roccoschili Chapter 6: Finally, the iron ore essence was found.
Chapter 6: Finally, the iron ore essence was found.
"Senior, you sound like a man who's hundreds of years old."
“You brat, I’ve actually already…” Before he could finish, Jing Qianli paused and continued, “That’s not the point. What you need to consider now is solving the problem at hand.”
"Yes! What should we do?"
Ye Xiaobai was also helpless. He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep, so he could only cultivate diligently, but without cultivation resources and lacking talent, he made no progress until dawn.
On the fourth day of mining, Ye Xiaobai got up early, ate breakfast, and went to the mine. He had been busy completing his daily tasks these past few days and hadn't even greeted Dazhuang.
Ye Xiaobai entered the mine and began mining while pondering. There was no other way; only by venturing deeper into the mine could he hope to find iron ore essence.
Before mining began, the mine manager warned his apprentices not to venture too far into the mine.
Ye Xiaobai had never known why, but now that he was inside, he discovered that there were suddenly many more passages inside the mine. Originally, there were only a few passages on the outer perimeter, and everyone was basically mining in the largest passage nearby.
Wandering aimlessly inside the mine like this could easily lead to getting lost, so Ye Xiaobai carefully marked the way back. The mine mainly contained iron ore, but Ye Xiaobai still hadn't found any iron ore essence after a long time.
Ye Xiaobai searched for a long time but still couldn't find any iron ore essence. He got a little frustrated and threw his mining tools hard onto the ore pile in front of him.
With a "bang," the pressure in his heart was released, but he still had to keep searching for iron ore. Just as Ye Xiaobai was about to pick up his mining tools, he noticed a beetle that looked a lot like a cockroach crawling rapidly next to them.
"Holy crap!" Ye Xiaobai was startled. This beetle is called an iron-eating beetle. It loves to eat iron ore and often appears in iron mines, but the cost of killing it is too high, so basically no one cares about it. Moreover, this beetle is very timid and can usually be driven away easily. Ye Xiaobai only learned this by asking the person in charge of the mine.
Ye Xiaobai picked up a stone and threw it, and the beetle immediately scurried away. Seeing the beetle run away, Ye Xiaobai suddenly remembered his nightmare from last night, in which he also dreamt of this kind of beetle.
"Could there be iron ore nearby?" Ye Xiaobai wondered to himself.
Thinking this, Ye Xiaobai immediately grabbed his tools and frantically dug where the beetles had appeared, as if he could see a pile of iron ore beckoning to him. His ideal was beautiful, but reality was harsh. He dug half a zhang deep, but still found nothing. Xiaobai felt despair once again.
He sat blankly beside the newly dug mine pit.
"Beetle, iron ore essence, beetle, iron ore essence..." Ye Xiaobai muttered to himself.
"Beetles love to eat iron ore..."
"If it's iron ore essence, wouldn't that attract beetles even more? Then the place where the beetle scent is concentrated is either a beetle nest or a place where iron ore essence has attracted a bunch of beetles." Thinking of this, Ye Xiaobai was so happy that he almost jumped up.
"Senior, could you help me find the location where the beetle scent is concentrated?"
"Wait a minute, trying to find the scent of beetles in this place filled with the smell of rust, sweat, and urine is going to be torture!"
"Sorry for the trouble, senior!"
"Alright, you brat, here's what I owe you, just wait a minute..."
"It's about three zhang away to the northwest!"
Upon hearing this, Ye Xiaobai immediately ran over and began digging. Sure enough, after digging less than half a zhang (approximately 3.3 meters), a swarm of beetles appeared, huddled around the iron ore spirit, feeding on it.
After driving away the beetles, Ye Xiaobai obtained a piece of iron ore essence, or more accurately, half a piece, since the other half had already been eaten by the beetles.
However, having this half piece of iron ore is enough to complete the task; it can be counted as three days' worth of daily quests.
Then, with Jing Qianli's guidance and good luck, Ye Xiaobai found another half piece in no time. He didn't continue searching, otherwise, finding too much would definitely arouse suspicion.
After returning and handing over the iron ore essence, Ye Xiaobai didn't need to go mining for the next few days.
At noon, after lunch, Ye Xiaobai called Dazhuang to go hunting for wild game in the forest near the mine.
Upon learning that Ye Xiaobai had found iron ore essence and wouldn't need to mine for the next few days, they were filled with envy.
After finishing his jungle hunt, Dazhuang went back to mining. Ye Xiaobai, however, had other plans and chatted with Jing Qianli during their rest.
"The game we had today was pretty good, what do you think, senior?"
"Like chicken ribs, tasteless to eat but a pity to throw away, the food we eat now has no spiritual power and can only satisfy our appetites."
"Senior is right. So we need to improve our cultivation to get better ingredients. If we rely on mining contribution points to exchange for resources for cultivation, we'll have to wait until next month. We need to find other methods."
"what way?"
"We can find some spiritual herbs to exchange for cultivation resources, but it all depends on your abilities, senior."