It wasn’t exactly a whole wall of Iron Ore.
But…
Half the wall was covered in it.
If they mined it all and threw it into a furnace, it might not yield a full stack of Iron Ingots, but more than half a stack was guaranteed.
Jiang Xuan began to question his reality.
Although Iron Ore wasn’t extremely rare, since when had it become this cheap?
This massive, dense patch seemed to emit a unique silvery-white glow under the firelight.
It looked just like a wall of solid steel.
Exceedingly tempting.
Jiang Xuan shot a strange look at Ganyu.
She looked adorably dazed, seemingly completely unaware of what a staggering mineral deposit she had just discovered.
But since it was Ganyu…
It had to be her luck stat acting up.
After all, Ganyu had always been incredibly lucky.
Over the past year of living with her, Jiang Xuan had often seen Ganyu stumble upon piles of Mora just by walking around.
Opening a chest in the wild would yield a bunch of rare Ley Line materials.
Well…
Luck indeed was a great helper when mining.
Otherwise, why would the Fortune enchantment even exist?
Speaking of enchanting, Jiang Xuan felt that with Ganyu around, he would definitely have to drag her along whenever he enchanted items in the future.
He would surely get top-tier stats.
“Jiang Xuan, is this a lot of Iron Ore, or is it a little?”
This time, Keqing didn’t dare confidently assert that the vein was small; the Coal Ore from earlier had truly opened her eyes.
Jiang Xuan pulled himself out of his thoughts, unable to contain his excitement.
Without keeping them in suspense, he did a quick math problem for Keqing and Ganyu.
“This wall has a rough estimate of over ninety blocks. If half of them contain iron, that means at least forty blocks of iron. One block of Iron Ore can be smelted into one unit of Iron Ingot.”
“Do you still remember the weight of an Iron Ingot I mentioned to you?”
Keqing’s eyes lit up.
After pondering for a moment, she murmured:
“A cubic meter of iron weighs over eight tons, and nine Iron Ingots combine to make one Iron Block. So, one unit of Iron Ingot is… over nine hundred kilograms!”
“Which means there are at least… forty tons of Iron Ore here?!”
After calculating this result, Keqing and Ganyu felt their hands go numb.
Looking at the patch of Iron Ore before them, they were more shocked than they had been when seeing Morax’s Exuvia. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
“Correct.”
Jiang Xuan happily ruffled Keqing’s head, then reminded them:
“And this is only what we can see on the surface. Whether there’s more Iron Ore hidden behind these blocks remains to be seen.”
“But at the very least, we already have over half a stack of Iron Ingots guaranteed!”
The moment he finished speaking, Keqing excitedly swung her pickaxe and rushed toward the ore.
“Hurry! Jiang Xuan! Ganyu, let’s get moving!”
Watching the excited Keqing, Jiang Xuan couldn’t help but chuckle.
However, since they were mining into a wall, he still had to offer some safety advice.
“When mining into a wall, you have to be careful. Some monsters can be hidden behind the blocks, and there might even be a spawner.”
“When you’re mining, make sure to listen closely. If you hear any strange noises, stop immediately and call me first.”
“Understood?”
Seeing both Ganyu and Keqing nod in agreement, Jiang Xuan finally felt at ease letting them mine.
They had been in the mine for just over an hour.
Not only did they have plenty of Coal Ore, but they also had this much iron.
“Hitting the jackpot” was the perfect way to describe this.
Still, Jiang Xuan felt that the richness of this cave was, to some extent, influenced by Ganyu’s luck.
In MC terms, Ganyu’s Fortune level was just too high.
But to say this was a truly massive amount of iron was still a bit of a stretch.
How much iron did Jiang Xuan actually need?
He had to prepare plenty of tools, especially iron pickaxes, since he needed them to mine diamond ore and obsidian.
He also needed sets of iron armor.
Even now, he wanted to get Keqing and Ganyu a set each.
Jiang Xuan also needed to craft iron buckets to hold water and lava.
Iron doors were a necessity as well; otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to keep the villagers out of his house.
He also had to gather materials for a cauldron; potions would be useful sooner or later.
Not to mention, Jiang Xuan needed an Iron Golem as a bodyguard for his base in the MC world.
That was going to be a major expense.
Although these could be farmed by breeding villagers, Jiang Xuan clearly didn’t have the time to exploit villagers right now.
Therefore…
Iron might not be the most valuable resource, but it was definitely the most scarce in the early game.
He should mine as much as possible.
Besides, Keqing and Ganyu had accompanied him to mine. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
Even though they were good friends, he couldn’t just make them do free labor.
Mutual benefit was a must.
When they left the MC world this time, he would have them take some back with them.
That way, they would have leverage when negotiating with Ningguang and the others.
This was also for Jiang Xuan’s larger-scale development of the MC world.
What Jiang Xuan told Keqing and Ganyu was entirely the truth.
The MC world was too big—infinitely vast.
Relying on himself alone, even if he lived for thousands of years, he could never fully develop this world.
Of course, Jiang Xuan didn’t need to develop the entire world; it was just that the System’s achievement quests frequently increased in difficulty by a hundredfold.
Jiang Xuan felt there was no need to work himself to death.
Lost in thought, Jiang Xuan mined mechanically.
It wasn’t until a crisp cracking sound echoed in his ears that he realized the stone pickaxe in his hand had broken.
Jiang Xuan finally snapped out of it.
Looking at the only stone pickaxe left in his inventory, Jiang Xuan curled his lip.
Now that he had iron, who would want to live such a humble life!
“Keqing, Ganyu, stay safe. I’m going to fire up the furnaces and smelt some iron. While I’m at it, I’ll remodel this area a bit to make it easier the next time we come mining.”
Keqing, entirely absorbed in mining, merely waved her hand.
Ganyu, on the other hand, spared a moment to call back a polite “Alright.”
This time, Jiang Xuan didn’t just slap together a makeshift furnace setup like before.
Observing the surroundings, Ganyu and Keqing were still mining on the left, so he could leave that side alone.
The right side was a solid wall of stone, which was relatively neat.
Behind him was the path they had walked in on, with torches placed on both sides, barely qualifying as a proper corridor.
Directly ahead, there had originally been two mining shafts.
Jiang Xuan had blocked one off.
After a moment’s thought, Jiang Xuan first placed down a Crafting Table against the right wall.
Then, he mined away all the jagged stone blocks around him, turning the space into a perfect rectangle.
He used the mined cobblestone at the Crafting Table to craft ten furnaces.
He stacked them neatly on the other side.
Jiang Xuan then placed his bed near the Crafting Table.
He also crafted a chest to act as a bedside table down in the mine, stocking it with some food so he wouldn’t have to scramble for supplies on future mining trips.
And then…
All ten furnaces fired up simultaneously!