Chapter 714: Familiar Woes
Sylas watched with shock as Szorn did things that didn't make sense.
Every so often, the Familiar would pop back up from the depths of the mine with a neatly shaped cube. It looked like a masterful artisan had carefully chiseled out all six smooth sides by hand, leaving a reflective surface that Sylas would have practically been able to see his face in if not for all the lava floating around.
But the changes to the lava were probably one of the most shocking parts about it all.
Szorn seemed to have the ability to repel the lava away quite well. The moment it started to power itself up with Aether Stones, the abilities it displayed only grew likewise.
It wasn't even an hour before 17 large cubes of Metarock were laid out neatly, revealing a pulsing mass of Aether Stones beneath.
"I've finished, young master. Metarock is about as dense as a resource the people of your world would call coal. These are 17 equally sized pieces of 10 meters cubed and weigh approximately one and a half million kilograms each by your metrics.
"By convention, about 0.5 meters cubed of F-Grade Metarock is worth a hundred billion F- Coins. Functionally, young master has now earned 3400 trillion F-Coins. However, this is just the base price as 0.5 meters cubed is the lowest threshold necessary to guarantee a successful Treasure formation.
"That said, I would not advise young master to sell. Metarock cannot have a true value placed on it. If such a piece appears in an auction, it isn't uncommon for it to go for ten times that price if the market is particularly volatile. Metarock is one of the few resources that retains value to higher Grade existences.
"As for the Aether Stone mine beneath, I've already analyzed it properly. There are about 1.7 million Common Aether Stones, 213,000 Bronze Aether Stones, 76,000 Silver Aether Stones, and 16,000 Gold Aether Stones. This, though, already adjusts for how many Aether Stones I would need to successfully mine this treasure trove. Otherwise, the number of Gold Aether Stones would be about ten times this amount.
"Would young master like me to proceed?"
Sylas' eyes narrowed. "There are more Gold Aether Stones than Silver?"
"Yes. Due to the peculiar nature of Metarock, rather than being buried deep, Gold Aether Stones could be found both above and below the Aether Stone deposit. Mining Aether Stones is much more difficult than mining Metarock. By my calculations, I will need about 140,000 Gold Aether Stones to finish properly."
By any metric, it was a ridiculous ask.
For each leap in Grade, there was a 100x difference in the value of Aether Stones. That meant that a single Gold Aether Stone was already worth a million Common ones, while a single Common Aether Stone was worth about 100 F-Coins.
One could easily do the math and see that a single Gold Aether Stone was worth a nine-figure
sum.
The cost to Sylas to dig up this mine completely was trillions of F-Coins.
"And is this the optimal route?" Sylas asked.
"Yes, young master. Despite the differences in Grade, the difficulty of unearthing Common Aether Stones and Gold Aether Stones is negligible. Though, if there is a mistake, a Gold Aether Stone is thousands of times more likely to kill you. But this Szorn will not make a mistake."
"If the difficulty is the same, then the cost per stone should also be the same. Why would it not be more cost-effective to focus on Gold Aether Stones?"
"This is because of the unique layout of this mine, young master. The Gold Aether Stones are not concentrated in one location and there are odd cascading effects due to the reflection of Aether triggered by the Metarock. The result is the erratic formation of stones though there is a larger concentration near the top and bottom."
"And if we just focus on the top layer, then?"
"I see. My assumption was that young master wanted to take away all of the Gold Aether Stones. There are about 40,000 or so Gold Aether Stones concentrated on this top layer alone. I would need about 2,000 Gold Aether Stones to mine them, leaving young master with 38,000."
Sylas frowned when he heard this because... this was too stupid on Szorn's part. Why couldn't it see that this was the obvious choice even after Sylas directly asked?
Suddenly, it clicked for Sylas.
He had neglected to ask about the number of Common Stones and others. The numbers that Szorn had given him were what would be left over after it mined it all. It had never said that it would only absorb Gold Aether Stones.
When it said it assumed Sylas needed all of the Gold Aether Stones, it had probably only told him about how many of them it was taking because it felt that this was the most pertinent information.
"You... are working on a complicated set of parameters right now. True?"
"Yes, young master. My settings have been configured long ago and this Szorn has not been calibrated in a long time."
Sylas suddenly looked at the perfect cubes by the side and he realized something.
"... How much extra energy did you use making these perfect cubes as compared to how much you would have had you just mined them normally?"
"The difference is about 50%, young master."
Sylas shook his head inwardly and realized the problem. It had taken Szorn about 17,000 Gold Aether Stones to mine this Metarock. That meant that it had wasted 8,500 on something so
trivial.
It was enough to drive a man mad.
It seemed that Sylas would have to take his time to tinker with Szorn's settings. Otherwise,
who knew how many ways he would be screwed over?
An AI was only as good as the prompts it was given. A Familiar was clearly valuable, but not to
the point of being its own being. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a Familiar.
"Mine the Gold Aether Stones alone. No need to neatly arrange them."
"In that case, this Szorn only needs 1,000 Gold Aether Stones!"
Sylas shook his head once more. He would have to watch this Familiar like a hawk.