Chapter 209 - Crystal Mine
Ji Hao moved really fast, even faster than Feng Xing. He grabbed the crystal in his hand ahead of Elder Iron Yan.
The fist-sized crystal was ivory-white, only half-inch thick, and shaped irregularly. It looked like a broken leaf. However, it was incredibly heavy, only a slight piece like this weighed at least five-thousand stones. An ordinary elementary-level Novice Magus could only hold two crystal pieces like this at one time, using all of his or her power.
Once Ji Hao’s palm touched this crystal, he felt an extremely dense stream of power gushing into his body through his palm. The power was pure and warm, and felt like wine that had been in a cellar for over a hundred years. This stream of power had even brought Ji Hao a magical sense of pleasure.
“Highest-grade magic crystal!” said Ji Hao, after letting out a cough.
Ji Hao had seen highest-grade, fire-essence crystals back in the Cold Stream Valley within the Southern Wasteland. The fire-essence crystal was actually a small class belonging to the range of fire-power system magic crystals. However, amongst all kinds of magic crystals, the most precious, rare and useful kind was the kind that actually didn’t have any natural property. What is meant by this is that the power contained in this kind of magic crystal neither belonged to the fire-power system nor to any other special kind of power system. Nevertheless, no matter which power-system your own power had a natural affinity to, you could use this kind of all-adapting magic crystals to assist your cultivation. You would be able to absorb power from this kind of magic crystals.
A piece of all-adapting magic crystal was worth ten times more than any other special kind of magic crystal of similar quality and purity as itself. Moreover, this kind of magic crystals were too rare, you could hardly find it in markets. All powerful clans and organizations were trying as hard as they could to gather more all-adapting crystals. Not a single clan or organization would easily let this kind of precious magic crystal get out of their hands.
“I seemed to remember that silver tungsten mines happened to be accompanied by magic crystal mines,” murmured Yu Mu. He had learned quite much about all kinds of mines and magic crystals in the Magi Palace, “But, not this kind of highest-grade all-adapting magic crystals. Hmmm, I thought only other few rare kinds of highest grade metal mines could be accompanied by all-adapting magic crystals, isn’t it?”
Ji Hao shook his head, weighed this piece of magic crystal in his hand, then let out a deep growl at the bug queen, which had already become his slave.
The black bug that had darted out just now with this piece of magic crystal held in its jaws let out a shrill scream, slightly shook its body, then turned around and quickly flew back into the path where he had come from.
Ji Hao, all his team members, Iron Yan and tens of Rong Mountain Clan clansmen hurriedly followed it, running into the path, and rushing behind the black bug. After rushing along the downward slope for around three hundred miles, the path gradually became thinner and narrow. Obviously, this path recently made by the black bugs. Having walked another five to six hundred zhang along the narrow path, another cave that was hundred zhang wide, appeared in front of everyone. The cave was filled with extremely dense natural power. Milky-white dense fog gathered into streams that looked like real milk and was rotating slowly inside the cave.
A magical white light lit up the entire cave. This light was coming from the human-head-sized pieces of white magic crystals, which were thickly dotted on the stone wall of the cave. Some of these magic crystals were lighter in colour, and some were darker. Apparently, they were in different in quality and purity. On the stone wall nearest to the entrance, a piece of magic crystal had a breach on it and the shape of the breach was similar to the smaller piece of magic crystal held in Ji Hao’s hand.
Obviously, this piece of magic crystal was accidentally bitten out by the black bug. Right when it had broken it out of the wall, this black bug must have heard the calling of its queen, therefore, it had hurriedly rushed out with this small piece of magic crystal held within its jaws.
“An entire mine of highest-grade all-adapting magic crystals!” Ji Hao gasped in shock, turned around with a serious look at Iron Yan, and said, “Elder, I think we should really talk about this. This mine might bring your Rong Mountain Clan a destructive disaster, believe it or not!”
The face of Iron Yan twitched intensely. He held his tiny hammer, staggered into the cave, and took a deep breath. The visible, the dense milky-white fog that had condensed from pure natural power, transformed into two small swirls and ceaselessly swished into his body.
The natural power contained in the small piece of magic crystal held in Ji Hao’s hand, equaled to the total amount of power that a peak-level Junior Magus, who had awakened a hundred meridians, each filled with power, possessed. This meant that this small piece of magic crystal was enough to let an ordinary human warrior smoothly cultivate all the way to the peak Junior Magus level. On top of that, the power contained in such a crystal was extremely pure and dense, which would result in one’s cultivation being faster by at least ten times when compared to others.
In this underground cave, over a thousand human-head-sized magic crystals were exposed on the stone wall. Each of them could be cut into more than ten smaller pieces like the one Ji Hao was holding.
Inside the stonewall most certainly there would be more magic crystal similar to the ones on the wall, otherwise the natural power inside the cave would not have been able to grow so dense.
Elder Iron Yan stumbled to the middle of the cave. Right in the middle of the cave was a, over a zhang wide and foot deep, pit. The pit was filled with an unknown kind of white and sticky liquid. Apparently, this kind of white liquid was also an incredibly valuable natural treasure, similar to the earth essence milk. It had condensed from extremely dense natural power and was accumulated naturally through countless years.
It would be a great waste to use this kind of liquid to assist with one’s cultivation. Only by using it as a magic medicine ingredient, would its real value fully be gained. This kind of magical medicine ingredient was way too precious. It could only be used in the most powerful magical medicines that were capable of bringing even the death to life.
But, more attractive that the liquid were the nine, completely glowing and translucent plants that were in the middle of this shallow pit. These plants looked like little bamboos. They were only a finger thick and a zhang tall. Each plant had nine sections and each section that three white lines, with nine silvery-white, long and slim leaves attached to each white. Without being blown by any wind, these plants were swaying slightly, and those silvery white leaves clanged slightly against each other, letting out jade-clanging-like, especially sweet and pleasing sounds.
Ji Hao had already memorized names of all the frequently used herbal medicines, but he couldn’t tell the name of these nine magical plants. Obviously, either this kind of plant hadn’t yet been recorded by the Magi Palace, or they were listed as the kind of precious and powerful natural treasures in a greatly valuable and secretive books, which Ji Hao didn’t have access to with his current apprentice status.
All in all, everyone present was clearly aware that plants that could grow deep underground without having been exposed to sunshine and in this kind of liquid, condensed from pure natural power for god knows how many years, could only be describe as ‘magically precious herbal medicine materials’.
Ji Hao coughed slightly and said, “All kinds of precious and magical natural treasures like this can only be picked with special methods. Otherwise, even a slight mistake would completely ruin these nine magical herbal medicine ingredients. I think we should first get out of here and let the Magi Palace know what we have found here. Then we can discuss about our following moves.”
Elder Iron Yan suddenly raised his head and said with a really weird expression, “Why should we let the Magi Palace know? Why? All these belong to our Rong Mountain Clan, these are our property!”
Before he finished his speech, a stream of dim black glow appeared on Iron Yan’s muscular arm, from within which, tens of thumb-thick chains suddenly darted out like a multi-headed poisonous snake. Those chains swiftly wrapped around the bodies of Ji Hao and his teammates, firmly locking all of their limbs.
Ji Hao and his teammates hadn’t seen this coming. They suddenly felt a great weight had been added on each of them, and all fell on the ground, without being able to move even a bit.
Elder Iron Yan then shouted out harshly, “Seal the mine, all clansmen get out as quickly as you can! Seal the mine! Do not let anyone know what has happened in here! Not anyone!”
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Edited by SecondRate
Translated by XianXiaWorld