Chapter 1289 - Purple Crystal Mine
Chapter 1289: Purple Crystal Mine
After this incident, everyone found out — This Lord Zi had a terrible temper! And was very difficult to please!
Just saying something which displeased him and one would end up being badly lectured on the spot! In addition, this Lord Zi didn’t care who the person in front of him was… Didn’t they see that the second younger brother of the clan leader, Second Master of the Li Clan, had also been lectured by him as though he was his son?
Whether or not one felt indignant, at the very least, all of them became more careful in their actions on the surface.
Chu Yang’s outrageous behavior received favorable results.
And this effect would definitely continue… All the way till Chu Yang achieved his purpose and left, the effect from this would show during the entire process…
“Hurry up! Dilly-dallying like that, wow is this the behavior of someone who’s supposed to achieve great things?” urged Chu Yang impatiently.
Li Wuhai was so furious that he almost broke his teeth from clenching his jaw too tightly. Without a second word, he rose into the sky and started to fly at high speed.
You want me to be quick? I’ll make it such that you can’t even catch my shadow!
Unexpectedly, this prompted praise from Lord Zi instead. “This speed is pretty decent.”
Then, this Lord Zi actually followed after him without any problem at all…
At last, they reached the Purple Crystal mine!
Even Chu Yang couldn’t help but gasp.
This was a huge mountain. Or to put it more accurately, this was the base of the huge mountain where the Li Clan’s assembly ground was! The whole place was surrounded by the Li Clan’s buildings…
Within a radius of 50 kilometers of the area to be mined, the place was clear of forestry. One could see the end without any problem at all. There was even a towering enclosure of several meters shielding the place!
On top of the enclosure, there were guards stationed every 10 meters. They watched the activity closely. Not even a fly could enter the area, not to mention a human.
At the mountain base, an enormous hole large enough to allow 20 horse carriages to move side by side had been opened up. Several people moved in and out. Everyone coming out carried a basket on their back. Densely packed inside the basket were countless Purple Crystals!
After letting a supervisor check and record the quantity, they would go back in.
The cave on the other side was obviously the storage area and it was even more gigantic!
Security was even tighter there. There were actually more than ten experts guarding the place! And this was just on the surface; who knew how many more were hiding in the dark?
After all, this was the true core lifeline of the Li Clan!
Watching those shiny purple stuff being carried out basket after basket and stored into the gigantic storeroom… Chu Yang felt intensely once again the fact that he was a penniless pauper!
That was what one called being goddamned rich!
Giving it a rough estimation, if the storeroom were to be filled up to the brim, it could totally fit several billions of Purple Crystals without any problem at all!
Several people were waiting outside the cave long ago, including Li Wubo, the current clan leader of the Li Clan. When they saw Chu Yang, the few of them came forward to receive them.
“Lord Zi, this is my elder brother!” Li Wuhai let out a snort and reminded him, “My elder brother is this generation’s clan leader of the Li Clan!”
Chu Yang’s eyes brightened and he went forward enthusiastically. Clutching Li Wubo’s hands in his, he exclaimed, “Oh my, oh my… Clan Leader Li, hurhurhur… Your fame has long resounded in my ears like thunder. It’s my greatest honor to meet you today! Hearing of Clan Leader Li’s great name is indeed not comparable to actually meeting you, and meeting you is even better than just hearing about you! Such heroic bearing and a mighty and domineering spirit! Such valiance and such a true hero and a great man! Seeing Clan Leader Li today has made me understand why the Li Clan is one of the Nine Super Clans ruling over the Nine Heavens… So impressive indeed!”
Li Wubo’s expression froze.
Even if he was thick-skinned, he had also been struck silly and disoriented by this bout of shameless flattery.
Li Wuhai at the side was even more slack-jawed.
So this bastard’s airs just depends on who he’s facing! He was so unbelievably arrogant when he saw me, but upon meeting my elder brother, he’s so passionate that it’s unbearable…
“Lord Zi is too modest.” Li Wubo smiled and said, “We’re one family from now on. It’s better if Lord Zi is more casual.”
“Certainly, certainly.” Chu Yang nodded non-stop. “Is there anything wrong with this Purple Crystal mine?” Pointing at the people bringing out basket after basket of Purple Crystals, he asked, “Isn’t the harvest looking great? It seems like extraction is going on very smoothly.”
“It’s very smooth, but there’s something that Brother Zi isn’t aware of.” Li Wubo sighed. “One kilometer beneath this area is a whole densely-packed Purple Crystal mine! It’s so large that its size can’t even be determined! On the whole, out of 100 rocks mined from there, close to four to five of them contain Purple Crystals!”
Chu Yang was left speechless. “Such a high extraction ratio! It’s practically frightening! But considering this continuous mining, wouldn’t this mountain have collapsed long ago?”
It was common knowledge that Purple Crystals were typically hidden inside rocks. The extracted rocks needed people who had cultivated the Purple Crystal Sanding Hand to meticulously sand down the rocks and retrieve the Purple Crystal within. During this process, if the Purple Crystals received any damage, there would be a huge leakage of the spiritual energy contained within.
Generally speaking, for a so-called Purple Crystal mine, if one could extract five to six Purple Crystals out of a thousand rocks, the mine could already be said to be a premium Purple Crystal mine.
But this Purple Crystal mine belonging to the Li Clan could actually produce the same output rate as other people’s 1,000 rocks with just 100 rocks!
Practically inconceivable!
No wonder the Li Clan stayed here and refused to leave…
“Herein lies the problem.” Li Wubo let out a wry laugh. “Even after mining for ten thousand years, we’ve only managed to mine around the outer-ring. Furthermore, as we go further inward and downward, there aren’t many Purple Crystals left anymore. But what’s frustrating is that in the middle of this Purple Crystal mine is a Purple Crystal mine of superior quality, but we can’t break apart the outer surface to mine it! It is precisely this area, which spans from bottom to top, that’s supporting the entire mountain. No matter how we dig, even if we don’t take any precautionary measures, it will not collapse.”
“Seriously?” Chu Yang frowned. “Even a Supreme Martial Artist can’t mine it?”
Li Wubo heaved a heavy sigh. “Even a ninth-grade Supreme Martial Artist can’t budge it at all…”
Chu Yang’s expression turned solemn.
“During the last ten thousand years, the amount of Purple Crystals that the Li Clan has extracted is not limited to just several billion. However… Their quality is the same — the most regular type of normal Purple Crystals! There isn’t even a single Purple Crystal core! Yet in that area that we can’t access, even the lowest quality Purple Crystal there is a Purple Crystal Core!”
When Li Wubo reached this part, he sighed.
Every time they mentioned this problem, the entire group of Li Clan higher-ups wanted to vomit blood.
This situation was just like a bunch of paupers guarding a mountain of gold! Even though they knew very well that even just a rock from this mountain of gold could let them become a millionaire, they just couldn’t scrape even a bit of dust off it!
One could easily imagine their frustration.
“I’ll go in and take a look.” With a solemn expression, Chu Yang said, “I’m not sure… if I can break through the surface. Even our Purple Crystal Clan has never encountered such a situation… A ninth-grade Supreme Martial Artist should be able to casually twist even Star Iron and Nightmare Steel into a piece of fried dough twist and yet there are actually rocks here that even a ninth-grade Supreme Martial Artist can’t break apart. Just what kind of rock could it be?”
As he spoke, he made a move to walk in.
“Cough, Brother Zi, one must go through a body search before entering the Purple Crystal mine. In addition, no storage devices are allowed to be brought in,” Li Wubo explained with some embarrassment.
“Oh, right, right. There’s that rule.” Chu Yang readily followed his advice and took off from his finger the empty spatial storage ring that had no other purpose than to deceive people’s eyes. He handed it over to the elder guarding the Purple Crystal mine.
After that, he let them do a body search on him. They ascertained that he had nothing on him other than the clothes that he was wearing.
“I hope Brother Zi understands.” Li Wubo apologized with a smile.
“It’s fine! This is a rule! Nothing can be accomplished without rules and regulations, right?” replied Chu Yang open-mindedly.
No biggie, the storage capacity of the Nine Tribulations Space that Big Bro here brings about is ten thousand times bigger than that of a spatial storage ring.
When they entered the cave, they actually felt a wave of warmth.
As they walked deeper in, an astonishingly large dimension appeared before them! Innumerous people were busy at work here. Clinks and clanks echoed one after another constantly.
All the extracted Purple Crystal ore were stored here. There were easily 6,000 cultivators of Purple Crystal Sanding Hand here opening up rocks and extracting the Purple Crystals within.
First, they used a large knife to hack off the corners of a rock before slicing downward bit by bit. If nothing appeared, they would continue slicing until the whole piece of rock was sliced into ribbons. Then, they would go on to the next one. If they discovered a hint of purple inside, they would use the Sanding Hand to slowly sand down the edges until the whole piece of Purple Crystal could be extracted. At that point, the rest of the rock would have been reduced to dust.
These pieces of mineral ore were very peculiar after all. Even a ninth-grade Supreme Martial Artist couldn’t determine whether there were Purple Crystals inside or not.
The extracted Purple Crystals were placed aside while the broken pieces of rock residue and dust were immediately removed and transported out. The entire process was neat and organized. Only loud noises echoed without stopping from beginning till end.
This was a very slow process. However, when 6,000 people did it at the same time, the speed was still very fast. Only ten over men were in charge of transporting Purple Crystals out. There was practically no pause in between at all; after they went out and came back in again, there was already another big basket containing several hundred Purple Crystals waiting for them…
In a deep corner of the cave were over ten wide and spacious passageways. Large carts of big rocks — mineral ore — were transported out constantly.
“What do you think, Brother Zi?” Li Wubo introduced, “From here, there are a total of 18 passageways into the Purple Crystal mine. After going far into every passageway, there are another close to 100 mine caves. Every day, there are about 30,000 people working here!”
“Not bad, just that the efficiency is a little low.” Chu Yang nodded indifferently.
“The efficiency is a little low?” Li Wubo almost choked.
This is already the fastest and most efficient method and you actually claim that it’s low?
Chu Yang walked over to a pile of large mineral ore rocks. He reached out and placed his hand on top of a rock. Shaking his head, he remarked, “There’s no Purple Crystal inside this one!”
Raising his arm, he dealt it a palm strike. The mineral ore disintegrated with a loud boom. There was nothing inside indeed.
He then placed his hand against another piece of ore. “Nothing in here either!” And he broke the rock again. After breaking three rocks in succession, he went on to the fourth piece. “There’s something in this one! Bring the knife!”
He casually received the knife and with just four hacks of the knife, an intact piece of Purple Crystal was revealed. Purple glow shone; the crystal was surprisingly not damaged one bit.
The Li Clan members were struck dumb by this.
Chu Yang threw the knife aside. Pursing his lips, he said haughtily, “This is what you call being efficient!”
Li Wubo’s eyes brightened as though they were car headlights. “Brother Zi is indeed the successor to the Purple Crystal Clan!”
Everyone stared hard at this, their eyes not even blinking once!
Since olden times, no one had ever been able to see through Purple Crystal ore. Yet in the hands of this man, the mineral ore was actually no different from being transparent? How frightening was this ability of his!