//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7: Exploration 
// Story: Factory of the Magical Variety 
// by Conglomerate 
//------------------------------//

By this point, I had already seen a large portion of the immediate area in the forest, along with the pathways to the Rodite, Carbite, and Oleite locations. Having not seen Luxite in any of these locations, there were only a couple of places I could check, and one was right on top of my base. 

The previous problem persisted though, I really wanted to bring more than just my cabin, even if it was semi-combat capable. I didn't exactly have enough Plumbite to create a whole new bridge though either, there simply wasn't enough in the ravine to fund that project.

How else would I get up there? It's not like I could just climb the side of the ravine right? Right? And with that, I quickly brought out two anchors, and started slowly 'climbing' my way up the wall of the ravine. It took a while, of course I could only really ascend about a block's height with every turn, but I eventually made it to the top, tech and all.

Now getting a closer look at the ruins, I could see just about how old they were. Crumbling stone walls and large growths of moss and vines showed their age, I'd date it at around seven hundred years. Checking my radar for any entities, none came up, so into the ruins I went.

I immediately got stuck, it was clear that these ruins were built with techs not in mind, something that made itself very obvious on the first interior doorway. No matter, a quick shuffle of blocks yielded a thinner, but longer tech that was more importantly free from it's confines.

The ruins weren't that hard to navigate either, with having almost constant access to the sky, and a view of other parts of the ruins, I was able to keep track of where I was pretty easily. I couldn't find anything really too useful in the ruins, the only part that was interesting was the library, It had definitely seen better days though, and I wasn't too sure if it's information was accurate either. Another project for a later date I suppose.

My journey finally ended in a large room, there were large windows and intricate stone pillars. It definitely looked like a scuffle was had here, clear energy weapon marks were scattered throughout the room, but what caught my attention most, was a small pile of blue metal shavings. 

Looking closely, I couldn't tell if it was Titanite or not, but I definitely recognized who it belonged too. I wasn't sure if the black creature was still around, I mean I wouldn't just leave my armor around. As worried as I was about upsetting that creature more, I could tell the shreds haven't been moved in a while, there was a small coating of dust on them.

Wanting to get out of there quickly, I collected all the shreds, there was enough for about an ingot, by my standards at least. Would the refinery be able to refine these shreds? That was something to test at least. If this really was Titanite, then at least it was available on this planet, even if it was rare.

Seeing nothing else of importance in the ruins, I headed back out to the where I had 'climbed' up. I sat there for a bit, wondering how I was going to get back down. Descending with anchors seemed like the best idea, but before I could get them off of my tech, the ground shifted beneath me.

For the second time this week, my tech impacted the ground from a relatively high position. Once again sustaining heavy damage, several blocks were outright destroyed, three wheels were gone as well. Luckily I still had spares from downsizing. That was the worst of it, thankfully the rest of the damage was undoable with my repair bubble.

Looking up, I could tell that the cliff above me was not the most stable, evident by the large chunk that was now down here with me. Something else was visible though, with a piece of the cliff gone, I could see a large vein of Plumbite, showing me that the ravine was probably saturated with it, just most of the surface ore had been harvested. I mean I was just underneath some old ruins, they had to get their resources from somewhere. Even with GSO grade drills I could harvest more plumbite, that was good, I wouldn't have to ration it out anymore.

Saving the Plumbite for later, I drove my damaged tech back to base, I still had to find out if what I had was Titanite, and to actually repair my tech instead of talking about it. A quick repair later, I loaded the shreds of metal into the refinery, though it took a while, it did eventually spit out a blue ingot. The ingot was classified as Titanite! That was great, I could actually fabricate more things, I just needed to find out where to get more.

A quest for another time, I still had defenses to build, I wasn't just going to expose myself without protection and a backup plan. Based on Zecora's first reaction to me, I had a feeling that most of the people of this world would react similarly. I'd have to ask Zecora for advise when dealing with the locals.

It was still night however, and while I knew I didn't need sleep(Thank you tech technology), It was safe to assume that Zecora did. So with the rest of my free time for the night, I once again headed out of the base in search of Luxite.

My rough search of the forest didn't turn up anything useful, there was another seam of Cuprite however, I made note of that. The empty field next to the forest obviously didn't hold anything either. I barely had enough darkness left in the night to properly search the next place, a flat stretch of dirt, with some stones placed around it.

This area didn't hold anything too interesting, but after circling around a bit, there was a soft glow coming from my tire tracks. I didn't have anything to dig through the dirt, my small drill wasn't made for soft materials, so I couldn't exactly excavate with that. The best option I could come up with was to simply drive over, anchor myself, then proceed to 'dig' with my tires. A very slow process that eventually lead to an uncovered crystal.

This crystal however, wasn't Luxite, it glowed slightly, but it wasn't yellow, it was green. In my search for Luxite, I might've found Erudite, I still had to identify it after all. Erudite had it's uses though, I could fabricate a proper defense AI, something for both my base and the planet when it came to that. Maybe I could use it to upgrade my speakers? A better speaking voice would be nice.

I uncovered as much of the crystal as possible, only able to fill three slots. I would have to mark this area down as a potential resource location, that made six so far. With sunrise approaching fast, I'd lost my easy way of finding Luxite, of course I could still search during the day, but it was just easier during the night.

Wanting to make something more of this trip than just the possible Erudite, I continued my journey in search of resources, I still needed to find Titanite and Luxite. Not to mention Ignite and Celestite, some essential resources for any tech capable of sustained flight.

After about an hour of driving, I came across something very interesting in some fields, train tracks. I knew what trains were, they were excellent at repeated trips to and from, they could hold a lot of resources, and not much could stop them. That gave me some ideas, with the resource zones being rather far away from each other and the base, I'd have to create some way to transport the materials. Trains seemed like a good way to go, at least until I could create flying convoys.

My drive didn't yield anything else new however, and not wanting to travel too far away from base yet, I headed back. By now I could start automation on a couple things, mainly harvesting resources, especially if the crystal I got was Erudite. Programing a simple tech to harvest a single resource wasn't hard. The main problem was though, if I wanted to start fabricating higher tier components, I'd need a Dongle, and to make a Dongle, I'd need Luxite.

Another impasse, perhaps I could substitute Luxite with something else, Cuprite sure had it's fair share of uses, maybe I could find a different resource to supplement Luxite. I'd have to keep searching, I wasn't going anywhere without more advanced fabrication. But my tech on its own couldn't cover much ground, I'd need to build something faster, something that could see a lot, something that could explore new lands easier, something... that could fly...

To Be Continued...