It took Hops a full ten days to set the climbing spikes up to a point roughly one man's height from the vein.
But there, he got stuck and could climb no farther.
For some reason, the rock wall had become extraordinarily tough. Even spikes forged from refined steel could not be driven into it. He hammered at it with a little iron hammer for ages, sparks flying everywhere, until the tips of the spikes had gone blunt. Yet all he managed to chisel out was a dent less than half a knuckle deep.
"Could you have reached the mithril layer already?" Sid said over dinner after hearing about it. "Stone this hard is rare, but if it's mithril ore, it wouldn't be surprising."
Hops shook his head. "I managed to chisel off a piece of rock and examined it carefully when I got back. It isn't mithril ore—just stone. It's just unbelievably hard."
"How can ordinary stone be that hard?" Dudu asked curiously, leaning closer. "Stone that hard usually only appears deep underground. It shouldn't be here."
"Who knows..." Hops sighed. "Anyway, I can't think of anything to do now. All I can do is slowly grind away at it, and I don't even know whether the vein on the cliff is worth spending so much time and effort on."
"Do you have a sample with you? Let me see it," Dudu said. "When it comes to rocks, I'm an expert!"
He was not boasting. Because the Dwarf Kingdom had spent countless years excavating underground, its knowledge of all kinds of rocks could be said to stand unrivaled in the world. As a member of the Dwarf Kingdom's royal family, Dudu Hill truly was an expert highly knowledgeable about all kinds of rocks and ores. In fact, he was