[Congratulations… Congratulations to the host for completing the mission: Locate the Spirit Stone Mine.]
The mechanical female voice sounded at just the right moment, confirming that the glittering crystal cave before them was indeed the Spirit Stone Mine they had been searching for.
“So beautiful.”
The group was struck speechless by the breathtaking sight before them. The ground was covered in exquisite, translucent crystals that refracted countless shards of light under the glow of the vehicle’s headlights, instantly illuminating the entire cavern. It was so beautiful it seemed like a masterpiece carved by an artist who had poured their life’s work into it.
At the very center of the mine rose a raised platform, and atop it bloomed a stunning, radiant Spirit Stone Mine, dazzling with flowing colors, dreamlike and ethereal, like a celestial maiden dwelling in seclusion here.
Could this be the true reason the aberrants had gathered at Spirit Stone Mountain?
Lu Xihe wanted to walk closer to examine the Spirit Stone Mine, but as soon as he opened the car door, he saw the dense layer of spirit stones beneath his feet and found himself momentarily unsure where to step.
Cheng Yuchuan was the first to step down. When he first placed his foot down to test, the spirit stones felt hard and unyielding, but once his full body weight pressed down, he heard the crisp sound of crystals cracking under the strain.
Every step felt like treading on molten gold and crushed diamonds, accompanied by the faint grinding sounds of spirit stones breaking and rubbing against one another, a decadent sensation of crushing treasures beneath one’s feet that made one’s heart tremble.
“Come.” Cheng Yuchuan reached out to support Lu Xihe. The moment he stepped down and crushed a spirit stone, a wave of guilt welled up inside him.
These were treasures that could save humanity in the apocalypse, and they were crushing so many of them beneath their feet. It was too sinful.
Lu Xihe simply jumped onto Cheng Yuchuan, then used his wood-type ability to pry the spirit stones off the ground one by one and store them in his spatial dimension, manually carving out a brand-new path.
The other five followed closely behind, getting out of the vehicle. After admiring the beauty of the cavern, they set to work mining the spirit stones and storing them in Xiang Shenwan’s spatial dimension, while Cheng Yuchuan carried Lu Xihe straight toward the Spirit Stone Mine.
The Spirit Stone Mine was breathtakingly beautiful, captivating the soul. They had assumed that, standing alone atop the platform, it would be different from the other spirit stones, but upon closer inspection, they found that aside from being more aesthetically pleasing, it was no different from the spirit stones on the walls and ground. What stood out, however, was the circular steel plate beneath it, which seemed completely out of place in the mine.
It didn’t look like something originally in the cave, more like something someone had deliberately brought here to seal something off.
Lu Xihe climbed down from Cheng Yuchuan and crouched to look beneath the steel plate. He saw that the plate was pressed heavily against a large stone resembling a well.
Golden liquid was constantly seeping out through the uneven gaps between the steel plate and the stone’s edge, and the moment the liquid touched the ground, it solidified into spirit stones.
Clearly, this steel plate had been used to block the flow of Spirit Stone Source Liquid, preventing it from producing more spirit stones.
Lu Xihe exchanged a glance with Cheng Yuchuan, and together they used their abilities to pry up the steel plate. They had only lifted half of it when the Spirit Stone Source Liquid inside the opening burst forth like a floodgate opening, gushing out and forming a small fountain in the center of the mine.
The source of the Spirit Stone Source Liquid was a large hole about a meter in diameter. Directly above it, at the top of the mine, there was also a small opening from which Spirit Stone Source Liquid dripped down. Beside the large hole, Lu Xihe spotted several broken stones that looked like they had once connected the two openings.
The edges of the large hole also showed faint traces of being struck by hard objects. It seemed that the Spirit Stone Source Liquid had once flowed through this hollow channel to reach a higher point, but now it looked as though someone had deliberately enlarged the opening.
After crashing through the mountain’s interior into the mine, their vehicle had slid another hundred or so meters before coming to a stop. Compared to the cave outside where spirit stones had previously been discovered, their current elevation was about ten meters lower.
So the cave where the exposed spirit stone had been found should have been where the Spirit Stone Source Liquid originally flowed. The appearance of the Spirit Stone Mine was because someone had severed the internal channel within the mountain.
Enlarging the Spirit Stone Source opening to allow more liquid to flow out and increase spirit stone production would be immensely significant for humanity’s survival, but this person had also gone to great lengths to haul in a steel plate to seal the opening. The purpose behind that was quite intriguing.
If S101 hadn’t issued the mission requiring them to find the Spirit Stone Mine, given the current state of the mountain being packed with aberrants, no one would have voluntarily approached Spirit Stone Mountain, let alone discovered the Spirit Stone Mine hidden deep within the mountain.
Then the only spirit stone humanity could have found would have been the one taken by X City’s Second Squad.
Looking at it that way… someone was trying to completely wipe out humanity.
At that thought, Lu Xihe unconsciously clenched her fists. The malice of the human heart was truly on full display in this apocalypse.
With Spirit Stone Mountain serving as a natural barrier against aberrants, building a new safe zone in S City was undoubtedly the best choice at present.
With the location issue settled, the construction of the safe zone could gradually be put on the agenda. For now, their top priority was mining the spirit stones and delivering them to the various safe zones, adding another layer of security for humanity’s survival in the apocalypse.
After three days of relentless digging in the spirit stone mine, with Yu Yicheng’s level-five healing ability keeping them going, only stopping to eat and replenish energy, skipping sleep entirely, they finally filled both Xiang Shenwan’s and Lu Xihe’s spatial storage by dawn of the third day.
Cheng Yuchuan hauled a massive 2×1 meter spirit stone onto the second floor of the RV to ward off aberrants. Once everyone packed up and boarded, the team officially set off back to A City.
As the RV drove to the cave entrance, everyone gathered energy orbs in their hands, nerves taut and ready for battle at any moment, only to emerge and find not a single aberrant in sight.
By then, the wind and snow had stopped. The aberrants that had packed Spirit Stone Mountain had vanished completely, leaving only glistening cores scattered across the snowfield.
The entire mountain was littered with aberrant cores of all sizes and colors. Anyone who didn’t know better might have thought they’d gone mad from mining spirit stones and accidentally driven back into the mine, how else could they hallucinate a mountain full of cores?
Lu Xihe rubbed his sore, swollen eyes. Even with healing abilities treating the physical exhaustion, the mental fatigue was all too real.
The scene before him looked as if the aberrants that had once crammed the mountain had suddenly been struck by some overwhelming energy attack, annihilated in an instant, leaving only cores behind, a faint trace that they had ever existed.
What kind of energy could one-shot so many aberrants at once? Among them were no fewer than a hundred high-tier aberrants. And on Spirit Stone Mountain, the only thing capable of dealing such devastating damage to aberrants was the spirit stone itself.
It seemed that when they’d crashed through the mine entrance, they’d inadvertently broken the seal isolating the spirit stone mine. Back then, a single giant spirit stone had been enough to drive off the aberrant king, clearly, spirit stones were extremely lethal to aberrants.
That day, when they’d suddenly shattered the seal, the aberrants packed on the mountain hadn’t had time to flee and were wiped out by the spirit stone energy.
Now, all these ready-made cores were laid out before them, just waiting to be picked up. In this apocalypse, where cores were practically currency, how was this any different from money falling from the sky?
We’re rich, we’re rich, we’re about to get RICH!
Lu Xihe’s heart was bursting with joy, the smile tugging at his lips impossible to suppress. He rummaged through the cabinet, pulled out a stack of large plastic bags, handed one to each person, then turned and pushed open the door to go collect cores.
Earned without lifting a finger, nothing beat freebies.
Lu Xihe spread the bag open with both hands, channeling his ability to control over a hundred vines to pick up cores simultaneously. Before long, one bag was full.
“Big Orange, catch!” He called out to Yu Yicheng, using his vines to swap out the nearly empty bag in Yu Yicheng’s hands for a large, packed one full of cores.
Gotta say, before this, Lu Xihe had never thought wood-type abilities were anything impressive. He’d seen them plenty in cultivation novels and always figured the five elements, metal, wood, water, fire, earth, sounded weak. But now he understood why the five elements were so deeply ingrained in people’s minds: they were just practical.
When you’re picking up money, you need a hundred hands. Two hands could never compete with more. Now, one grab netted him over a hundred cores, and in no time, a bag was full. Sure enough, to get rich, you needed more hands and faster speed.
Lu Xihe was in full harvest mode, cores piling up by the hundreds. Just looking at the numbers made his heart sing.
“Stop picking the low-tier ones, no space in the vehicle to store them. Head to the summit and pick high-tier and mid-tier.” Cheng Yuchuan called out to everyone. With that, he hoisted Lu Xihe onto his shoulder and sprinted up the mountain.
Qi Jin and Ning Wanli followed close behind. Xiang Shenwan, with her teleportation ability, scooped up Sheng Shuyue and vanished, reappearing at the summit in an instant.
Lu Xihe couldn’t bear to give up the low-tier ones. A single coin was still money, with a hundred vines picking at once, that was a hundred coins per grab. If he hadn’t seen them, fine, but now the cores were glittering right before his eyes, like his money had taken human form and was frantically waving at him. There was no way he could just walk away.
Lu Xihe only stopped after collecting five large bags of low-tier cores. Cheng Yuchuan carried him all the way to the summit, and by the time they arrived, Xiang Shenwan and Sheng Shuyue had already finished the high-tier cores and moved on to the mid-tier ones.
High-tier aberrants were scarce, only about a hundred high-tier cores in total. But the mid-tier ones numbered over ten thousand, more than enough to level all seven of them up to five.
On the way down, Lu Xihe had a hundred vines, each carrying a large bag of cores. Cheng Yuchuan and Ning Wanli, both level-five wood-type users, had vines that numbered only more. From a distance, the three of them looked like three massive tentacle monsters, absurd and hilarious.
Picking them up was a thrill, but back at the RV, they hit a wall.
Several hundred bags of cores, even a hundred more RVs couldn’t hold them all.
Picking cores was a moment of bliss; figuring out where to store them was a headache big enough for two.
“Oh right, the system space, I have the system space!” Yu Yicheng slapped his thigh, grinning.
But four hundred bags was simply too many. The system space wasn’t large, and even cramming it full only fit two hundred bags. The remaining half left them stumped.
Just as everyone was racking their brains, S101 suddenly materialized, twirled gracefully in the air, and landed softly on Cheng Yuchuan’s shoulder:
[Host’s current points: 9936. Ten thousand points can upgrade the system. Upgrading to the secondary system unlocks the system space and some time-based system abilities.]
“So close. Can I take a loan or borrow?” Lu Xihe circled around to sit on Cheng Yuchuan’s other side, tilting her head with bright eyes fixed on S101.
[…] S101’s pretty little face instantly fell. She shot Lu Xihe a speechless glance and opened her mouth with a hint of arrogance: [No…]
[Cough, cough.]
S101 changed her tune: [Yes, you can.]
“Huh?”
[You can borrow.] S101 awkwardly lifted the hem of her skirt and repeated: [You can borrow, but the conversion rate is 1000:1.]
“That’s no problem. I’ve got plenty.” Yu Yicheng raised his right hand high and made a grand entrance, patting his chest generously.
Having successfully borrowed points to upgrade, a beam of white light descended from above S101’s head. In the blink of an eye, her outfit changed into another, more exquisite and intricate little dress. The hem shimmered with fine silver light, making S101 look even more like a little flower fairy.
S101’s expression instantly brightened. She twirled and danced several circles in front of everyone before lightly landing in Cheng Yuchuan’s palm, hands on her hips with pride: [System space unlocked. Does the host wish to activate it?]
“Activate.” At Cheng Yuchuan’s command, S101 immediately flew toward the remaining two hundred bags of crystal cores, sweeping his hand to effortlessly store them all into the space.
Seeing this, Lu Xihe’s face lit up with joy. He stood up and activated his ability, striding toward the areas that hadn’t been picked over yet. He had only taken a few steps when a green vine wrapped around his waist. The next second, his body was lifted into the air and fell back into Cheng Yuchuan’s arms.
Cheng Yuchuan couldn’t help but laugh: “Stop it, sweetheart. If you pick any more, there won’t be room.”
“Isn’t it not full yet?” Lu Xihe frowned. Just thinking about those crystal cores waiting to be picked made his heart bleed. He struggled to get down but was held tightly by Cheng Yuchuan.
“The system space is already 97% used. Save some for emergencies later.” Cheng Yuchuan said helplessly.
Hearing this, Lu Xihe pouted, shot Cheng Yuchuan an angry glare, and turned his face away with a huff, refusing to acknowledge him.
The RV started up and set off once more on the road back to City A. This trip had been fruitful, and everyone wore smiles on their faces, except Lu Xihe, who lay against the rear window, gazing reluctantly at the gradually receding Spirit Stone Mountain.
My crystal cores, wuwuwu…
It’s Daddy who’s sorry to you all. Next time I come, I’ll definitely pick every single one of you up.
Not a single one left!