic stone up and down, trying to see if this was really what he thought it was. It was a liquid magic stone. He had seen these before, of course. Hell, he had made some. But it was a usually pretty hard process and something that Ashton wouldn't have been able to do without a ton of magic and least 70 or so points in his spirit stat. Though that was also only with the special magic items and tools that he had access to when he was with the Summoner.

  This was an extremely valuable ingredient. Not only was this a material that was needed to help a water elemental like the undine to advance from a lesser grade elemental to a 'regular' grade elemental, but it was also an ingredient that could be used for ink up to middle grade contracts. This minuscule amount of liquid could be used for Ashton to make enough ink for at least one of the two low grade contracts that he wanted to form. And it wasn't even that this liquid held more mana than a normal magic stone, it was just that it interacted with the other materials in inks or potions in particular ways that regular, crushed-up magic stones simply couldn't.

  He immediately asked the Backpacker to give him a small plastic bag and put the new stone inside, quickly writing 'Liquid Magic Stone' on the small white strip on the front before zipping it shut.

  And then, Ashton quickly took another small magic stone and placed it into the minecart, pulling on the pickaxe. The stone fell in, and the slots started to spin. They spun and spun and spun, and soon came to a stop. A small magic stone, a pile of dirt, and a miner's face. Nothing happened, so that must have been a fail.

  Ashton put in the next stone and pulled on the pickaxe. While the slots were spinning, Sabrina let out an excited yell.

  "Yes!" she exclaimed, and Ashton looked over. Three large coin piles. Sabrina didn't even look away or wait for a moment before she pushed in the next coin and pulled on the dragon's tail.

  Ashton laughed quietly and pulled out one of his cigarette packs and a lighter. This one was a new blend that he was trying out. As he inhaled the smoke, he could feel a slight tingling on the inside of his cheeks and down his throat. The tingling quickly turned into a numbing that was about to spread throughout the rest of Ashton's body.

  He clicked his tongue and put out the cigarette on the ground. "That one was a complete fail."

  "Hm? What was?" Sabrina glanced over at him, and Ashton just shook his head.

  "Don't worry about it, just talking to myself."

  Ashton took a small swig of the antidote potion to get rid of the numbing. This might be a bit more useful if he had higher poison resistance. Back in Lumia, his body had changed considerably over time to the point where he could resist certain types of poison pretty well. Even got an ability at some point that helped with this. Basically allowed him to filter out any unwanted substances from his body. He really wished that he got that ability back. It would be useful in this place. Ashton wouldn't have to carry around as many potions, after all.

  For now, he went for a few more tries. He had a large enough arrangement of magic stones that he could afford to get rid of these tiny goblin stones. He wanted to see what else this thing could give him.

  A lot of the time, Ashton didn't get anything out of it at all, but usually he got at least something. A smaller stone than what he put in, a slightly bigger one, and when he got three large clusters of magic stones, he got one out that held probably five times as much mana as the original stone.

  There were some other symbols mixed in there, though. The pile of dirt seemed to be just a pure 'fail'. He actually got some dirt out of it when he got three of them once, though, so he took that with him and would take a look later. There wasn't really any mana in it, so it just seemed to be regular dirt, but you never knew.

  When the miner was there with two other gemstones, then he would slightly boost the output. However, the ones that Ashton was really interested in were the elemental slots. Ashton never got two of them at once, but only a single on on its own.

  He didn't manage to get another water droplet, though, instead, he got some wavy lines that seemed to represent 'air', with an, at first glance, hollow magic stone.

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  There was another one that seemed to be some kind of rock, but that turn was a bust, so he didn't get anything out of it. And well, he didn't even until he got rid of all the goblin stones. But there was one more small itch in the back of his neck that just wouldn't leave him alone.

  Maybe it was some kind of hunch, maybe it was just his dad's slightly addictive personality coming through, but Ashton pulled out the largest magic stone that he had gotten so far. The one from the warlord orc. It wasn't like this had any special qualities, it was just the largest single magic stone he had gotten so far. But over the next few weeks, he would get his hands on bigger ones, so it wasn't an issue to use it for this.

  Though, maybe Ashton was just telling himself that. He placed the magic stone into the minecart and hesitantly pulled the lever. The slots started spinning and spinning, clearly faster than before. He wasn't a religious man, but in this moment, Ashton almost felt like praying.

  The first slot stopped spinning. It was one of the large magic stones. The second slot stopped spinning. Another of the same. And then, the last slot slowly came to a halt, showing the rock from before.

  "Yes!" Ashton let out a broad, excited yell, but it was completely drowned out by the even more excited yell of Sabrina right next to him.

  Ashton snapped his head to the side and leaned over. What he saw made him jump up immediately. It was the 'word', she finally got it.

  "Don't touch anything!" Ashton said immediately, looking at the slot. He already knew it before, but now he was certain. It was a 'word', it was the draconic language. Ashton pushed his hand into his pocket to get a pen to write it down, but before he could, he heard something landing in the prize slot.

  The other two symbols on the slot were a pile of ash and a dragon. That should be a bust, but a coin had been dropped out.

  Ashton looked at it closely, on both sides. One depicted a dragon's head, similar to the one on the slot, just a lot more realistic rather than the cartoon-like image on the machine. On the other side, a 'word' was engraved again. It also wasn't the same kind of coin created by the system. This one was real metal. It was heavy. Actual gold.

  There's no way this was part of an actual hoard, was there? Ashton did hear that a dragon's gold was more than just to show off. It was basically in the dragons' blood to collect things like that and to sit on their treasure. Not all of them collected gold or treasure, some dragons collected some more obscure things. Books, swords, there was even a dragon that collected flowers. This trait carried on to semi-dragons too, not just true dragons.

  Either way, a real gold coin, with a 'word' on it was sure to belong to a dragon's hoard. Maybe the dragon it belonged to just liked to keep a dictionary for themself.

  After all, this wasn't the same word as on the slots. There were sure to be other words.

  "Perfect," Ashton smiled. He quickly took a note anyway, using the feather pen from the beginner gear. While the Pen of Insight was still asleep, it felt a bit weird to use its body on his own. He gave the note and the coin to the Backpacker, who had been standing Ashton for a while, just staring down at their phone. "Anything new in the community?"

  The Backpacker looked up, thinking for a moment. They shook their head.

  "Did Sam make new posts?"

  The spirit nodded, and started scrolling, showing the screen to Ashton.

  "Hm, alright. He posted what I gave him, good. Keep looking, if there's anything interesting I'd love to know," Ashton said with a smile on his face, giving the Backpacker a fist-bump. "Thanks, bud."

  Sabrina looked at him surprised. "Uhm, could I ask, what is that exactly?"

  "Hm? Them? Oh, they're a spirit. The little one in the lantern here is an elemental, as is the flying fellow here," Ashton explained as he looked at the wisp. "And you probably didn't notice her yet, but this up here is Poppy, a fairy."

  The pixie smiled and waved at Sabrina, who stood there, stunned. "A fairy? Seriously? I guess this new world isn't all bad if they're real..."

  Ashton scoffed, nodding his head as he walked back to the other slot machine. "Yeah, I guess so."

  And there it was, a stone laying in the small minecart, barely fitting into it. He couldn't help himself but finish that sentence in his head. 'Especially when beauties like this show up.'

  He picked up the stone. It was a rock the size of two fists. It wasn't even that it had any sort of special magic, or a ton of it either, but rather just that the mana in here was absolutely beautiful. Judging from the feeling of the stone on the outside, and the overall weight, it was hollow inside. It seemed like a magic stone geode, then, or something along those lines at least.

  There was no way for Ashton to know until he cracked it open, of course, but he was hesitant to do that. Because something with this mana pattern was an absolutely perfect offering for a gnome.

  But it was too perfect to just give it to the lesser elemental like this. There was a method that Ashton knew of. A way to give an elemental a more permanent body. Basically, he could make the geode act as something of a core for the gnome. Its body would form around that core, using up other material as an offering. But for that, Ashton had to inscribe the outside of the geode and treat it with some proper materials... which he didn't have right now.

  Plus, he didn't know the exact method, either. He had seen summoning circles a hundred thousand times, or at least it felt like that. But something like this was so niche that Ashton hadn't seen it often enough. Well, there were bits and pieces that he could remember, but definitely not all of it. And he didn't want to make a mistake that could potentially hurt the gnome.

  "Guess I'll have to contract the Salesman first, after all."