The Admirite provided a feeling of powerful natural forces, strong like a hurricane's wind yet peaceful like a flowing river. The feeling Marth felt was more like something within his own mind was out of place.

"A person?", Marth thought of one explanation, although he was sure he was alone on this rocky planet.

"Alone on the planet, but what about this Astral realm?", Marth began to hypothesize. This realm was his own, existing entirely in his subconscious reality. Could it be that the Admirite had opened up a region of his subconscious that had been previously locked?

"I have to find out what is going on here.", Marth was determined.

Floating around in consciousness form like a ghost in his Astral realm, Marth drifted to the right, away from his body, pursuing distance places in his mind he hadn't explored before.

"I've never been able to go this far.", he attributed the new possible distance to the Admirite, looking back at his body, it's size now seeming like an ant. A new feature in the bluish background came into view as he went further. A dry lake bed followed by desert mountains.

"Dry lake bed? I'm in a desert now? Mountains? I didn't put these here.", Marth began to be confused, but pressed forward towards the alps. As he did so, the flat ground transitioned to a rocky hillside. A sensation of a bright orange light arose among the Admirite's persistent feel. The light started to feel brighter.

"I'm getting closer.", Marth realized as he proceeded to the hills.

A few dead trees were seen among the nearby dead earth. The scenery was completely foreign to Marth, like something he would not or even could not have come up with. The ground contained tan, brown, grey, and bits of orange. Everything was dead and dried, wrinkled and saline, with no sign of healthy vegetation anywhere. No wind, no sun, no sounds, except for around a hillside where a gleam of amber light shone from the ground. Marth wisped towards the eminence, wondering if this was the source. As he rounded the corner, turning up at the foot of the dry desert mountains, Marth saw the yellow-orange light was coming from a cave tucked into the mountainside.

"What the hell?", Marth grew more and more curious as he approached the lighted opening. The cave's mouth was recessed in the mountainside, hidden from view if not for the light. From the ceiling, a few small stalactites hung down. Entering the cave, the source of the light revealed itself as an uncommon gold clock resting upon a granite pedestal.

Marth approached the clock, awestruck. He wanted to reach out and pick it up, but remembered he had left his Astral body behind. It had two clocks stacked on top of each other, each showing a different time. Individually connected to two gold platforms, a set of four gold rods joined the timepieces. The lower clock propped up by the bottom platform, and the upper clock suspended from the top platform. The upper clock's hands were moving counter-clockwise!

"What is this?", Marth wondered as he watched the clock for a few moments. It didn't seem to do anything other than keep time in opposite directions. Marth searched the cave and found nothing else of interest, and he soon returned to his body. His body was still standing there, eyes closed and arms at it's side. Marth tried to put together the pieces of the puzzle he had just seen.

"An unfamiliar desert plain, and an unfamiliar gold clock tucked away in an unfamiliar desert mountainside. Who put that there?", He asked, almost forgetting that he was in his own Astral realm, where a creator other than him would be almost impossible.

"Almost impossible?", Marth questioned himself. He had seen his share of things he thought would have been impossible before coming to St. Ezreal's academy. From reverse projections to creating entire universes, the Espers here had quite the repertoire. It may not be out of the question for one of the five pillars to modify Marth's consciousness.

"But why?", The unanswered questions began to make Marth's head hurt, so he tucked the mystery for the moment to deal with the task at hand. Mining in the quarry with an Admirite empowered projection.

Marth looked down at his body as he drew a massive blue summoning circle in front of it. Normally summoning circles had to be drawn small, then grown larger, but thanks to the Admirite, Marth was able to create a huge one to begin with. Within the circle were elements of iron, heat, and wood. Slowly, Marth activated the summoning circle, which began to glow a bright white. Arising from the circle, Marth lifted an enormous steel pickaxe head, and sizeable wood handle to match. Floating above the summoning circle, Marth envisioned the two pieces coming together, and they did just that, snapping into place with a large THUD-D-D.

Marth returned to his Astral body as he continued to hold the giant pickaxe with his mind. It was as if vast ghostly arms extended from Marth's own shoulders, their strength more than sufficient to hold the structure in place. Marth let go the summoning circle which faded into nothingness. Back in his astral body, he began the process to merge his Astral reality with the real world.

Marth's eyes opened to see the quarry, and a giant pickaxe floating above. Easily the height of a five story building, the pickaxe cast a shadow on the ground below him. Marth took a moment to adjust his hard hat and gloves, before stretching his shoulders, attached to his large invisible arms. Eyeing the ground in front of him, Marth looked for the perfect spot to make the first blow. Marth crossed his tiny arms, putting one hand to his chin, while his giant invisible arms held their position, grasping the giant pickaxe.

A perfect rock outcropping was seen with a chunk of exposed Admirite. Marth's vision tunneled on the jutting stone, as his crossed tiny arms synchronized position with his huge. His pair of arms reached for the sky, still grasping the mammoth wooden handle, before cocking back and moving the immense tool over his shoulders and to his rear. The backwards motion made a loud whooshing as it pushed a substantial amount of air out of it's way before coming to a stop. Marth's eyes glowed with anticipation for what was coming next.

Tensing his muscles in both pairs of contrasting arms, Marth threw their weight forward while tightly grasping the enormous pick handle. Whooshing was heard, louder than before, as the mass thrust forward and down. Air pressure built up as it went, gaining speed and momentum as the massive pickaxe reached a 45 degree angle to Marth's standing body. Faster still, Marth fell the axe, as it's fresh sharp tip came within ten meters of the ground. Faster still, the momentum of the tool's weight now too much for Marth to stop, came rushing and rushing towards the heap of rock.

An explosion of Admirite was sent flying in all directions, as the pickaxe stuck the earth with incredible force. Like TNT, pieces of rock and gravel came flying out, flying to heights they had never before known. The pickaxe still going as it's momentum propelled it downward, large spinning boulders forming as the solid layer below shattered like glass. The pickaxe slowed, with Admirite at the tip, crushing and compressing and crunching into chips. The air pressure which had formed at the front of the weight, blew down like a tornado, blowing dust in all directions and rustling Marth's clothes. The vibration in the earth was felt across the quarry, knocking over tools leaned against the storage shack and spilling over a pile of dust which had gathered on it's rooftop.

With the weight of the pickaxe finally settled, Marth's giant arms lifted the pickaxe again, lifting it to it's original height before smashing it down into the ground again. Whoosh. Pause. Whoosh. Explosion! The bursting sound reverberated off the quarry walls, freeing dust and gravel to roll down the slopes. Chunks of rocks and ore sent soaring took moments to fall, their sound like an artificial dry rain. Again and again Marth lifted the huge pickaxe, quickly turning the rocky landscape into a field of ruin.

Marth made short work using the large pickaxe. The hard part was over, with the enough square meters of loose material to load into the barrels for refinement. Using his large hands as loaders and a shovel for his small, he scooped the ore into the barrels with time to spare before Tsubasa-sensei's return. Dissolving his projection of the enormous pickaxe and arms, he returned to the supply shack for some water, before sitting on the ground near the barrels containing his handywork.

Tsubasa-sensei appeared as she walked, shifting into this plane. She stopped in her tracks as she saw a completely new layer of rock on the quarry's floor.

"You did all this in one day?", Tsubasa-sensei was shocked.

"Thaaaaat's right!", Marth replied, popping a thumbs up and showing his pearly whites.

Tsubasa-sensei looked at the 15 barrels, neatly lined up, filled up to the brim with coarse chunks of blue ore. Her arms were down at her side and she couldn't shake a look of astonishment.

"Marth, I was going to bring you here every day for a week to finish this job. But it looks like you don't need that extra time!",

Marth saw an opportunity to slack off.

"Well seeing as this is a seven day job, I guess I'll just take the next six days off!", Marth smiled, wishing she'd take the bait.

"No, I'll have a different job for you tomorrow.", But good work.

"What a let down!", Marth pouted.

"The sun is setting on our native plane. Are you ready to head back?", Tsubasa-sensei asked.

"The sun isn't setting here?", Marth wondered.

"No, this quarry always faces the star, it never gets dark here."

[tbc]