Chapter 70: The Cave Mines (5)

Chink. Thuk! Chink! Thak!

“Diggaty-dig-dig a tunnel, dig dig a tunnel… diggaty-dig-dig a tunnel Quick! Before the hyenas comesss”

Yu Zhiye stopped hacking away at the rock and took a breather to wipe his sweat.

“Whew~ Even with the pick doing its magic, mining isn’t easy business.”

He didn’t know how long he has been mining for, but the result?

More than half of his pickaxe durability was gone.

In exchange, his storage gained over a stack of cobblestone. Besides that...

Yu Zhiye glanced back at the long, straight 2-by-2 block tunnel leading out to nothing but darkness.

It was dark, so dark… like dark enough for unspeakable nightmares to appear.

Only his torch gave him a little comfort.

“Uh… it’ll be alright… the other end already got sealed off. No spideys are getting in. Unless there’s some herobrine mod installed, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

At worse, hide in his pocket dimension. But that… won’t get him anywhere.

“Think on the bright side. At least I won’t have to worry about collecting cobblestone for a while, haha...”

After lightening the mood, Yu Zhiye hopped into his pocket dimension for some sweet, sweet oxygen then got back to digging.

Pak! Thuck! Kink! The upper-right-corner stone magically cracked on every hit and after a few more swings, broke into collectible chunks.

But instead of more solid rock appearing right behind, this time, there was an open hole!

Yu Zhiye took the torch from his pocket and lifted it up to the hole. The light poured out and he saw…

“Eh? Another cave route?”

This one seemed narrower than the route he came from and the torch light was able to touch the ceiling.

After carefully checking around and throwing some stones out to make noise, Yu Zhiye dropped some rubble to serve as a stepping stone then climbed out.

No jump scares happened. This was quite far from the spider’s nest and there shouldn’t be spiders camping here…

There shouldn’t be… but Yu Zhiye didn’t want to overstay and find out.

Left and right was darkness that led to heaven knows where.

Since Yu Zhiye didn’t want to get lost, he didn’t wander but simply cross straight to the other side then started digging into the wall!

Chink. Check the ceiling. Thuk. Check left. Kak. Check right…

Mining alone was psychological warfare.

Yu Zhiye was like an alert bunny ready to bolt at any unexpected noise!

Fortunately, it was all psychological.

A safe hole got dug in the stone and Yu Zhiye successfully sealed himself back in a claustrophobic space.

Now that he’s back in the safe zone, just hack away to infinity and beyond!

“Just hope my pick lasts long enough to get me out…”

Yu Zhiye knew he shouldn’t be raising flags, but this flag was better than something like the tunnel collapsing in and burying him…

Life wasn’t a game. Rocks don’t just magically stay in place. Mining was risky business.

If it weren’t for owning the almighty pocket dimension, Yu Zhiye really didn’t dare mine like this.

Then again, it was his overconfidence in his cheat that he ended up in this mine all alone in the first place.

“Yeah, shouldn’t have come. Never should’ve! What made me think it was a good idea to put myself in all this danger?”

A promise? Naw. A secret outpost? Right… but what’s the point? Isn’t it too early?

It’s not like he has fallen out with those jerks yet.

But it did felt quite unsafe to stay with those gangsters, ever since Jack told them what he saw when he went to buy water.

A team of four went to the farm and directed a single person to harvest wheat. A team of three came back.

A little guesswork explains everything.

In a lawless society, things will eventually spiral out of control.

It already started in places he couldn’t see, but the scariest part? What if he’s next?

“Hey… the night out here is haunted by dangerous monsters, but this is still safer than hanging out with that bunch.”

At least monsters won’t camp outside his portal door like humans could. Monsters also won’t care about his wealth and simply treat their food equally.

Besides, with his pocket dimension, anywhere is pretty much the same. So it might actually be better to stay in a place that’s not a restroom with one easily-campable exit.

But that’s for the future. Now, he just wants to get back to report his safety.

Just when his stone pickaxe durability fell to the red zone…

Duk! Another block of rocks broke apart, only for most of the rocky chunks to fall outwards!

A gush of fresh desert air hit Yu Zhiye’s face. His eyes lit up in excitement!

“I’m out?!”

But when he poked his head out from the hole, he saw… the desert below was more than ten meters away…

His hole was actually up high on the mountainside!

“Damn. How am I supposed to get down? Can’t be that I’ll have to make a leap of faith, right?”

It’s a sand bed below. Should be safe?

But Yu Zhiye didn’t want to take chances.

After mining out another block to open up the window in this pseudo-balcony-loft, he took out his fishing rod to give the sand below a check.

Swish Ploom

“Yep, that’s the sound of quicksand.”

Free-falling into that will directly earn him a free trip all the way down to six feet under.

Yu Zhiye peered up at the darkening skies.

“Meh. Whatever. The sun’s already going bye-bye. No point in jumping. I won’t make it back in time anyways.”

Just wait and see if that pit will move away by tomorrow. As for now…

Yu Zhiye took out his sandstone to set up a seat and plopped down with fishing rod poking out through the window.

“Since I’m this high up, those death angels shouldn’t bother me. Hey, isn’t this the perfect spot for night fishing?”