People gasped in shock.
She slammed it a third time, with force. An audible "CRACK!" could be heard.
Someone else whispered, "It's going to break—"
But it didn't. The mortar didn't even crack.
The ore, however, did. It cracked into multiple pieces, revealing its flesh, an ice-blue centre, the cracks like windows of light into the ore.
Everyone gathered around, looking at it, as she came around the room carrying it like an artefact. It was no lie that these ores were expensive and hard to come across in their pure, untainted form. Most people have tainted and changed the biological nature of ores across different biomes around the world through ore manipulation, changing their properties.
I looked at the light dust sitting on her clothes like glitter.
"And that, children, ain't even me at full strength." Miss Xia straightened herself up, flicking the dust off her hands.
