Chapter 109: Under The Red Moon
“No wonder the White Feather Gang has been relentlessly clinging to Crimson Moon Mountain, even the Great Ape Gang could be persuaded.”
Lin Qi looked at the recorded information on his smart watch, unable to calm down for a long time.
Land-claiming king seal!
For any city gang, this was probably an irresistible temptation.
Compared with picking at the leftovers of a city, the delicacies of a town were far, far better.
Leaving aside the income a town could bring, simply monopolizing a small energy vein was something even the great families living in the City of Light Chasing’s city proper could hardly attain.
“Judging from the White Feather Gang’s actions, there shouldn’t be many people who know about the existence of the small energy vein. Otherwise, even the White Feather Gang probably would not get much benefit. As for the Green Sparrow Gang, they clearly have no idea about the small energy vein, or they would not have agreed so readily back then.”
Lin Qi opened the topographic map recording the small energy vein and could not help falling into deep thought.
The small energy vein was like a ticking bomb for the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall. If the White Feather Gang made it public, Crimson Moon Mountain would be leveled and taken over in minutes by the major powers from the City of Light Chasing’s city proper.
Of course, all of this hinged on the White Feather Gang truly having no chance to obtain the small energy vein. As long as the White Feather Gang believed they had even a small chance, they would not casually spread news of the small energy vein.
Conversely, this was also an opportunity for the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall.
The reserves of the Crimson Moon Mountain miniature energy vein were only around ten to twenty thousand tons. The Obsidian Martial Arts Hall could take sixty percent, and with good luck they might receive ten thousand tons of energy ore.
Used to summon players, that would be enough to summon ten thousand people.
But to raise the system’s permissions, the martial arts hall needed to be upgraded, and upgrading the hall would require spending a large amount of energy ore.
Beyond upgrading the martial arts hall, once players were promoted to martial artists, they would begin to consume energy ore. By then the daily consumption of energy ore would likely be a considerable figure.
Ten thousand tons of energy ore, by Lin Qi’s estimate, would last three to four months at best.
At that point, the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall would fall into an energy ore shortage. Although energy ore was available for sale in the major cities, for the sake of sustainable development, the ore put up for sale was limited and would not be supplied in large quantities to a single gang or faction.
Additionally, the major cities’ sales limits were also meant to restrain the growth and expansion of city gangs and factions, otherwise management would become troublesome.
Energy veins were not only essential for martial artist cultivation, but also accelerated the cultivation speed of apprentices below martial artist level.
If the city gangs could purchase energy ore without limit, their rate of accumulating limit apprentices and quasi-martial artists would increase significantly.
Over time, quantity would become qualitative change. As soon as several martial artists emerged within these gangs, the cake of the city would have to be redivided. That was an outcome the senior officials living in the city proper absolutely did not want to see.
However, the cities’ restrictions on sales did not prevent gangs and factions from various cities from going into other cities’ jurisdictions to buy large quantities of energy ore from factions that possessed energy veins.
These little maneuvers by the city gangs had always been under the surveillance of the various cities. It was just that the incomes of most gangs were not high, so they could not buy much even if they wanted to, and those selling energy ore could not sell much either.
Whether it was ten thousand tons or a hundred thousand tons, it did not affect the overall city situation.
But a single small energy vein was different.
Lin Qi had read many historical records of the City of Light Chasing. The reserves of a typical small energy vein were generally above three million tons. If such a vein was owned by one faction, no one knew how many martial artists could be cultivated from it. This was why it allowed one to obtain a land-claiming king seal.
Three million tons of energy ore!
With so much energy ore, Lin Qi felt he could even build a player town.
With a player town and a few hundred martial artist level players, even the senior officials of the City of Light Chasing would have to show some respect.
If there were a few thousand martial artist level players, then even the many senior officials of the City of Light Chasing would have to consider his words carefully.
Thinking of this, Lin Qi did not hesitate to equip the A6-level battle armor and headed to the location of the small energy vein discovered by the White Feather Gang. As for the slightly dented helmet, he set it aside to give to Luo Qi for repair later.
Wearing a set of silver-white battle armor full of futuristic technology style, Lin Qi’s appearance quickly caused an uproar among a large number of players.
“Damn! Battle armor!”
“This battle armor is so cool! When did the master of the pavilion get this? Will the martial arts hall put it up for sale?”
“I’ve seen this in the data. This is A6-level battle armor! A limit apprentice wearing it can suppress a limit quasi-martial artist. If I had a set now, I would be absolutely invincible!”
“What a pity the master of the pavilion is not a woman. If only the NPC were female. I must send a suggestion to the game manufacturer before the public beta. Then I could borrow some of the master of the pavilion’s blood to forge my own battle armor. With my awakened small golden cosmos, I could sweep through the major gangs and unify the City of Light Chasing.”
“What are you thinking? This isn’t a sacred cloth. And don’t let the master of the pavilion hear that. If he finds out you’re after his blood, he might expel you on the spot.”
“I don’t dare dream about this battle armor. I bet we won’t be allowed to buy it before the public beta. I wonder if the master of the pavilion would let me touch it. One hundred points per touch would be fine. I just want to feel what it’s like.”
The players cultivating the Startling Spirit Breathing Technique in the mine cave, striving desperately to increase their strength, stared at the battle armor on Lin Qi’s body, practically drooling.
Armor and battle armor were completely different.
Wearing armor was like being a soldier on an ancient battlefield, but putting on battle armor made you Iron Man. Those lines, that technology, it was insanely cool.
The players who had taken part in the great battle were especially envious, their eyes almost popping out.
Armor was fine, but it could only protect most of the body. Battle armor was different. It was true full-body defense. Even without the armor’s auxiliary functions, it could raise one’s combat strength by an entire level.
Hearing the players’ chatter as he passed by, Lin Qi directly ignored them, thinking he definitely had to find more things for these players to do in the future. Otherwise they would spend all day thinking about strange things instead of focusing on playing the game.
After Lin Qi followed the mine tunnel deeper underground for more than twenty minutes, he arrived at a collapsed tunnel.
“This should be the tunnel recorded as leading to the small energy vein. The White Feather Gang is really cautious. To prevent latecomers from discovering it, they actually blew up the entire tunnel, then dug three other tunnels alongside it, crisscrossing the interior of the mountain to prove there were no traces of energy ore in this area.”
Lin Qi glanced at the deep passages nearby and could not help admiring the White Feather Gang’s caution.
If the Green Sparrow Gang had not detected the miniature energy vein halfway up the mountainside and started competing with the White Feather Gang for Crimson Moon Mountain, no one knew how long the White Feather Gang could have kept it hidden.
It was even possible that the White Feather Gang had controlled the small energy vein for quite a long time already, with no one the wiser.
Lin Qi then unleashed a series of Crushing Stone Fists at the collapsed tunnel.
Each punch carried nearly three thousand kilograms of shock force. Even boulders as tall as a person, under the fists of the second level stone crushing realm of the Crushing Stone Fist, would be shattered by qi and blood-induced vibrations into countless fragments, even powdered.
In just a few dozen punches, Lin Qi cleared out the collapsed tunnel, leaving him amazed at the power of the Crushing Stone Fist’s second level stone crushing realm.
It could be said that using the Crushing Stone Fist for excavation was simply more efficient than a dedicated tunnel boring machine.
After clearing the tunnel, Lin Qi spent nearly half an hour more and, having no idea how many meters he had gone under Crimson Moon Mountain, arrived at a natural, spacious cave. Various energy ores emitting a faint glow lit up the entire cave, allowing one to barely see everything inside.
“So this is a small energy vein?” Lin Qi sensed the dense energy within the cave and was shocked.
He had long known that a small energy vein would benefit physical exercise.
But he had not expected it to be this overwhelming.
With just simple breathing, without using any breathing technique, he could feel all the muscle cells in his body becoming restless, as if with a single command, they would begin devouring the energy pressing in on them.
The energy was so dense that Lin Qi even had an illusion.
He felt that using the Startling Spirit Breathing Technique right now, he could directly break through to become a martial artist.
“No, I can’t break through now!”
Lin Qi quickly suppressed this impulse in his heart.
As a high-level martial artist level cultivation method fused by the system, the Startling Spirit Breathing Technique could achieve martial artist status even before its first level proficiency reached one hundred percent. But doing so would fail to squeeze out more of the body’s potential and make the future martial path less smooth.
The reason martial artist cultivation methods differed in quality lay largely in the foundations they established. The more advanced the cultivation method, the better the foundation it could build. That was why so many genius experts desired to learn superior cultivation methods.
With the system at his side, his future achievements would definitely not stop at the martial artist level. Laying the foundation was the most important.
“Although I cannot use this to break through, players can come here to improve and break through. Reaching advanced apprentice and limit apprentice should become much easier.”
As Lin Qi explored the cave, he considered bringing players here to cultivate. This would definitely allow a batch of advanced apprentices and limit apprentices to emerge in a short time.
As for breaking through to martial artist level, he would later warn players that they were not allowed to advance before reaching one hundred percent proficiency. Advancing rashly would affect the difficulty of higher-level breakthroughs in the future. As long as players were not foolish, they would not choose to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
While exploring the small energy vein, Lin Qi soon discovered a number of energy ore processing devices left inside the cave. There were ten sets of processing equipment in total, capable of turning processed energy ore directly into house renovation material, forming one training room after another.
“What is going on with this cave? Why is everything made of metal?”
With his sharp senses, Lin Qi also discovered a hidden metal cave deeper inside. Looking at the metal within the cave, he felt an intense sense of familiarity.
“Why does this metal seem to be the same material as the mysterious metal plate?”
Entering the metal cave, Lin Qi tested the metal covering its walls. It was exactly the same as the mysterious metal plate dropped by Gana: all silver-white, smooth as a mirror, yet unimaginably hard.
Even the top-tier A6 alloy used to make battle armor could not leave any mark or scratch on it.
