Dimensional Descent

Little Tolly replied to Leonel's commands almost instantaneously. In one moment, Leonel was covered in a thin skin of silver. In the next, his hands had grown to over three meters in size from the base of his palm to the tip of his fingers. If one looked closely, it would even be possible to see Leonel's real hands moving about quickly, their fingers controlling Little Tolly's every action.

Leonel took a step to the side, stepping out of a rushing waterfall of lava and into a lavaless cave. His hand swiped at a side wall filled with what looked like sparkling rubies. However, instead of causing a loud explosion, the sound was akin to a hand running through sand.

The large silver hand scooped out the hard rock as though it was nothing more than play puddy. The marks of its fingers ran across the almost molten rock, revealing even brighter and more refined ores beneath.

As Leonel got used to this unique method of using Little Tolly, he grew bolder. Arms grew from his back and eventually he had ten hands going at it at once. Each scooping out ores like they were no more tough than tofu.

'Ten is the limit right now, I can't stretch Little Tolly any thinner.'

Leonel felt that his mind could handle controlling more of these large hands, but there was a limit to how large Little Tolly could become. Leonel would have to help the little guy enter the Fifth Dimension first before he tried to increase the number of hands he was using.

Knowing this, Leonel stored about 95% of the Ores in the Segmented Cube and allowed Little Tolly to absorb the rest slowly. He had to be careful with how he fed Little Tolly, which was why the little guy couldn't progress on his own like Little Blackstar could. But, in this controlled atmosphere, Leonel was confident in monitoring things himself.

Just as Leonel calculated, in just a dozen minutes, the cave was a completely hollow husk.

'Not a bad harvest, but the best Ores here were only Tier 3 of the Fifth Dimension. It would be great if I could find a few Urbe Ore Deposits and a Devil's Shavings Deposit.'

Leonel shot away. He ended up coming across multiple Urbe Ore deposits, but they were all of the Fourth Dimension so he directly ignored them.

As Leonel dove deeper toward the Planet's core, he found that the density of Force was growing with every passing moment. Soon, it became a bit suffocating to him.

No, suffocating wasn't the appropriate word… It was more like intoxicating. Leonel felt that he was… getting drunk?

Leonel's brow furrowed. He knew that just because something was benign in small quantities didn't mean that it would always be so in great quantities or concentrations. People could even overdose on water and become high off of oxygen. It wasn't a large leap to say that this could happen with Force as well.

'Hm, I've been passively practicing [Dimensional Cleanse] all this time, but it seems like that might be dangerous here… At least it might be dangerous if I continue like this. Let's adjust some things…'

Leonel was able to use his split minds to passively practice all the time. Thanks to this, he was already close to firmly stepping into Tier 1 after just a few weeks. But, it seemed that the combination of his affinity for this place and the concentration of the Force had left him with too much abundance, an abundance his mind couldn't quite keep up with.

'Interesting… Oh!'

Leonel had just finished fixing the problem and balancing himself out when he caught sight of exactly what he needed. He grinned from ear to ear.

'I'm rich.'

Leonel shot forward, spiraling through the sea of lava he made it to his target destination in just a few seconds. Bursting through another curtain of lava, dripping with red-gold, his grin was almost visible beneath Little Tolly's skin of silver.

Soon, ten massive hands appeared again, sweeping through the ore vein with impunity. Kilogram after kilogram of Urbe Ore found its way into Leonel's pockets, his heart fluttering with the emotions of a nouveau riche.

He had finally found his first Fifth Dimensional Urbe Ore deposit and from his calculations, there was at least a thousand kilograms of it here. It made his gains from his battle with Shield Cross Stars look like child's play.

It hardly took Leonel five minutes to clear it all out. After that, the deeper he went, the more frequent the deposits became. It was clear that the more dangerous the environment got, the less likely the Milky Way Guild would have sent people so far.

However, Leonel did find one thing curious. Even at the more manageable mines, he had yet to run across anyone. On Planet Vincero, he had had to skirt around several miners to avoid trouble, but he hadn't sensed a single soul in this place.

Leonel didn't believe that it was because this planet was so much more dangerous. There would still be at least someone regardless of the danger… There had to be a different reason.

'Is a dangerous event coming soon? Or is there another reason they cleared everyone else out?'

Leonel planted a small seed of doubt within his mind, readying himself for any potential changes or danger. However, it was very difficult to dampen his mood entirely. In just an hour, he had accumulated over 8 000 kilograms of Fifth Dimensional Urbe Ore. He could almost pay off his own bounty!

'This is it.'

Hours later, Leonel was finally beginning to feel some real pressure from this planet. At the very least, Little Tolly could no longer remain as nonchalant as the little guy usually was. Unfortunately, it still had a small ways to go before entering the Fifth Dimension so it still had to put a small bit of effort in.

Leonel, though, wasn't thinking about this exactly. Rather, he realized that the concentration of Force had grown to such a level the first Force Crystal Mine he had run across since Earth was now right before him.

Leonel was certain that the Milky Way Guild had no idea about its existence or else they would have stopped at nothing to mine it. But now, wouldn't it all benefit him?

Not only was it wealth, but…

'The concentration of Force is great enough to form this mine. That should mean that the Natural Force Arts aren't much further from here as well…'