"Squid ink? If I rember correctly, isn’t this the ingredient for making Seafoam Pudding?" Han Qiwu opened the crafting nu and checked.
"Just missing a Midnight Koi, huh? I’ll head to the riverside one night this week and give it a try." Han Qiwu stashed the squid ink and glanced around.
As his gaze swept the area, he began to drool.
This level slls way too sweet!
Scattered all over the ground were massive piles of golden ore!
Golden and dazzling, almost blinding!
Dig it up!
Han Qiwu summoned Little Cold to guard the area while he and the Snowman Miner figurine enthusiastically started mining.
After a while, Han Qiwu wiped the sweat off his face and pulled out two explosive snowballs from his inventory. He tossed them at the remaining golden ore nodes.
"Boom! Boom!"
After the explosions subsided, he quickly ran over, collecting the shattered golden ores into his storage.
Mining manually was exhausting—blowing things up felt way more satisfying!
He figured he’d need to gather more explosive snowballs later. Though their power wasn’t quite up to par anymore, they were still excellent for blasting rocks.
On to the next spot for gathering resources!
Half an hour later, Han Qiwu uncovered a staircase leading to the next level.
"Let’s head down and see what’s ahead."
[You have reached the 97th level of the mine]
As his vision cleared, Han Qiwu spotted four or five Lava Squids swaying in the distance. Golden ore, even denser than on the previous level, shimred in the areas where the squids loitered.
"Could it be that all levels past 95 are filled with golden ore?" Han Qiwu searched around but couldn’t find any iron ore nodes.
As he set up tid explosives, he mused, "We haven’t even hit level 100 yet, and golden ore is already everywhere. What kind of ore would we find after level 100?"
He resolved to make a push for level 100 today to find out.
After setting the tid explosives, Han Qiwu tossed out Xiao Dian.
"Go lure them over."
Xiao Dian let out a reluctant snort, then fluttered its wings, successfully attracting the Lava Squids.
A mont later, the tid bombs detonated one after another, lighting up the mine with brilliant flashes of white.
"Man, saving up for these bombs is such a pain, but blowing them up is unbelievably satisfying!" Han Qiwu ran over gleefully, circling the area. To his surprise, his inventory now contained a new object that looked sowhat like a plastic shard.
"What’s this?"
Curious, he took it out and found it to be translucent, spindle-shaped, and indeed resembling a plastic shard.
[Squid Shell]
[Use: Attract Fire Elent Stones]
[Info: This shell, ford within lava, has a strong attraction for Fire Elent Stones.]
The recent explosions had earned him four pieces of this item.
"Turns out it’s a squid shell?" Han Qiwu weighed the item in his hand with a hint of disdain. "If it were a cuttlefish, it would probably yield cuttlebone instead. Too bad it’s just a squid—this thing feels pretty useless for dicinal purposes."
Cuttlefish and squids both evolved from shelled creatures, incorporating their shells internally over eons. Cuttlefish shells, or cuttlebones, are known for their dicinal properties.
"Oh well, let’s test how it attracts Fire Elent Stones later. But wait, why does the na Fire Elent Stone sound so familiar?" Packing away the squid shells, Han Qiwu skipped over to happily mine more gold.
Mining is pure joy!
Three hours later.
[You have reached the 99th level of the mine]
"Huff, huff!"
Noticing Xiao Dian panting with its tongue out, Han Qiwu threw over two pieces of Ice Mushroom Cakes.
Not just Xiao Dian—he himself was absolutely feeling the heat.
But thinking about his haul, this level of discomfort was tolerable.
In over three hours, he had collected [Golden Ore]×361!
Aside from the few explosive snowballs he had used earlier, the rest ca from tirelessly chipping away at the ore with his nearly-broken Snowman Miner figurine.
Fortunately, his repeatedly enhanced physical condition was now superhumanly strong, or he wouldn’t have lasted this long.
Looking around, Han Qiwu noticed this layer’s ore layout was unusually distinct. From his position, he spotted only a single, solitary passage leading deeper into the mine.
He could even hear the occasional rumble of lava bubbling from deep within the passage.
"I hope I don’t end up sliding straight into a lava river." Cautiously, Han Qiwu withdrew Little Cold, Xiao Dian, and Xiao Lai, then readied a Lava Eel in his hand, prepared to snack on it at any mont. He carefully moved into the passage.
After walking for about five minutes, he began to feel the temperature rising noticeably. His skin even felt slightly scorched.
Another five minutes later, the space suddenly opened up before him. He found himself standing on a lava platform.
Below the platform stretched a vast sea of molten lava. From ti to ti, basin-sized lava bubbles burst, sending splashes onto the ground that left charred-black marks. Looking closer, Han Qiwu noticed creatures swimming in the lava sea.
But what puzzled him was that those swimming creatures didn’t look like fish at all.
Instead, they looked like fish-shaped rocks.
Fossil fish?
Since there didn’t seem to be any mine creatures around, Han Qiwu took out the Shadow Rod, coated it with fireproof resin, and attached so newly obtained insect bait before casting it into the lava.
"Plop!"
The processed bait didn’t dissolve in the molten lava.
However, no fish took the bait either...
After waiting five minutes, Han Qiwu sighed, reeled in the Shadow Rod, and carefully flicked the attached bait into the lava sea.
"This definitely isn’t the right way to fish. Those creatures didn’t even pause when brushing past the bait earlier." Shaking his head, Han Qiwu took a sip of Frozen Tree Sap, then rembered the ti he and Brother Jing had fished for Red Snapper. Combining that with the squid shells dropped by the Lava Squids earlier...
"Could those creatures actually *be* Fire Elent Stones? And squid shells are the bait?" Han Qiwu’s eyes lit up.
Ti to find out.
He hooked a squid shell onto the line and cast it far into the lava sea.
"Plop!"
Unlike before, the squid shell instantly attracted the stone-like creatures’ attention as it splashed into the lava.
"Plop!"
The creatures swiftly swam over. One darted forward and latched onto the squid shell.
Fishing mini-ga triggered!
[Fire Elent Stone Fish, Elental Form, Skill Effect: Phasing]
"They really are Fire Elent Stones!" Han Qiwu imdiately focused his attention.
The Fire Elent Stone Fish icon in the fishing mini-ga was about the sa length as a Dunkleosteus, but its movent pattern was extrely agile.
It didn’t follow a straightforward up-or-down trajectory.
Instead, its form shrank down smaller and smaller, vanishing, only to reappear in another part of the fishing fra, gradually expanding again.
Just like an elent, ethereal and unpredictable.
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