After a long time, the three children woke up. After waking up, the three kids excitedly stared at themselves and their transformations.
“Whoah, sis, you have wings?” Taylor stared at Sasha jealously.
Sasha liked her wings as well. They were part of her, like her hands. The two wings fluttered slightly, and Sasha gracefully flew into the air, excitedly shouting, “I can fly, I can fly!”
“I feel so powerful.” Taylor excitedly punched at a nearby piece of rock, and that rock instantly split apart into tiny pieces. A ten-year-old child who was able to smash rocks into pieces? No ordinary person would be able to accomplish this.
Cena was extremely excited as well.
“Whoosh!” Moving like a flash, Cena’s body left behind after-images when he moved. He was extremely fast.
Linley, Delia, Wharton, and Nina all laughed as they watched this.
“How marvelous.” The Saint-level Gold Dragon sighed in praise. “Dragonblood Warriors truly are incredible.” The three Saint-level dragons all sighed in amazement at this scene. The legendary Supreme Warriors really were amazing. They could already foresee… in a few decades, these three children would be three Dragonblood Warrior Saints.
After the three children got tired from playing around.
“Mother. Where’s my clothes?” Sasha said to Delia.
The transformation had badly damaged her clothes. Fortunately, Sasha’s pants weren’t damaged; they were just a little dirty. But her upper body clothes had been shattered by those two wings of hers. It was no big deal right now, in Dragonform, but if she returned to her human form, wouldn’t she be totally exposed?
Delia began to laugh.
Linley laughed as he said, “The three of you, listen up. In the future, focus on training in accordance with the Secret Dragonblood Manual. There is one thing, however… generally speaking, you are not to transform into your Dragonforms. In addition, right now, you are weak enough that even in Dragonform, your power won’t amount to much.”
“Yes, Father (Uncle).”
The three children assented.
“Wharton, I’ll hand these three children to you to manage.” Linley looked at his little brother. The three children should live in Baruch City. They were still young, after all. If they were to be made to live in a place like Mt. Blackraven, where almost no others were around, the children wouldn’t be used to it, and their temperaments would be affected as well.
“Alright.” Wharton nodded.
Taylor and the others went down the mountain. Two of the three dragons, out of curiosity, decided to go to the Baruch City palace as well. But of course, they shrank in size first. Linley and Delia remained on Mt. Blackraven, living a life of quiet training.
Most of Delia’s time was spent with Linley. Naturally, she would also go to Baruch City to spend time with the kids.
As for Linley…
He might go for months or even half a year at a time without seeing the kids. Normally, he stayed on Mt. Blackraven and trained.
The sky was dark.
Mt. Blackraven. The stone room in the center of the lake. The inside of the room was carefully laid out, and Linley and Delia were holding each other on the bed. “Linley, have you ever asked Bebe to go inquire what that black stone was that he gave us on our wedding day?”
“I had Bebe go ask, but the Emperor Rat only said that it was something that was very good for training,” Linley said.
Delia began to laugh as well. “Alas. I never thought my training as a magus would reach such a speed. My Big Brother is such a genius, and is being personally taught by the High Priest, and is now an Arch Magus of the ninth rank. As for me, I wasn’t as good as him… but I reached the rank of Arch Magus of the ninth rank before he did. Every day, I feel like my spiritual energy is rising… even when I’m not training, my spiritual energy is slowly increasing. Even I’m scared by how fast I’m improving.”
“Enough, don’t overthink things. Whatever it was that Emperor Rat gave us, we’ll find out soon enough. Alright, it’s late. Let’s go to sleep.”
While Linley was quietly training at Mt. Blackraven and constantly analyzing the Elemental Laws of the Wind and the Earth… in a short mountain three hundred kilometers east of the Baruch Kingdom, two men were carefully inspecting the quality of the soil.
All kingdoms and empires needed their own mineral resources to be self-sufficient.
Before the Baruch Kingdom was unified, this region suffered from constant war and was under rapidly changing administrative controls. Today, you’d be in charge of this city; tomorrow, someone else might. Nobody had time or effort to find mineral deposits for mining.
Even if they found them, they would probably be attacked by the neighboring groups and end up dying.
Thus, no one ever went mining.
But after the Baruch Kingdom was founded, they focused on scouting and searching for mineral resources. Those surveyors carefully inspected every inch of the territory within the Baruch Kingdom. In the past twenty years, they had indeed found quite a few metal mines, such as iron mines, copper mines, gold mines, silver mines, and what not. Only, the mines were all of different sizes.
They even found some rather valuable mines, but the output of these mines was relatively low, such as the ‘black iron’ mines and the ‘mithril’ mines.
Having their own mines meant the kingdom wouldn’t need to acquire materials for forging weapons from other nations.
“Chief, the soil here seems rather unique,” a golden-haired man as skinny as a monkey said in a low voice. The middle-aged man near him carefully inspected the soil as well, then immediately ordered, “Kaya, let’s go down and do some digging. Let’s dig a bit deeper and see what is there.”
“Yes, Chief.” The young man immediately brought out the tools and began to dig alongside the chief. Although they weren’t very strong, the young man was a warrior of the third rank, while the chief was a warrior of the fifth. Digging, to them, was very simple.
Their digging skills were quite practiced, and the deep hole quickly deepened without widening.
“Clank.” A piercing sound. It seemed they had ground onto some sort of metal.
“Chief, come take a look, quick!” that young man hurriedly said.
The middle-aged man immediately lowered his head to stare. Right now, it was the afternoon, and there was still quite a bit of sunlight. The middle-aged man could clearly see that something was reflecting the light of the setting sun, and he immediately used his hand to push away the nearby dirt and mud.
A half-translucent gem appeared before his eyes.
“This… this is…” The middle-aged man was speechless for a moment, then said in shock, “This is a magicite gem. A magicite gem. Kaya, it’s a magicite gem!”
“What?! Captain, we’re rich! We’re rich!” The young man’s eyes immediately shone with happiness.
Magicite gems were extremely valuable. In truth… magicite cores of magical beasts were very similar to magicite gems. Although they were ‘cores’, they were a type of gem as well. For example, the cores of dragon’s were also often called ‘draconic gems’.
But of course, natural magicite gems couldn’t have the terrifyingly high amount of energy that draconic gems had.
According to the normal market value…
A low-quality magicite gem – ten gold coins, equivalent to the magicite core of a magical beast of the third rank.
A middle-quality magicite gem – one hundred gold coins, equivalent to a magicite core of the fourth or fifth ranks.
A high-quality magicite gem – one thousand gold coins, equivalent to a magical beast core of the sixth rank.
A top-quality magicite gem – ten thousand gold coins. Naturally, it couldn’t match up to the magicite core of a magical beast of the seventh rank, which was worth around fifty thousand gold coins. To find magicite gems or cores more valuable than top-quality magicite gems, one would have to go out and kill magical beasts of the seventh or eighth ranks, or
even higher.
It could be said… that a magicite gemstone mine was more than ten million times more valuable than ordinary gold mines. This was because when engaging in gold mining, one had to pan for gold, and it was extremely time consuming. But magicite gemstone mines were different. They had large numbers of magicite gems clustered together…
It was as though a large number of magicite cores had clustered together.
In the Yulan continent, the only thing comparable in value to a magicite gemstone mine was a mithril mine.
“We’re going to be rich, Chief! We can fill up a bag of gemstones, and they’d easily be worth over a hundred thousand gold coins. We’re going to be rich!” The young man was wildly overjoyed.
The chief frowned. “Don’t be hasty. This should be a magicite gemstone mine… let’s take a look and see how large this mine is.”
81
Magicite Gemstone Mine
“Yes, Chief.” The young man suppressed his excitement, forcing himself to continue surveying the area with the chief.
“Here as well.” The chief’s eyes lit up.
“Chief, there’s magicite gems here as well.” A hundred meters away, the young man, Kaya, was extremely excited. The older man surveyed his surroundings, and then immediately ran next to Kaya, so excited he was panting for breath. “Kaya, this clearly is a magicite gem mine. We’ve discovered that it is at least a few hundred meters wide. Such an enormous magicite mine is rarely seen in the entire Yulan continent.”
Kaya nodded repeatedly as well.
Magicite gems. A single sack of them was more than a thousand times the value of a sack of gold. This definitely was an enormous sum.
Kaya looked at his chief, then scanned the surrounding area. Seeing that no one else was here, he immediately lowered his voice and whispered, “Chief, we’re both rich. We were able to find so many gems in the area around us. The price of the gems in this area alone has to be worth several hundred million gold coins, or maybe even more.”
The chief surveyor was also a surveying expert. Naturally he could tell how much this location was worth.
“Kaya, what are you trying to say?” The chief could already see the greedy look appear in Kaya’s eyes.
Kaya suppressed his excitement and hurriedly said, “Chief, think about it… what’s our yearly surveying salary? Now, as long as we keep quiet about it and don’t tell anyone, we can secretly excavate a bag full of gems, then sell them. Then we’d be rich! It would be possible for us to become two of the richest people in the entire Yulan continent because of this mine.”
The more he thought about it, the more excited Kaya became.
There was nothing that could be done. Magicite gems were a hot commodity, and there were many channels for it to be sold through. In addition, even the lowest of magicite gems were worth ten gold coins. One could imagine how valuable this mine was.
“Kaya, calm down. Even if you have money, you have to be alive to spend it.” Just as Kaya was getting so heated up that it seemed to be summer, his chief poured a bucket of verbal ice water over him. Kaya shivered, then looked at his chief. “Chief, what do you mean?”
The chief said seriously, “You should know how tightly we surveyors are managed and overseen. Those senior people are always worried that we will find some valuable mines, then secretly steal from them. The kingdom is extremely strict in its oversight of us.”
Kaya sneered and laughed, “Chief, what are you afraid of? Yes, there is oversight, but all we need to do is to make one trip then leave and never return.”
“You are still too young,” the chief berated. “You should know that every day, there are records in the headquarters of the areas we have excavated. If we disappear, they would definitely come investigate this area. By then, they would definitely discover the magicite gem mine.”
“And secondly…” The chief looked at Kaya solemnly. “The kingdom has quite a few experts. Once the kingdom discovers what we have done, they would definitely pursue us. Our families would most likely get caught in the mix as well.”
Kaya suddenly remembered that back in Baruch City, his chief had a very good family.
But he, Kaya, was different. His parents had passed away a long time ago in the chaotic wars. He was all by himself, and hadn’t yet married. He had nothing tying him down. Kaya was very confident… that he could take away an enormous fortune, and live a life of luxury.
“Kaya.” The chief looked at him. “If we report this to the headquarters, the headquarters will reward us for discovering the mine.”
“How much would the reward be?” Kaya scoffed. “Ten thousand gold coins would be the most we could expect from them.”
Actually, ten thousand gold coins was an enormous sum already. An ordinary family only used a few dozen gold coins a year. Ten thousand gold coins was enough to allow an ordinary family to live off of for a hundred years. But to enjoy the life of a magnate… ten thousand gold coins truly was nothing.
“Hard to say. It depends on the size of this mine. If the magicite gem mine is fairly large, they might give us several tens of thousands of gold coins, or even a hundred thousand gold coins.” The chief tried to persuade him. “Kaya, the gold that the kingdom gives us, we can spend without fear, and we don’t have to be forced to leave our home.”
Kaya looked at the magicite gems in the hole beneath them, then looked at his chief. After struggling a long time mentally, he slowly nodded.
A hint of a smile appeared on the chief’s face.
The chief thought of his wife and his three kids. He truly didn’t want to make the kids go fleeing with him.
But just at this moment, a sharp dagger suddenly thrust out at the chief. Kaya’s eyes were filled with a hint of madness. “Die!” But as his dagger stabbed at the chief, Kaya suddenly found that he could no longer push the dagger forward.
Because the chief had seized him by the hand.
Kaya’s face instantly changed.
The chief stared at him coldly. And then, he exerted some pressure with his hand. “Crack!” Kaya’s hand and wrist was shattered. Kaya howled wildly, while at the same time attacking the chief with his left hand. Sadly… he was a warrior of the third rank, while the chief was of the fifth.
The difference was too great.
“Bang!”
The chief, with a simple punch, hit Kaya in the chest. A bone-splintering sound was heard while Kaya went flying backwards, slamming against the floor. Kaya’s chest was caved in and blood was flowing from his mouth.
“You…” Kaya’s life was fading from his body. He truly couldn’t accept it… he had ambushed the chief at such a close range. Clearly, the chief had been ready for him.
The chief sighed as he looked at Kaya. “Kaya, if I was twenty years younger and didn’t have anything holding me back, perhaps I would have made the same choice as you, to abscond with a large amount of treasure and leave and become a magnate. Thus, I understand how you are feeling.”
The chief had guessed that Kaya would ambush him, and thus had been on high guard, and the battle-qi in his body had been activated as well.
Kaya listened to these words, and then his eyes turned dim. He had no life left in him.
The chief sighed and shook his head as he looked at Kaya’s body. But he didn’t mind too much; when he was young, the Baruch Kingdom hadn’t yet been founded. He had killed quite a few people, and he was rather used to it. For the sake of letting one’s self live a good life, far too many people had lost their lives.
The chief immediately covered up the hole with dirt, then turned and left at high speed to the nearby Nifeng City.
The news that the Baruch Kingdom’s small City of Nifeng had discovered a magicite gem mine quickly spread throughout the kingdom. The area around the mine had been immediately sealed off by thousands of soldiers, forbidding anyone from going near it. They quietly awaited orders from the capital.
Mt. Blackraven.
Wharton was running at high speed
through the mountain. He passed through the thick woods, then followed the creek to the place where Linley was training.
“Big Brother,” Wharton called out from afar.
Linley, who was meditating in the center of the lake, couldn’t help but open his eyes. Seeing Wharton, a hint of a smile appeared on his face. “Wharton, what has you here in such a rush?”
“Big Brother, make a trip with me,” Wharton hurriedly said.
“Little Wharton, what’s going on?” Bebe popped out of a nearby wooded area.
Wharton explained, “Big Brother, in the eastern borders, our people have discovered a large magicite gemstone mine. Right now, the scope of the deposit is at least a thousand meters wide. And that’s just the surface layer. Exactly how large it is… hard to say. But even if it’s just a thousand meters wide, the value of it is definitely several billion gold coins!”
“Oh?” Linley was shocked. “There’s such a large magicite gem deposit?”
Magicite gemstones weren’t like iron or copper deposits. Magicite gemstones usually formed only after countless years of accumulating elemental energy. They would constantly compress it… and then finally take form. Some magicite gemstone deposits were only a few dozen meters in diameter.
“Let’s go, Big Brother,” Wharton said repeatedly.
“Alright, let’s go together.” As soon as Linley spoke, Bebe chimed in, “I’m going too.”
Wharton immediately laughed. “Bebe, if you go, I won’t have to Dragonform.” Wharton, being at the ninth rank, still couldn’t fly unless Dragonformed. But Dragonforming would ruin his clothes.
“Fine,” Bebe agreed easily.
Bebe’s body immediately grew larger. Wharton mounted on his back, and then the three of them flew at high speed towards the east. The current flying speed of Linley and Bebe was so great that in the amount of time it took to drink a cup of tea, they traversed the three hundred plus kilometers.
“Below.” Wharton pointed at the large area protected by a heavy guard.
Baruch Rising_Book 3 of the Coiling Dragon Saga Page 63