Chapter 5

Book 10 Chapter 5 – Leaving

There was a total of six such stone structures, oil wood piled high . Song Qiao added a fresh stack of dry oil wood to each and relit the wood .  In the firelight, the surroundings became bright .

Lei Xinfeng saw that the ground was completely bare of anything, with puddles of water here and there . He couldn’t believe his eyes . “Senior, the heather gravels are found here? Can you find some for me?” He couldn’t see even a small speck of light .

“Okay, I’ll demonstrate . ” He dropped his height to half a foot above ground and began to survey the area . After a bit, he stopped and took out a giant steel shovel . He stabbed it into the ground and flipped a big clump of soil toward the stone structures . Then he flew over and began to search through that mud .

Soon, he found a piece of heather gravel, a tiny stone the size of a fingertip . It was deep red . In a shovelful of mud, Song Qiao had only found a single heather gravel . Even so, he laughed . “This is all over the place, but when you start digging, you might not find any . If you take a shovelful of mud, most of it will be empty . I was lucky and managed to find one . ”

Lei Xinfeng took the heather gravel . “It’s soft!”

“After coming in contact with wind, it will be as hard as steel . How is it? Can you find it quickly?”

Lei Xinfeng grimaced and shook his head . “I don’t think so… I’ll try though . ”

Song Qiao took out a few steel shovels and passed them around . “In that case, we’ll have to rely on luck . This stuff isn’t bad; you can trade them for Yin Rings . ” Everyone got excited at the last line .

Lei Xinfeng was still looking . It was his first time seeing a deposit of materials under a layer of mud, so he had no idea where to look . Slowly, he got used to the light here . Before the light source was six bonfires from the stone, it wasn’t very stable . It distracted him .

Squinting his eyes, Lei Xinfeng decided to focus on a single patch of mud . Slowly, he began to see traces of red light, but in the red firelight, he couldn’t be sure it really existed . If he didn’t concentrate, he wouldn’t have seen it anyway .

Lei Xinfeng stabbed his shovel into the mud and transported it near the fire . There was two heather gravel contained in that clump of mud . The others haven’t found even the shadow of that gravel .

Song Qiao was paying attention to Lei Xinfeng . After watching him make his first dig, he flew over and saw Lei Xinfeng extract two gravels . He couldn’t help but sigh . “Your luck is impressive, to be able to find two with your first shovelful,” he said .

Lei Xinfeng laughed and began to dig again .

After half a day, Lei Xinfeng found a few dozen pieces of gravel . Song Qiao only found seven, which Fengying, the worst of them all, only found one . Fengying’s head drooped, and an air of depression drifted with him

Song Qiao laughed bitterly . Originally, he’d thought that Lei Xinfeng might help them, but now he realized that even Lei Xinfeng was hard pressed to find these heather gravels . “Ah Feng, is this a bad spot?”

Lei Xinfeng nodded . “Yes . I’m still trying to think of a way to find a large gathering of these gravels . The thing is, this place has already been scoured clean . We’re digging for the remains of gravels that other didn’t find . There’s not much . ”

There was even a light source here . A lot of people probably dug here before .

“Should we go elsewhere?” Song Qiao suggested though he didn’t think it would yield anything . Many people probably already search in the surrounding areas .

“Might as well,” Lei Xinfeng said . “This place is a used spot, and the only remaining gravels are few and far between . No matter how much we try, we won’t get much . Waste of time, waste of effort . Not worth it . ”

Song Qiao concedes that point . The reason he brought Lei Xinfeng here was that Lei Xinfeng found a new vein at the Laka crystal site, allowing everyone present to profit greatly .

Lei Xinfeng called for Jin Daya, and the two of them set out to find a new deposit, armed with two torches .

They circled once and found many deposits for their effort, but each was tiny, only a few dozen each . A tiny amount is still valuable, however . Lei Xinfeng and Jin Daya emptied these deposits, finding a few hundred heather gravels .

After Lei Xinfeng came back, Song Qiao asked, “How is it? Did you find anything?”

Lei Xinfeng shook his head . “None . There were only a few small spots that yielded a little . Too little . ”

Song Qiao sighed . “In that case, we’ll just dig as much as we can . Let’s take this rare chance and dig as much as we can . We can still store away whatever we got . ”

“Let’s try our luck,” Lei Xinfeng said .

The next few days, no one really tried . They didn’t get much; they were so used to mining with Lei Xinfeng’s help that they felt that they were making no progress, and didn’t put any effort into digging .

Lei Xinfeng didn’t dig with everyone else, he took Jin Daya with him and wandered around the place . Their efforts yield decent amounts of heather gravel . Even tiny nodes had several dozens of heather gravel . If the nodes were big, there might be several hundred instead .

The two of them gathered bit by bit, and by the time it was time to leave, Lei Xinfeng and Jin Daya had gathered several thousand heather gravels . Lei Xinfeng sighed . “It’s not enough . If it’s a normal vein, we could have gotten several dozen thousand, or even hundred thousand pieces of heather gravel . I don’t know what we could use these few thousand for . ”

Jin Daya laughed . “Don’t be so upset . Old Ying and Old Hu combined didn’t even manage to reach a hundred . We gathered much more than they did . ”

Lei Xinfeng didn’t care . “I understand now . This place is trash . It’s not worth coming . ”

“Even if this place is trash, you still wouldn’t be able to find a place like this . If Senior Song didn’t take us here, you wouldn’t even have been able to find a trash mine by yourself . Even this amount of heather gravel can be traded for a lot of Yin Rings . ” Jin Daya was satisfied .

“I don’t even know what it’s used for!”

“It doesn’t matter, just keep them . Since you know it’s something valuable, don’t waste them lightly . When you do need them, you can save a lot of time and effort . ”

At that, Lei Xinfeng thought of that bone he found, and how it was the material most suited for crafting the Lightning Stamp . Originally, he had no idea what it was used for either . Now, he had a positive view on material with unidentified uses . He put them all away into his Hidden Lun space .

The existence of the Hidden Lun space is a blessing in of itself . If it didn’t exist, none of them would have been able to gather so much material . In this new world, the thing that surprised him and made him the happiest was the Hidden Lun space . With the Hidden Lun space, it was like having a mobile home with everything we needed .

The two of them returned to the group .

Song Qiao never gave up . “Ah Feng, did you find anything?”

Lei Xinfeng shook his head . “This is definitely an abandoned mine . No one will come here . Nothing in the surroundings except some tiny nodes . Worthless . ”

Song Qiao sighed again . “I was greedy . Come, let’s go back . ”

Xin Zhaolun smiled . “We gained a lot already . Haha, I never thought that I’d get so much Laka crystals . It’s all worth it for me . ”

The way back was easy and they didn’t need to take a long journey . Besides, it was already too late if they decided to take the mundane back . Since the wind is extremely powerful in the sky, they couldn’t fly .

However, with the Song Qiao’s Hidden Gate, all that was required to go back was to open it .

The destination of the Gate was the yard of the place in which they lived . In a few minutes, they were already back at Hanya Castle .

There weren’t a lot of people at Hanya Castle . Everyone else was still out gathering .

As Song Qiao walked out of the Hidden Gate, he thought of something and said, “Ah Feng, where did you mine your Purple Crystals?”

Lei Xinfeng smiled . “We didn’t mine them, we picked them out of a stream of magma . ”

“Biyasi…Oh, I understand . You went underground, right? Can you give me the location?”

Lei Xinfeng looked at Xin Zhaolun . That mining spot was found by Xin Zhaolun . He couldn’t just give it away on his own .

Xin Zhaolun didn’t mind . He gathered enough materials . Plus, Song Qiao was a Monarch, and there was no way he wouldn’t agree . Song Qiao even took them to his mining spots, so it was only fair to reciprocate .

After Song Qiao memorized the location, he nodded . “I owe you one…no, two . I can help you twice in the future . ”

Xin Zhaolun thought it was all worth it . Perhaps a Monarch did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, but a Monarch’s promise was something valuable . Very few of them will go back on agreements . As long as they promised, they will do their best to fulfill it, and with a Monarch’s strength, it was something that could be counted on .

After getting the location, Song Qiao left, but not before pulling Lei Xinfeng into his room and talk for half a day .

After he left, Xin Zhaolun asked Lei Xinfeng, “What did Senior Song say?”

Lei Xinfeng smiled . “Senior Song wanted to set a time to meet up and go mining, but I said I was too weak . We agreed to have him find me when I reach Eighth Ring . ”

Everyone showed a hint of envy; this was a Monarch they were talking about! How much material could they gather? He didn’t even need to spend time looking for spots; he only needed to follow .

“When Senior Song comes pick you up, take me with you!” Xin Zhaolun said .

Lei Xinfeng agreed . He also wished to help Xin Zhaolun . They were practically brothers, and he had helped Lei Xinfeng a lot in the past too .

Xin Zhaolun said, “I got everything I needed from here on this trip . When it’s time to leave, we leave . Until then, let’s cultivate as much as we can . This place is very effective . Don’t waste any time!”