Mining great helps increasing STR and VIT, sulfur is used for spells mainly for attacking types. Iron is for crafting your own supplies of weapons and armors. it is best to start out with just the stones besides the guard towers. Mine the stone and just save the stone and sulfur. Sell the stone after you have 1000 of it then you can get 3k gold for it. Starting out with stone, skill up to mining 75 to purchase mining mastery and then skill it up on the stone to about 50. by doing so, you will mine at high speed while your stamina is drained slowly and less. Do not mine and harvest anything outside of towns unless your stamina is drained below 25%. You need some running sprinting stamina and fighting stamina in the case you jump.