"God, I hate these mines…" Winston spoke to himself. "I've been here for hours!"
Under the circumstances that he was in, he had all the motivation in the world to drop his pickaxe, and jump into the pit of the mine where the more reputable miners were working at. He wanted to end it all, as he thought that his existence was miserable, but then again, he wouldn't even hurt himself if he jumped into that pit, no. The water would've softened his fall, so would his uniquely shaped starfish body, so he would just embarrass himself in front of the reputable miners at the bottom of the pit, and he may even get a beating so the miners could see him off properly!
In other words, death evaded him today, unless he picked a more painful, and long way to die. There were plenty of options like that, and he could even die from Tetanus if he chose to, for example, otherwise known as an infection gained from rust, but he didn't want to end it that way. It would be too long and painful, and he didn't have the courage to choose such a path.
"Man…" He sighed, as he powered his pickaxe with a bit of mana. "I guess I'll drag this iron out and hope for the best? Maybe a cart will hit me on the way up or something."
Winston then struck the iron vein in front of him, and so, three, inch-long chunks of metal dropped out of the vein. The amount he mined with just one swing was unnatural, and a normal pickaxe swing certainly wouldn't be able to achieve such a yield. This was why he powered up his pickaxe with mana to begin with, all for efficiency's sake.
Across the sea, Winston was otherwise known as a pink, Worker Starfish, and he proudly bore the name as the most useful starfish species out there. Other species of starfish were either too sluggish, too frantic, randomly exploded, or could not cultivate mana at all. Worker Starfish were amongst the only species who were useful, and this came with a bad curse of sorts, because they were also the species that were the most likely to be enslaved by big businesses. Winston worked fast, walked like a humanoid, and has had a big mana pool even in the early parts of his life!
Winston had worked in the Gerald's Blue Fin Mine for seven years now, without pay, even though he was eight years old himself, and he was absolutely sick of his existence as a whole! He had tried to think of a proper escape plan for ages now, but he couldn't think of an idea that wouldn't end up with him being shot at least several times.
The aforementioned, frantic species of starfish, otherwise known as red, Bubonic Starfish, were appointed as guards throughout the mines. They had guns. Magical guns.
Weapons Magic became a unique phenomenon across the sea about three-hundred years ago, and plenty of species have cultivated this branch of magic ever since. Some were bad at it, some were good, but Bubonic Starfish were the best at it, on the count of their violent, frantic nature!
"Nope, no way out for me today." Winston repeated, after he reminded himself what the few escape plans of his would end up to. "I want to die, but not in the hands of those damned red bastards! I can't go down like that, ever."
In utter self-loathing, he mined six more chunks of iron, and started carrying them to the mine cart about two meters away. Winston was six-inches tall himself, so a two-meter walk was a bit of an upwards battle for him. He didn't like it, but then again he didn't like anything else about his ten-hour shift either, so he kept pushing himself.
The only bit of reward that he got for his hard labor was a serving of food at the end of the way, which was barely enough to keep him alive. The rotten clams that he had to pry open himself, weren't as delicious as they used to be, especially since he has had such a meal for seven years in a row now, everyday, back to back. He hated every mouthful of it with every fibre of his being.
"Faster, pink cheeks!" A guard yelled out. "The empire is gonna need a lot more iron from you than that!"
"Alright, man." He sighed. "Keep your tubes on, damn it."
Winston was about to get back to the iron vein that he was mining, but along the way, a strange, feminine voice reverberated in his head. At first he thought that he was hallucinating from exhaustion, but that was not the case.
[Ding!]
[System Reboot]
[Loading…]
[Hello there, Winston. How are you doing in this fine day?"]
"Shitty," He answered, and at this point he just played along, because he thought that he had finally lost his mind.
[You haven't lost your mind, Winston. In fact, you're rather intelligent, perhaps smarter than most of your species!]
[Let me introduce myself! I'm a Weapons Magic System, and I was created by a higher being, one that wants to help the wide sea improve their magical abilities. I'm supposed to test out their newest set of creations on you, for the following decades, and then bring the results back to my creator. Do I have your permission to fully implement myself into your soul, and body?]
[A short analysis will follow if you agree.]
"Yeah, whatever." He agreed, not knowing what he had gotten himself into.
[Activation confirmed, and implemented.]
[Analysing…]
[Bear with me now…]
[Done! Do you want to hear what your strengths and weaknesses are? I've accumulated your statistics to the very last detail, and I must say, I am a bit impressed.]
"Oh?" He grunted.
At this point he came to the agreement that he was not hallucinating. He had experienced a couple of hallucinations before, but they were never this kind, and coherent, so he started realizing that he had gotten himself in a bit of trouble. His second theory was that he had gone completely insane. Regardless of what he thought, the system carried out with the statistics that she had mentioned.
A system tab popped up in front of his eyes. It had a blue template, and the content in it was written in the color white. At first he was spooked by it, but then he started to understand what this tab was about! He was very well-read.
[Strength = 3/500]
[Speed & Agility = 10/300]
[Durability = 20/700]
[IQ = 120]
[MQ = 40]
[Mana Pool = 400/2,000 points of blue mana]
[Mana Quality Level = 5/8]
[Mana Realm = Dardinus' Apprentices, otherwise known as the first realm.]
[Magical abilities = None, other than the honed use of pure mana]
Winston analyzed the system tab for a short while, and he didn't understand why the system was so impressed with him. Other than being intelligent, he considered most of his statistics to be mediocre.
Furthermore, he expressed, "Well, apart from the strength and shit, I knew the rest of these things about myself as well. Why did you put them in a flashy dashboard…. System?"