I Reincarnated as The Protagonist's Best Friend

Quash used his boots to slide the dirt off to the side. He couldn’t find where to strike otherwise. After the dirt was moved out of the way, he felt Natural Energy leaking from a section of the wall.

​He brought the pickaxe up, ready to swing it like a cricket bat. He didn’t have any experience with a pickaxe, but with the help of his Precision Skill, he could learn fast.

​Before he struck, he loosened his wrist so that the shock from the impact won’t dislocate his shoulder joint. He just needed to create momentum with a downward swing, then leave the rest to nature.

​Quash took a deep breath. He enhanced his whole body, then slowly channeled Aura through the fragile circuits of the pickaxe, being careful not to burst the pathing with too much energy. He was not in a hurry.

​Quash felt the changes in how it translated to his Proprioception in real time. To his senses, it seemed like the tool was glowing brightly, but in reality, there was no such visual effect. The place Quash stood was as dark as it could get.

​After a few moments, the entire circuit was filled with Aura. The pickaxe was radiating intense white light with hints of green in Quash’s mind. He was ready, and without wasting any time, he struck as planned. He generated as much momentum as he could before loosening his wrist at the focal point.

​The pointy tip of the pickaxe dug into the wall with a dull thud. There wasn’t much of an effect other than a spiderweb of cracks spreading outward.

​The wall was far more damage-absorbent than he had anticipated. But it didn’t matter; he was here to take it down.

​Quash started to hit various points, outlining an opening he could fit through. Then, he began to chip away at the marked section little by little.

​After an hour of constant striking, Quash felt he was very close to breaching the other side. The amount of escaping Natural Energy had significantly increased. The sound of the impacts had also become crisper, no longer entirely dull, indicating that the stone layer was thinning out.

​Quash was breathing heavily, his arms feeling completely numb. He was sweating just like when he had first started to exercise seriously in this life, his clothes thoroughly soaked. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

​But feeling the end within reach, he was filled with excitement. He continued to batter the stone.

​After a few more minutes of non-stop striking at the exact same spot, he felt the tip of the pickaxe break through to the other side. He steered the pickaxe and pulled it out. The moment he did, an insanely dense amount of Natural Energy started to rush out.

​The energy was so dense that it was almost on the verge of becoming visible to the naked eye. Quash greedily inhaled the ambient energy to replenish his depleted Aura, which had fallen to only half. He felt empowered again, his fatigue rapidly fading as he circulated the fresh energy around his body.

​Taking advantage of the sudden burst of strength, Quash continued to widen the path so that he could enter.

​But it took more time than he thought. After another hour and a half, he finally managed to tear down enough of the wall to crawl through. It wasn’t a perfect opening; there were many jagged, sharp points that could cut him, but he wasn’t in the mood to care.

​The saying goes: no pain, no gain.

​The high-pressure Natural Energy outlet had also significantly lowered by now. The concentration of energy on the other side had decreased as it equalized with Quash’s side. Though a good chunk of it had been gobbled up by him while mining, which was exactly how he had managed to hold on this long.

​Still, the ambient energy in this specific corridor had increased significantly compared to any other part of the dungeon. The spike caused quite a few monsters to spawn outside of the regular daily quota, but he took them out without a problem.

​He needed to hurry, though. Even though this location was buried deep within the 10th floor, there was no guarantee that another student wouldn’t pass nearby and sense the abnormal wave of energy in the air. That would lead to a crowd rushing to this location.

​Quash needed to get out of here before that happened.

​He put the pickaxe back into his Spatial Ring, dropped flat onto the floor, and slowly crawled his way inside. He felt a few spots on his back and chest get scratched up, drawing blood. He noted the cuts, deciding he would take care of the injuries later.

​After a brief struggle, he finally squeezed through to the other side. He stood up and looked around; just as mentioned in the novel, this hidden cavity actually had a massive amount of space. Even though a lot of the compressed energy had already dispersed, the atmospheric pressure of the Natural Energy was still much higher on this side.

​Quash looked down at the small pond of Spirit Water through his Proprioception. It was glowing so intensely and flooding his mind with so much sensory data that he was starting to develop a headache. He turned off his Proprioception and pulled off his Gojo build.

​And when he opened his eyes, he couldn’t help but be shocked by the sight.

​The Spirit Water itself was illuminating the small cavity, bathing the stone walls in an otherworldly light that mesmerized him. But he quickly snapped out of it. He looked up and saw many stalactites hanging from the ceiling, but there wasn’t a single one that seemed to have dripped any actual water in recent years.

​That only meant there had been a natural aquifer or pond above this location a very long time ago—at the very least a hundred thousand years ago—otherwise, the terrain structural change didn’t make any sense.

​And what else didn’t make sense was how this place managed to harbor such high-grade Spirit Water. He saw no visible energy veins or crystals that could emit such strong wavelengths. Was there a hidden Natural Energy Vein deeper underneath?

​Quash didn’t overthink the logistics for too long and took a bottle out from his Spatial Ring. It looked like an ordinary container, but this specific item could hold up to 100,000 liters of liquid. It was an Epic Grade storage bottle.

​It was another item borrowed from Gabriella. She hadn’t asked any questions about why he needed such a heavy-duty container; since he hadn’t brought it up yet, she trusted that he must have his reasons.

​That was probably her exact reasoning, and Quash couldn’t help but feel an intense surge of excitement to show her his findings. Because as it turned out, the liquid inside the pond wasn’t just standard treasure—the Spirit Water was of Legendary Grade!