In the end, Jade started to regret revealing her abilities for a few days. However, that was it. After all, it really didn’t take her too long after ‘work’ every day to deal with some minor damage to the house where she lived. Unlike Oliver who couldn’t care less, both Peridot and Jade were a lot more attentive to the state of their home.

“I feel like your power is even more convenient than mine.” Oliver sighed as he watched Jade casually patting the jagged walls a few times before they were flattened, then hardened and reinforced without even needing to conjure anything. She walked around with bare feet as well, because wherever she stepped, the ground could also be evened out.

“I’m still getting the hang of it.” 

“Hold on, this will be loud.”

*Tang~! Tang~! Tang~!*

He hammed down a big metal rod into the hard rocky ground ahead of them. Then a few more. After he made them disappear, there were five big holes left. Then he conjured a hand-crank drill with a decently wide corkscrew shaped bit. With his superhuman strength, he was still able to turn it pretty easily and drill down half a meter before stopping. Then he drilled open the other four holes.

“Are you good?”

“Yeah, it’s cracked up enough.” Placing her palms downwards, they got redder until the whole surface layer of rocky ground in front of them was torn asunder! A dozen big chunks of stone were lifted up out of the pit. 

Oliver quickly placed a large pan underneath and collected up all the nuggets, placers, fines and everything else that might potentially be of value. Even a huge fist-sized green crystal fell down, but he managed to catch it before it hit something. Larger gemstones and crystals are almost always more valuable than smaller ones, assuming they’re of the same quality.

“Nice! Hahaha~!”

“Ehah-ehahah~!”

Even after a few weeks of amazing harvests, the two of them were still happy and excited every time they found a decent amount of gold or Greenstone. Technically Greenstone refers to any of the ores or minerals that ‘glow green’ in the vision of a Miner on Greenstone Mountain and the surrounding areas. Sometimes they look like green or yellow crystals. Other times they might just be a brown, gray or black rock. One time Oliver also found a grayish-black crystal, which Verna bought for a hundred gold coins.

“Oliver… Careful…”

Jade looked around anxiously, “Did you hear-”

“It’s my Dad.” Oliver frowned and slowly put his ear up against the rocky wall that hadn’t been reinforced yet, “Do you hear that?”

“What?” She put down the dozen stone spheres and crouched down next to the boy, trying not to burn him with her orangish hands.

*Shhhhshloupsshhhhhhlouploupshhhh~!*

“Is that water?!”

“Yeah…” He calmly picked up the big pan full of gold, silver, crystals and other goodies, then climbed up out of the pit.

“Come on, we can’t keep digging in this direction. We’ll have to block off this area.”

“Can’t I just reinforce the wall?”

“It’s safer to just create a wall back here and completely seal off that whole section. We’ve gone too far to the east anyway. I’m gonna pick up all these rails and move them over to the southern tunnel. If we wanna go ‘down’ that’s the best bet.”

“You’re the expert.” Jade shrugged her shoulders and slowly climbed up out of the pit. Then she transformed those twelve balls into a meter thick wall of solid stone that connected to the sides perfectly.

“Ow!”

“Are you okay?!” Oliver rushed over and quickly looked at those glowing orange hands, “Damn it, Jade, you need to be more careful!”

“I’m sorry… Don’t yell at me!”

“Uh, sorry, too… I’m just worried about you.” He snickered, “You’ve been pushing yourself way too hard lately.”

“I know, it’s just so easy to use this power that I forget sometimes…” Jade placed her hands against the wall to transfer away the heat more quickly. It didn’t take very long before she cooled down enough that she no longer glowed orange or red on her stony skin.

“Do you wanna keep going or take the rest of the day off?”

“I’m not tired. Just a little overheated. As long as I don’t use my power, it’s not a big deal.”

“Then we’ll take a short break and then get started on the southern tunnel. It’s a pretty steep slope though, so you need to be careful. I think I’ll just keep this track here. We might wanna come back in the future to mine on the right or left. Who knows?”

“Yeah. By the time we moved it all, you could probably just make a new one anyway.”

“Maybe. I’m getting stronger every day. Well, we both are, hahaha~!”

“Yeah!” Jade grinned and patted him on the shoulder… Then his shirt started smoking and almost caught on fire!

“Ow…”

“I’m so sorry!”

“Wait, don’t try to put it out, you’re just making it worse!”

“Ah, I’m sorry! Are you okay?!”

“I’m fine, I can just do this-” As Oliver spoke, his burning shirt and suspenders disappeared for a moment. Then they reappeared, good as new. Not even dirty anymore. Though all that dust was instead scattered in the air around them.

“Alright, come on. I gotta eat something and go to the bathroom. It’s a long walk back…”

Jade’s gray cheeks ‘blushed’ bright red for a while after that.