The construction of the road connecting the main village to the new riverside settlement was progressing at a frantic pace.
However, something caught César's attention during his daily inspection near the quarries.
In the Minotaurs' resting area, he noticed one of the workers pull out a stone that, at first glance, looked like an ordinary copper ore.
Without a word, the giant brought it to his mouth, crushing it with a dry crunch and swallowing the fragments.
César frowned; that metallic shine looked disturbingly familiar.
"Hey, you. What did you just eat?" César asked, approaching with curiosity.
The Minotaur wiped the metallic dust from his mouth with the back of his hand.
"It's a delicious and nutritious ore, sovereign. In our clan, we collect them from the deep caves. They give us a small burst of energy when exhaustion catches up to us."
César watched as the Minotaur pulled out another stone and began chewing it. This time, he sharpened his perception and noticed something astonishing: for a brief instant, the Minotaur's presence grew stronger, as if his muscles had swelled with pure mana.
"Show me one," César ordered, extending his hand.
The Minotaur hesitated for a second, but remembering who his leader was, he obeyed and handed him a stone the size of a walnut.
César closed his eyes.
Instead of biting it, he tried to absorb the mana from the stone the same way he did while meditating in the Temple. He felt a magnetic resistance, but he managed to extract a spark of energy, causing the ore to grow slightly darker.
His eyes widened as he recognized the material.
'It can't be... this is Varmetal,' he thought, holding back a shout of disbelief.
César remembered the chronicles of the future.
When humans would finally invade this continent, their greatest fortune would not be monster crystals nor fertile lands.
It would be this metal.
Varmetal possessed a unique property: it could absorb, store, and channel mana almost infinitely.
In the future, legendary weapons would be forged from it—capable of absorbing enemy magical attacks and using them to replenish the wielder's reserves in the middle of battle.
'These guys... are eating the greatest treasure in the world,' César thought, casting a strange look at the Minotaur.
'If the emperors of the future saw this, they would go insane.'
But César quickly shook his head.
It wasn't surprising that they did this. On this continent, most races—except for the lycanthropes and the dark elves—consumed mana in a crude way, by eating beast meat or rare plants and refining the excess energy in their stomachs.
But to César, this was a true technical sacrilege.
He stepped a few paces away, staring at the ore with burning eyes under the confused gaze of the Minotaur.
He placed the stone on the ground, and after a few minutes he felt through his perception that the ore began to emit a faint glow.
It was absorbing the mana from the environment and recharging itself.
'Depending on the purity, they take more or less time to recover,' César analyzed.
By observing the recharge speed, he identified that this sample was Superior Grade.
A revolutionary idea was born in his mind.
He would not only use Varmetal for weapons.
He would use it to solve a problem that had been bothering him for quite some time: the lack of a real currency.
He didn't want to use gold or silver like humans did. Those metals were scarce in these lands and, in truth, they were "dead metals" without magical usefulness.
"From today onward, eating these ores is forbidden," César declared, rising with authority.
"Order a group to collect them immediately. And to prevent dissatisfaction, tell them I will reward them with extra food rations and more meditation time in the Temple."
"As you command, sovereign," replied a Minotaur captain, confused but obedient.
César looked at the stone in his hand with excitement.
All that remained was to collect enough to begin forging them.
He knew that Varmetal could be shaped into perfect discs without losing its storage capacity.
'I have the metal, I have the idea... but I need expert hands,' César thought as a new priority appeared in his mind.
'I need to find the Gnomes. Those little smiths are the only ones who will know how to handle this metal with the delicacy it requires.'