Book 9 - Chapter 20 – Sky Marrow Stone
Lei Xinfeng began to give orders. “Okay, Senior Song, you’re in charge of shattering the rock bed. Hongjie, please throw the shattered stones to a clean place. Hongjie may not be enough, so Uncle Hu, help here. Elder brother, you help Senior Song. Uncle Jin and Uncle Ying will stay with me. I’ll identify the rocks.”
Everyone agreed. “You’re going for those boulders?” Song Qiao asked.
In the pile of giant boulders that wounded like a giant snake, the smallest one was still bigger than a house. Ice coated the top. “Follow me,” Lei Xinfeng said. He flew into the sky, following the boulders for a short distance. The others followed closely.
Suddenly, a bunch of black spots appeared on one of the boulders. Most of the boulders had no such spots, but Lei Xinfeng found one of the ones that did. One side of it was filled with black spots. He pointed at it. “This one. Destroy the top, but do not touch this side. Just collapse it.”
To Song Qiao, attack power wasn’t an issue. He just waved his arm and a burst of red light exploded, accompanied by a loud boom. The boulder that was bigger than a small house split into pieces just like that.
Lei Xinfeng began to point to the pieces with dark spots. “That one, that one, and that one. This one too, but break a bit of it off first, then move it to that empty spot there.”
Song Qiao already saw traces of Tiansui stones peeking out of the split pieces of the boulder. It only took a glance to identify it, and he discovered that there were many of it embedded within the boulder. In a moment of excited, he said, “Let me! Let me!”
His Hidden Lun space was the biggest, putting all the pieces of stone in directly. After he flew to the empty spot, he dropped it. To be honest, he wanted to just take the entire chunk home because this proved that there were indeed large amounts of Tiansui stones in the boulder. He didn’t before because there was no way to confirm if there were really stones in the boulder. He couldn’t just take the all the boulders either.
Pieces after pieces of boulder were split off under Lei Xinfeng’s direction, heaping rubble on the designated formerly-empty ground.
They broke seven giant boulders in a row. Of those, the biggest one was over a dozen meters tall and some thirty meters long. After this rock was destroyed, the remains took the whole group half an hour to transport.
“Alright, let’s go pick out the rocks with Tiansui stones.”
Most of these rocks didn’t contain the precious stones, only a few did.
Under Lei Xinfeng’s direction, they put to the side all the chunks containing Tiansui stones and then split those up among them. These chunks had to be taken home and slowly chiseled away to obtain a whole Tiansui stone. According to Lei Xinfeng, each individual chunk had at least one Tiansui stone.
Everyone was allocated around eighty chunks of shattered boulders or the equivalent of eighty Tiansui stones. Everyone was satisfied. The happiest of all was Song Qiao, who knew how grueling the process of blinding searching was. He never imagined that he could obtain so much Tiansui stones in just half a day.
He knew in his heart that the reason he could get so much was because of Lei Xinfeng. To start with, he didn’t know which boulders contained Tiansui stones. They broke a total of seven boulders, but around those even where thousands upon thousands of other boulders. If he came by himself, it was doubtful if he’d be able to find one of those Tiansui stone-rich boulders.
There were many scattered pieces of rock that Song Qiao had broken before. Many of them were glowing darkly. As Lei Xinfeng walked by, he took them into his Hidden Lun space. No one said a thing. This kind of stealing was on a whole other level. It was a kind of stealing unique to Lei Xinfeng.
Lei Xinfeng found other kinds of ore too. Some glowed red, while some glowed blue. However, as long as it glowed, Lei Xinfeng took it.
Then began another round of boulder breaking.
They went along the band of boulders, busily breaking boulders left and right. Everyone was excited. In Jin Daya, Fengying, Shihu, and Hongjie’s eyes, all these stones were potentially Yin Rings. If they didn’t work now, when will they work? Everyone mined with all their might.
Even Song Qiao was working seriously. In just a few days, he’d already reached his original goal. With this speed, he’ll soon have more than he needed. However, he will still gladly take as many stones as he could get. He’d trade almost anything for these Tiansui stones.
In ten days, Song Qiao calculated that he’d put at least three thousand pieces of rocks into his Hidden Lun space. When he had spare time in the future, he could slowly chisel away the surrounding rock and obtain over three thousand Tiansui stones.
Lei Xinfeng got even more. He had three subordinates, each with their share. However, their share was basically all his. Aside from that, he had his own share as well, and he also picked up some chunks here and there from the rubble lying about. No one else knew, but the rocks he picked up where all special. Maybe there were more dark spots, or the color was deeper. Of course, he still needed to chisel away the surrounding rocks before he could find out what was inside.
He pointed at a rock around seven or eight meters tall. “Destroy that one.”
Song Qiao flew over and destroyed it joyfully. It was at that time that Lei Xinfeng’s attention was attracted by a boulder the size of a large water container. It wasn’t because the boulder was small, but before it glowed with the colors of the rainbow.
He quickly flew over and absorbed the boulder into his Hidden Lun space. He did not know what was inside, but he instinctively knew that it was definitely something good.
Jin Daya and Fengying had blocked everyone else’s view of him. Given that everyone else’s attention was on Song Qiao, it meant that aside from Fengying and Jin Daya, no one saw Lei Xinfeng hide away a boulder.
When Song Qiao finished his destruction, Lei Xinfeng began pointing out the chunks of rocks. Whenever he pointed at a piece, someone came forward to take it. Everyone got a chance, and then the process started again.
It took but a moment for the harvesting to conclude.
“It’s tiring. Let’s rest for a bit,” Lei Xinfeng said.
Song Qiao smiled. “Yeah, let’s rest. I’m almost done. Heh heh, I’d never have thought that I’d get so much this time!”
Everyone found an empty spot and sat down. This time, it was Hongjie who built a fire and began to make food.
After Lei Xinfeng settled, he asked Song Qiao a question. “Senior Song, there there any other kind of materials to harvest here?”
“What, are you not satisfied with so many Tiansui stones?” Song Qiao asked.
Lei Xinfeng shook his head. “It’s not that. It’s because it’s so hard to come here, so if there were to be some other special ores, I want to take the chance to get some, or I might never have the chance again.”
Song Qiao shrugged. “I only know about this place. If you want to gather other ores, you’ll have to look around. Don’t worry, with me here, we can return to Hanya Castle at any time.”
“I think we should look for some other spots. We’re pretty much done gathering Tiansui stones. If there are any other mining spots… Haha, we have Ah Feng. No matter what, we’ll have a great harvest!!” Xin Zhaolun said.
Song Qiao didn’t care anymore. He already harvested enough Tiansui stones. His objective for coming here was already fulfilled. If he could find other ores, he wouldn’t be opposed to it. He nodded. “I vote we look for new spots.”
Hongjie also raised her hand. “I vote as well.”
“No objections,” Jin Daya said.
Shihu and Fengying didn’t oppose it either. Lei Xinfeng smiled. “Alright, let’s go look around. Though it scared me half to death, Hanya Castle isn’t such a bad place!”
Xin Zhaolun snorted. “You little bastard. This one trip to Hanya Castle, you got the most out of all of us. A Lightning Stamp, a Chaos Ring,” he said, listing, “already made it worth coming here. Not to mention Purple Crystal, Red Gold, Biyasi…a whole bunch of materials!” When he mentioned the Biyasi, Song Qiao eyes flashed.
“You obtained Biyasi?”
Xin Zhaolun kicked himself. He was careless and forgot that Song Qiao, and outsider, was present. But since he already said it out loud, he didn’t need to hide it anymore, and answered. “Yeah, we found a some.”
Song Qiao smiled. “It’s not bad. I’d never thought that aside from Purple Crystals, you even got some Biyasi!”
“Biyasi isn’t easy to find, so we didn’t get much either,” Lei Xinfeng blurted.
“Heh! How can it be possible that you only harvest a little with you here?” Song Qiao asked, jokingly.
Lei Xinfeng clammed up. He’d already displayed his ability. In these few days, even the ultra-rare Tiansui stone was easily found by him. He just laughed stupidly.
Seeing that everyone else was playing dumb as well, Song Qiao laughed. “Whaat! Even if I wanted some of that Biyasi, I’ll trade for it. I won’t steal for you folk! I also have some self respect. I won’t bully you!”
Inside, everyone’s hearts was full of doubt, and two words only. “Yeah, right!”
As expected, a second later, Song Qiao asked them for the material. “Ah Feng, can I have some Biyasi?”
Lei Xinfeng smiled. “Senior, didn’t you say that you didn’t want anything?” He changed his words at the last second. It was originally “where’s your self respect?” He definitely couldn’t say it out loud though, or he might offend him.
If Song Qiao got mad, they were all dead.
“Who said that? I want!” Song Qiao said.
Lei Xinfeng felt like he just barely averted a disaster. “Alright, alright. You’re the senior, so whatever you said. However, I really don’t have much,” he said.
Song Qiao raised his hand and extended a pinky finger. “Just a little, a tiny bit is fine.”
Lei Xinfeng found that the senior was truly shameless.
As Lei Xinfeng stood, not sure what to do, a far off sound of collapsed from reached them. It came from under the ice cover, so it was especially frightening.
Everyone stood up in an instant, looking toward the source of the sound.
A tide of white fog shot into the air far away. Song Qiao flew up, eying the rising fog. After a while, he landed. “It seems it’s an Ice beast. I’m not sure. Maybe it’s just a piece of the ice cover falling off…”
“There’s Ice Beasts here?” Xin Zhaolun asked.
“Of course there’s Ice Beasts here. It’s a place that can be used to avoid the frost. Many Ice Beasts will hide down here,” Song Qiao answered.
Lei Xinfeng had never seen an Ice Beast before. “Are Ice Beasts powerful?” he asked.
I’m confused. Monarch Hidden Lun spaces can be so big other people can live in it, but it couldn’t transport a shattered boulder with a volume totaling no more than thirty thousand and two hundred cubic meters?
Remember when Yin Rings were rare?
Yay, it’s really a four-chapter day! Another chapter or my homework? Such a tough decision. Putting that aside, thanks for your support, everyone!
Still, it’s already been a week since I started, huh? Just in time for a round of applause for a finished book!