CHAPTER 323: CHAPTER 185: AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY

She looked around the mine again, due to the limited space, dozens of miners were scattered in every corner of the mine, each provided with a shovel, a bundle of rope, and a few bamboo-winnowing baskets.

The Purple Gold Ore is beautiful, but it is also one of the hardest ores to extract on the continent.

Unlike ordinary ores, Purple Gold Ore cannot be blasted with magic before it is mined, nor can it be dug out by brute force using combat skills, as doing so may easily cause the entire cave to collapse. It can only be extracted by physical means, which is commonly referred to as manual labor.

Thus, even though these mysterious people have many mages and martial artists, they still choose to capture villagers for mining.

After hearing this, Yun Sheng and Liu Zi also began to mine Purple Gold Ore.

"This rock is really hard," Liu Zi swung his shovel, it took him tremendous effort just to scrape off a little bit of Purple Gold Ore.

Although Liu Zi is older than Yun Sheng, he never really learned martial arts. On the other hand, Yun Sheng had been training for a while in Wuxuan Wuji Hall and her Qi Power had grown stronger.

However, she quickly realized that it was very difficult to excavate Purple Gold Ore with brute force alone.

An hour later, Yun Sheng had only mined about five kilos of Purple Gold Ore, and Liu Zi did even worse, only managing about two kilos. At this rate, it was unlikely that the two of them could collect fifty kilos of Purple Gold Ore before dark.

Looking at the other villagers, Sixth Son’s father managed to mine the most, about twenty kilos, and other villagers had roughly ten kilos each.

Due to the heavy mining previously, most of the ore within sight had been harvested by the villagers.

As for those pillar-like ores, Yun Sheng and Liu Zi could not move them at all.

"Liu Zi, let’s go check out the north side," Yun Sheng pointed to a corner ahead. The Purple Gold Mine was temporarily opened, with passages going in all directions. The place where Yun Sheng and others were located had the densest ore distribution, but most of it had been mined out already.

"Don’t go too far, if there isn’t enough ore, I’ll share some with you," Sixth Son’s father reminded them, before immersing himself in mining again.

Yun Sheng and Liu Zi walked to the other end of the mine, which was much more concealed than the previous areas.

After turning a few corners, Yun Sheng quickly saw another diamond-shaped area of Purple Gold Ore.

"Liu Zi, keep an eye on the surroundings," Yun Sheng had Liu Zi keep watch as she quietly summoned a Phantom Beast from the Linglong Beast Tower.

"Deputy Captain, what is this thing?" Seeing the unimpressive, ugly creature, Liu Zi was somewhat surprised. He looked at Yun Sheng, unsure where she conjured this demon beast from.

"It’s a kind of demon beast. The two of us can’t mine Purple Gold Ore nearly as quickly as the other villagers, and since we can’t use magic, I want to try using this little guy," The last time Yun Sheng killed the Commander of the Shadow Beast Corps, she not only seized a few demon beast belts but also obtained several Phantom Beasts.

This kind of Phantom Beast is much stronger than most Earth Mages when it comes to digging, essentially a modified version of a pangolin.

"Are you saying this thing can mine Purple Gold Ore?" Liu Zi was still in disbelief.

"Just watch and see," If today’s experiment succeeded, it wouldn’t be just about mining Purple Gold Ore anymore.

Yun Sheng’s Linglong Beast Tower is known as one of the most mysterious treasures in the Wuji Continent; any demon beast that stays in the Linglong Beast Tower for a while either advances to the next stage or mutates.

Little Black and Bobbie both evolved towards advancement, but since this Phantom Beast was of a common rank, it didn’t evolve directly. However, its body underwent some mutations.

Its originally rock-hard shell, just like a layer of gold had been plated on it, mutated into gold and looked like an enlarged version of a golden beetle. Yun Sheng simply called it the Illusion Gold Beast.

Its limbs also sprouted sharp, slender, golden beast claws.

When the Illusion Gold Beast’s claws clasp together, they naturally form a shovel, targeting a piece of Purple Gold Ore half-buried in the ground, furiously digging with its claws.

Clouds of dust filled the air, hard-to-excavate Purple Gold Ore quickly accumulating a pile of rock debris beside it, and a piece of Purple Gold Ore - its quality strikingly perfect - was completely unearthed in 15 minutes.

"Incredible, this piece of Purple Gold Ore weighs at least over ten pounds," Liu Zi’s eyes lit up. If not for the fierce appearance of the Illusion Gold Beast, Liu Zi might have recklessly kissed it several times.

One could predict that with just a few more Illusion Gold Beasts, this extremely rich vein of Purple Gold could be rapidly depleted in a short time.

"You keep watch here, I’ll look around," Yun Sheng was very curious about the origins of this vein of Purple Gold.

Her senses were extremely sharp, able to quickly detect anyone approaching within a mile.

When she entered the Purple Gold Mine, Yun Sheng faintly sensed a powerful energy, which is why she chose to go northward into the mine, feeling that deeper into the mine, the energy fluctuations grew stronger.

But neither the mysterious people nor the villagers focused their mining efforts in this area, because compared to their initial entry point into the mining area, the quantity of Purple Gold Ore in this area had significantly decreased.

The exposed Purple Gold Ore on the surface was sporadic and inconspicuous.

Continuing to the end of the mine, with no further paths ahead, Yun Sheng finally stopped.

Yun Sheng stood in front of a wall, knocking it with her hands. She found the wall to be very hard, possibly because it has been neglected over the years, it was covered in a layer of thick moss, which was oddly red.

Yun Sheng took out a scalpel and scraped off the layer of moss on the wall, revealing the wall’s original color.

"Huh, the color seems different," Yun Sheng noticed that the color of this wall was completely different from the Purple Gold Ore outside and the basalt on the ground; it looked like a kind of red copper ore.

This red ore had caught the attention of the mysterious people, but they just identified it as common copper ore.

There is an abundance of copper ore in Wuji Continent, and since it is used by mages and various weapons comparable to iron, copper ore is very cheap.

Thus, the appearance of this red copper ore wall was considered to be the endpoint of this Purple Gold Vein.

However, Yun Sheng did not agree. This wall was a copper ore wall, but when she used her scalpel to thrust forcefully into the wall, she found that the blade, comparable in hardness to Hundred-refined Iron, actually got its edge curled up.

How could such a strong wall possibly be made of copper ore?

Yun Sheng had an idea; she placed her hand on the wall, softly chanting Fire Magic.

The intense Fire Magic surged toward the wall, yet to her further surprise, the wall remained utterly unmoved, without even a hint of heat.

"This is so magical," Yun Sheng couldn’t help raising her eyebrows.

She was eager to know what exactly lay beyond that wall.

"Deputy Captain, it’s about time," from the other end of the cave, Liu Zi’s reminder echoed.