An Iron Shovel alone naturally could not budge the Crystal Ore if used on it directly, so the only option was to loosen the soil around it and dig out the entire lump.
This was not much of a problem, really. It just made things a little harder on Li Qiuzhi. Mining was exhausting, after all.
And no matter how carefully he tried to avoid it, he sometimes still struck the hard ore. As the saying went, every force had an equal and opposite reaction. The recoil traveling up the Iron Shovel really did leave his hands numb.
Unable to help, Ellin went to collect the Slime Condensate in the pool.
But when Fischl and Li Qiuzhi had defeated those Hydro Slimes, they had been in the middle of the water, so their drops had now sunk to the bottom of the pool.
The clear water revealed that the pool was quite deep, about thirty or forty centimeters.
Fortunately, Ellin wore shorts. She only needed to take off her boots to collect the Slime Condensate easily without getting her clothes wet.
"Eek~ So cold!"
She found a fairly dry rock, took off her boots and short socks, then waded into the water.
The standing water in the cave, untouched by sunlight all year round, was extraordinarily cold. It felt like ice that had just melted, and she began regretting it before she had taken even two steps.
But the spoils were right in front of her, within arm's reach. If she gave up now, Miss Fischl and Li Qiuzhi would look down on her, wouldn't they? Ellin gritted her teeth slightly and kept enduring it.
She leaned forward and reached her fair hand into the water. Even her somewhat strained expression was illuminated by the faintly glowing elemental ore containing