I'm Trapped in the Block

Watching the patient’s transformation, Mo Ling grew puzzled.

The mental effects of the Anomalous Vein Sickness seemed much greater than the physical ones.

In just a short time, the patient had already begun to develop emotions other than fear, even suppressing that fear.

He was no longer trembling with fear like he had at the start. Instead, he was finding joy amidst his suffering, beginning to accept the new power he had acquired.

It was just like the general from Shibeng’s story.

While using the power granted by the Anomalous Vein Sickness, they were also regulating their emotions, adapting to feelings they were never meant to have.

They were gradually becoming more "optimistic."

Gazing at the mineral vein in his hand, the patient once again used the lapis lazuli to form the shapes of his previous companions, and even recreated the Block and Li Luo standing before him.

The sorrow on his face slowly faded, and he seemed to regain his spirits.

"Thank you for believing me. Something definitely touched me just now, I’m sure of it," he said to Li Luo, his tone firm and decisive.

He was incredibly confident now.

Li Luo nodded and asked, "You really don’t know who it was?"

"I don’t. I was in a state of emptiness, similar to what you humans call sleep. I didn’t see anything," he replied after a moment’s thought, a hint of apology in his voice.

The patient glanced at the lapis lazuli inside his body, which had spread a little further. "I should probably get away from the main vein," he said to Li Luo. "I’m heading to the Anomalous Vein Cave. Thank you."

His tone was sincere, gentle, and refined.

At this moment, Mo Ling actually found that the Anomalous Vein Sickness made the members of the Mineral Race more... endearing. But that was a conclusion drawn from a human perspective.

Perhaps for the Mineral Race, the birth of emotion was something difficult to accept.

The patient bid them farewell and walked toward the deeper parts of the cave.

Setting off once more, he was no longer downcast. He quickened his pace, filled with hope for the journey ahead.

Li Luo watched his retreating figure, lost in thought. Then, as if remembering something, he took out his electronic screen and started searching.

Mo Ling quickly shifted their vision to the screen.

Mo Ling watched as Li Luo quickly typed a term into the search bar.

—The Golden Touch Hand.

’What’s that?’ Mo Ling thought, and continued to watch.

Once the search was complete, Li Luo clicked on one of the entries.

’This is actually a Relic?’

...

The Golden Touch Hand, as its name implies, could turn anything it touched into gold.

Of course, this was only its most superficial application.

This Relic was first discovered right at the beginning of the Great Cataclysm.

At that time, the world had not yet succumbed to the societal collapse brought on by the Great Cataclysm, and countless Relics had appeared on Earth.

Some of the smaller Relics appeared in ordinary people’s homes and went completely unnoticed, mistaken for old objects that had suddenly been unearthed.

This was because when not in use, they were indistinguishable from ordinary, unremarkable items.

The Golden Touch Hand was discovered during this period.

One day, an ordinary farmer on the Greek island of Crete found an old pair of gloves in a cabinet at home.

The gloves looked like a normal pair of leather work gloves. Though covered in dust, they were not damaged in any way.

This farmer, named Midas, ran an olive grove and made his living selling olives to companies that produced olive oil.

The grove wasn’t large, and Midas’s family could manage it themselves, but the constant need for pruning and irrigation kept them busy.

Midas assumed a family member had bought the gloves and left them in the cabinet. He even checked them over and found they were still usable.

So, he washed and dried the gloves. A few days later, he put them in his bag, planning to take them with him to harvest olives.

The olive trees were tall, and the complex terrain of the grove made harvesting quite tricky. In many cases, Midas had to use ropes to climb the trees to pick the fruit.

He usually wore gloves or put protective tape over his fingernails to avoid damaging the delicate olives.

These gloves were a perfect fit. So, he climbed an olive tree and put on the comfortable pair.

But the moment he touched an olive, the point of contact instantly turned gold, and the color began to spread across the entire fruit.

The experienced Midas immediately felt that something was wrong with the texture and let go.

In an instant, the gold completely covered the olive.

Midas was stunned. He plucked the golden fruit from its stem.

The strange feel and heavy weight made Midas think it was some kind of prank, so he tossed the fruit to the ground.

But when he stared intently at another olive and placed his hand on it, the same thing happened. The golden color spread across it once again.

This olive also transformed into that strange state.

Midas thought he was seeing things. He tried a few more times and found that every olive he touched ended up the same way.

He thought he must have eaten something bad and was hallucinating. Without even taking off the gloves, he hurriedly grabbed the rope, wanting to get down.

But that very grab turned the rope to gold...

After taking off the gloves and struggling to slide down the olive tree, Midas conducted several experiments on the ground and finally confirmed that the gloves were the cause.

By now, he was surrounded by golden objects: twigs, blades of Little Grass, stones...

They had all turned to gold, and they felt heavy in his hands.

He looked at these objects, and the more he looked, the more familiar they seemed. So, he took the golden items to a jewelry shop.

As expected, it was real gold.

’This is the Golden Touch Hand?’ Midas’s heart swelled with elation.

Back then, news of the Great Cataclysm was everywhere. The television constantly warned the public not to use Relics, as there would be unknown consequences.

Officials also made daily announcements in town, telling residents to hand over any Relics they found and not to use them privately.

This, however, had the opposite effect. Because of these announcements, Midas learned about the Great Cataclysm and confirmed that his gloves were, in fact, a Relic.

This made him even more reluctant to turn them in.

The farm wasn’t doing well. After monopolizing the oil-pressing industry, the olive oil corporations were now trying to extend their reach into the cultivation sector.

Small groves like his were in a precarious position, caught between the large corporations.

Due to the constant price suppression, Midas’s family was already in a difficult financial situation.

’I’ll just use them for a while to make some money, then turn them in. The authorities won’t care about the minor details anyway,’ Midas thought.

And so, he began to make gold.

He continued to go to the grove every day, greeting his neighbors and acting as if nothing was wrong. Then, he would return home with his pockets full of stones from the grove.

In the evenings, he would tell his family he was going to inspect the farm equipment, then head to the garage to turn the stones into gold.

Finally, on weekends, while strolling through town, he would find some rough-looking laborers to help him sell it.

For a small pittance, these workers would eagerly do his bidding.

The amount of gold from each transaction was very small, but with so many of them, Midas earned a lot of money.

He felt that his new, wonderful life was just beginning.

But what he didn’t know was that the price was already being paid in silence.