"This Yellow Amethyst can even absorb the energy of crystals? Of course… crystals must contain a kind of crystal essence—and essence is just energy."
Zaric's thoughts clicked into place. Over the last few days he'd tried all kinds of "energies": fire, boiling water, the sting of static from rubbed cloth—anything he could think might feed the gem. The amethyst ignored them all.
What it did drink was consistent: starlight, the power sealed in desolate bones, the crystal essence within rare ores, and the Vital Qi Ren Flintclaw had pushed into Zaric when he "patted" his shoulder.
Thinking it through, all of those—starlight included—were tied to cultivation. Desolate bones and rare crystals obviously strengthened warriors. Even starlight might be part of some high technique that drew from the heavens.
So the amethyst only absorbed energy that advanced martial practice.
But if the Yellow Amethyst sucked the essence from a crystal… would that crystal still be useful?
Answer: no.
The shard would look perfect on the surface, but inside it was spent, worse than smelting slag.
In the Flintclaw Tribe, you never just swallowed raw crystal shards; they had to be processed—washed, ground, soaked, refined by secret steps only the elders and refiners knew. Most unrefined crystals were toxic if ingested directly, and even when safe they were nearly impossible for ordinary bodies to absorb.
Yet the Yellow Amethyst could siphon a crystal clean and turn that wild power into something Zaric's body accepted instantly—no poison, no backlash. That was its miracle:
It converted chaotic essence into refined vitality his veins could carry.
It meant Zaric could absorb the ridge's rare crystals without anyone knowing.
Totally undetectable.
He couldn't help but grin.
"Zac, what are you smiling at?" Lyra called from below, anxiety in her voice. They were deep inside the Flintclaw Ore Ridge, and a fall down these shafts onto jagged stone would be fatal.
"Sis Lyra, look what this is!" Zaric chipped free a thumb-sized Flameheart shard—already drained to ash within—and tossed it down to her basket.
"Flameheart? It's big!" Lyra's eyes brightened, then dimmed with a sigh. A twenty-year Flameheart shard was valuable, but not for them; refiners would brew its dust into a bath for Ren Flintclaw.
Still, the quota mattered. The tribe demanded 8 pounds of ore per person per day—calculated off the lightest junk rock—so a single high-grade shard counted for more. With this luck, they might keep their rations.
Pathetic luck, when all their risk and blood only fed someone else.
"Zac, don't overdo it. Dig the easy seams. No need to go deeper." Lyra's voice drifted down the tunnel.
Zaric pretended not to hear. A faint mote of light had just lifted from a nearby fracture. There was more essence ahead.
He set his pick, widened the crack, and pried loose a fan of Night-Eye Quartz rooted in the stone. One by one, golden-red motes rose from the crystals and flowed into his chest.
Night-Eye Quartz was prized for sharpening sight. The moment the amethyst drank it dry, a cool tide spread from Zaric's heart, and his vision snapped into razor clarity—he could count the hairs on a cave moth's legs ten paces away.
Low-grade crystals weren't supposed to work this fast. Refiners usually mixed whole sacks to brew a tonic strong enough to nudge a mortal's senses.
With the Yellow Amethyst, the effect was instant—and amplified.
He flicked the now-useless quartz to Lyra.
"Night-Eye Quartz! Zac, your luck is ridiculous!" she gasped. In a whole day a miner might find one piece like that—maybe. Zaric had handed her two in the last hour.
He only smiled. With the amethyst as his guide, essence lit up in his sight like lanterns in fog; all he had to do was dig where it glowed.
He pressed deeper into the shaft. The farther he went, the better he felt. After his Vein Cleansing, he'd been starving for energy. Regular food couldn't keep up. Crystals… could.
A new gleam pulsed ahead—brighter than anything he'd seen yet, like a cupped flame inside the rock.
"Oh?" He levered the last slab aside and found it: a Violet Core Crystal, twisted and knotted like a root, hidden in a pocket no ordinary miner would ever reach.
Perfect.
Zaric didn't hesitate; he let the Yellow Amethyst drink it dry.
Yellow light flooded his veins. Warmth rolled through his meridians, heating his limbs, rising into his head. His five senses bloomed; his body felt light, coiled, restless, as if power had no place to sit and needed to be spent.
He needed to move.
A three-hundred-pound boulder waited at the end of the spur tunnel. He hooked his fingers beneath its lip and clean-jacked it to his chest.
Once. Twice. Thrice.
Ten times later his skin steamed with a comfortable heat. Not enough. He shifted to deep squat jumps with the rock hugged tight—down, explode, down, explode—twenty in a row until his feet tingled and the sweat on his back evaporated in the cave's breath.
Gods, that felt good.
He rolled his shoulders; every joint popped like dry bamboo.
This was how warriors trained: eat desolate bone, soak in refined essences, temper the body day after day. Without resources or will, no one rose far.
He left the Violet Core where it grew. Taking a high-grade crystal would start a witch hunt. Draining it, however, left a perfect decoy—pretty to the eye, empty to the touch.
Most miners couldn't fill 8 pounds of quota without rest. With the amethyst's guidance and his sharpened senses, Zaric harvested at a dead run. In two hours he'd stacked 16 pounds of crystals—enough for both him and Lyra.
Every piece had been sucked dry.
He passed the basket down to her and kept his voice low. "Don't hand these in too early. Looks… suspicious."
"Zac, how did you finish so fast?" Lyra stared, baffled. No matter how she counted, it didn't add up.
"Just lucky today." Zaric winked. "I've got something to check below. You keep digging and make a little noise, okay? I'm gone!"
And like a shadow, he slipped back through the tunnels of the Flintclaw Ore Ridge, the quiet thrum of the Yellow Amethyst beating in time with his heart.