Chapter 317 - 8: Depths of the Mine (2)

Chapter 317: Chapter 8: Depths of the Mine (2)

"From the looks of this evidence, the Lizard-men probably aren’t monsters that mutated locally. Their technology is clearly advanced, but it’s a completely different path from our Human Race’s tech. They must be an alien civilization."

"To build such a huge project here without anyone noticing, someone on Cuiwei Star must be covering for them."

"Heh, this might even be a case of crimes against humanity—colluding with an alien civilization to sell off the Human Race’s assets."

"Was this where you encountered the Lizard-men?"

Lin Yu pointed to the signs of a struggle on the ground. On the sturdy tunnel wall, a sword mark stretched far into the distance, and the ground was covered in bloodstains.

"Ah—" Seeing this, Li Xintong grew tense. "No, we ran into the Lizard-men further ahead. This was just a normal tunnel before."

"My brother isn’t in trouble, is he? There’s so much blood..."

"Don’t worry. Judging by the look of this fight, your brother had the upper hand. He’s fine!"

The two continued deeper into the tunnel. As they advanced, they saw more signs of fighting and more blood, but no bodies.

"The blood hasn’t completely dried yet, so the fight didn’t happen long ago. No bodies means someone has been cleaning up the battlefield. It seems the masters here are neat freaks, can’t stand their own territory getting messy, huh?"

Lin Yu touched the blood on the ground, then pulled Li Xintong along as they hurried forward.

It wasn’t long before they reached the end of the tunnel.

Beyond the tunnel lay a massive, hollowed-out cavern. Everything within it was covered by a layer of sturdy, artificial walls. The area was brightly lit, and countless pieces of equipment were in operation.

In the center of the cavern stood an enormous furnace, like a steel-making blast furnace. However, it contained no molten metal, only a flowing, high-temperature transparent substance.

Below it were numerous canisters. The transparent substance was injected into them, and once a canister was full, it was carried away by the Lizard-men standing guard.

All the Lizard-men were working in an orderly fashion, giving no indication that a battle had taken place here.

"Let’s go. We’ll see what these Lizard-men are up to. Right, turn on this camera. We need to get evidence, or we might get silenced."

Lin Yu took out a small camera and had Li Xintong hold it. Then, the two of them became invisible and walked toward the canisters being filled with the transparent substance.

...

In the lower part of the cavern, a group of Lizard-men were busy transporting canisters.

Orders had just come down: they were to finish refining all the black salt as quickly as possible and prepare for evacuation.

Two Lizard-men were pushing a huge canister filled with the high-temperature transparent substance toward a high-pressure chamber below.

Lizard-man A: "Why did the commander suddenly order an evacuation?"

Lizard-man B: "It’s because of that human, what else?"

Lizard-man A asked in confusion, "That’s not right. Didn’t they say that human was already trapped? If we’re about to capture him, why are we retreating?"

"Are you stupid? That human is so powerful. If he was that easy to catch, would we have been fighting him for so many days?" Lizard-man B shot him a look that said he was a hopeless case.

"But I heard they captured that human’s sister, didn’t they?" Lizard-man A was still puzzled. "I heard humans care a lot about family. He’ll surely surrender without a fight to save his sister, right?"

"Tch. You’ve been reading too many novels. Humans aren’t all the same. That one is insidious and cunning. He’s killed so many of our people—he’s definitely a ruthless one. What good would capturing his sister do? He might just kill her himself, blame it on us, then fight his way through our blockade and come after us on our own planet."

"Damn, you’re the one who’s been reading too many novels!"

...

Behind the two Lizard-men, Li Xintong heard them talking smack about her brother and was about to rush out and attack, but Lin Yu grabbed her and held her back.

The girl had grown a bit reckless with Lin Yu backing her up, showing no trace of the caution she’d had when evading capture on her own.

"Don’t be hasty. Wait for them to lead us inside. We’ll see what they’re doing, then we’ll deal with them."

The two followed the Lizard-men into a room. The Lizard-men opened a door, pushed out a canister that had already been processed, and then pushed in the one they had just brought. After setting it in place, they closed the door and flipped a switch.

Finally, they pushed the finished canister over to a conveyor belt, opened an outlet at its base, and a large pile of transparent crystals poured out.

After emptying the canister, the two Lizard-men pushed the empty container toward the exit.

"Huh? Why is the door closed?" Lizard-man A felt the cart being blocked and told Lizard-man B to hurry up and open the door.

Then he heard Lizard-man B’s scream. "Help! There’s an enemy!"

"Where’s the enemy?" Confused, Lizard-man A peeked his head out toward the doorway. It wasn’t a closed door at all—the empty doorframe was filled with green vines.

’No need to think twice. Something of unknown origin like this must be the enemy.’

’Whether it’s wild or domesticated, it’s not something two ordinary Lizard-men like us can handle.’

Lizard-man A opened his mouth to shout, but two vines shot out from the vine wall, bound them both, and gagged them in the process.

"This looks a bit like a Spirit Crystal! Is this what made you awaken your superpower?" By the conveyor belt, Lin Yu picked up a crystal and examined it closely.

"Yes!"

Li Xintong also held a crystal in her hand. She clumsily began to circulate her energy using the Sun and Moon Breathing Technique her brother had taught her, absorbing the energy within the crystal.

’Hmm, a familiar feeling. It’s confirmed. This crystal is the same as the broken one I found before, the one that gave me my invisibility superpower.’

"But this is just an ordinary Spiritual Crystal. It shouldn’t have the effect of awakening superpowers." Lin Yu had already analyzed the crystal’s information through the World Tree.

This crystal was an Artificial Spiritual Crystal, equivalent to a primary-grade natural Spiritual Crystal.

Spiritual Crystals, generally speaking, were crystalline bodies containing high-purity Spiritual Energy that formed naturally in environments rich with it. They were extremely rare and were an important cultivation resource, providing Cultivators with pure Spiritual Energy for both replenishment and practice.

’I can’t believe these Lizard-men actually have the technology for Artificial Spiritual Crystals. Even if they can only produce primary-grade ones, this is an incredibly practical technology.’

Now, Lin Yu was truly tempted. He wanted to immediately dismantle the machines here and use the World Tree’s incredible computing power to reverse-engineer their structure and principles.

However, after a brief analysis, he discovered that the entire cavern was part of this technology. Non-destructive disassembly was impossible, and since he didn’t have any kind of scanning skill, he had no way of probing the equipment’s structure.

"Looks like I’ll have to find another way!" Lin Yu sighed.

"What did you say?" Li Xintong turned and asked. She had just absorbed the Spiritual Energy from the Spiritual Crystal Stone. It hadn’t awakened a new superpower, but it left her feeling stuffed, brimming with energy she needed to vent.

So, she started taking her frustration out on the two bound Lizard-men.

The two ordinary Lizard-men were beaten black and blue, and quite a few pieces of their Scale Armor had fallen off.

"It’s nothing. Stop hitting them. I need to ask them some questions."

"Alright, you can have them." Li Xintong declared that she had vented enough and made way.

Lin Yu flicked his hand, and a colorful mushroom sprouted. Before it was fully grown, he placed it in front of the two Lizard-men and blew gently. Mushroom spores drifted on the air toward them.

"ACHOO! ACHOO!"

"What are you doing?"

"No! What do you want to know? I’ll talk, I’ll talk! Just don’t use that weird stuff on us!"

The two Lizard-men sneezed uncontrollably. Perhaps imagining something terrible, they began to eagerly confess everything they knew.

However, Lin Yu didn’t respond. In less than a minute, their speech became sluggish and their expressions turned vacant. The spores had already penetrated their bodies, growing mycelium that took control of their motor functions and began to invade their brains.

Once their brains were completely taken over, the two Lizard-men, to Li Xintong’s astonishment, began to voluntarily confess everything they knew. This included their life stories, details about the underground base and the Spiritual Crystals, everything they had heard about what Li Hua had done, and the location where he was trapped.

After obtaining all the information he wanted, Lin Yu ordered the two Lizard-men to continue their work and look for an opportunity to cause some sabotage. Then he and Li Xintong became invisible once more.