Chapter 1581: Chapter 1581: Ruthless Little Miner
If Feng Jun had been paying careful attention, he might have realized there was sonar detection, but it never crossed his mind.
This was in the vast Pacific Ocean, and he was working underwater. How could he have thought to guard against people?
After digging to seven thousand meters deep, the spiritual energy had become quite dense, but the temperature had also reached five to six hundred degrees. Even with the Spiritual Qi Shield, Feng Jun felt a bit hot.
He went to the mobile plane to catch his breath, then dived another three hundred meters. He took out his mobile phone—he really couldn’t hold it anymore. Was the Spirit Stone Mine still far?
Not far, just over eight hundred meters below.
Feng Jun then moved laterally for nearly a day, roughly estimating the size of the Spirit Stone Mine.
The area was approximately ten or so square kilometers, with the thickness still uncertain. But with such an area, it would be considered a “scattered small mine” in the mobile plane.
Of course, in the context of Earth, a scattered small mine is normal. If it were a large mine, it wouldn’t have been preserved until now.
Since he had found the mine, he had nothing more to say; he should start digging first. Feng Jun felt a bit happy inside. The Spirit Gathering Array in Australia would no longer require Spirit Stones from Luohua; he had managed to prevent a single Spirit Stone from flowing out of Huaxia.
Feng Jun had some knowledge about Spirit Stone extraction. The Spirit Stone Mines on the mobile plane were mostly held by major powers, but the knowledge about extracting Spirit Stones was not blocked by those powers; there were plenty of relevant documents.
This didn’t mean the major powers encouraged smaller powers to poach Spirit Stone Mines; rather, it was to ensure everyone understood how to properly extract Spirit Stones—poor extraction could severely impact output and even damage the vein.
Ultimately, Spirit Stone Mines are resources for all cultivators; improper extraction means a loss for everyone.
For the major powers, the smaller the power, the more they should learn this stuff—anyway, they couldn’t hold on to it, so taking a bit of advantage was fine, but absolutely no damaging my Spirit Stone Mine!
The logic was overbearing, yet very practical.
However, Feng Jun did not employ the careful mining methods, which were too time and energy-consuming—considering that Spirit Stone Mines on the mobile plane were mainly mined by those in the Transformation Period and martial masters, with few in Qi Refinement, he couldn’t afford to waste time like that.
Secondly, he didn’t consider sustainability; mining here was a one-time deal, taking whatever he could—he couldn’t think like when he was domestically and leave some for future generations.
As for unsuitable extraction leading to Spirit Stone Mine dispersion, he cared even less. Anyway, the dispersed spiritual energy couldn’t escape this plane; it would merely disperse from Australia to the global level.
If he really operated this way, Huaxia would be the beneficiary, and this Spirit Stone vein had existed near Australia for so long without anyone discovering it—was unused spiritual energy even considered spiritual energy?
As for whether Huaxia’s still unused spiritual energy was hidden by the Aura Concealment Array—well, that was another issue.
Thus, Feng Jun used the most efficient mining method—destructive mining.
In the Spirit Stone Mine, there were not only Spirit Stones but also rocks of extremely high hardness.
The very high hardness was the key indicator; the real intent was the incredibly high density. Stones with smaller density wouldn’t block the penetration of spiritual energy.
In a Spirit Stone Mine, a cubic meter of rock might contain only one Spirit Stone.
It’s like panning for gold; most is just sand, striking some gold is profitable.
For this reason, Spirit Stone Mines on the mobile plane were primarily extracted by those in the Transformation Period and martial masters.
Normal mining at the Qi Refinement stage wouldn’t guarantee much profit, but Feng Jun was an Ascendant Man.
For Ascendant stage mining of Spirit Stones, there were other techniques, such as turning rock into mud; when the rock is turned to mud, Spirit Stones naturally emerge.
On an aside, some in the Qi Refinement stage can also turn rock into mud, but the rock alongside the Spirit Stone has no ordinary density. Turning it into mud requires a lot of high-quality spiritual energy, and the Qi Refinement stage is restricted by cultivation level when trying to do this.
Especially since turning rock into mud for Spirit Stone mining, though fast, has a major drawback—it destroys the vein structure!
Yes, this is the so-called destructive mining.
However, for Feng Jun now, any gain abroad was free; whether it’s destructive or not didn’t matter to him—during those decades when Huaxia wasn’t doing well, others did the same. If they could, why couldn’t he?
He started pretty forcefully, choosing an angle for direct destructive mining.
It’s always tougher at the start. He got through over three hundred cubic meters of rock before he truly entered the Spirit Stone Mine and extracted the first Spirit Stone—a head-sized piece, roughly able to cut seven or eight Standard Spirit Stones.
But upon seeing the red Spirit Stone, all fatigue vanished.
However, mining the Spirit Stone vein was indeed very challenging. After another full two days of effort, making a trip to the mobile plane to replenish spiritual energy once, he had only managed to extract about five hundred Spirit Stones, an efficiency so low it was appalling.
Strictly speaking, for an Intermediate Level practitioner, having a fixed daily income of over two hundred Spirit Stones isn’t too bad. It amounts to seventy thousand Spirit Stones a year, and in ten years, that’s seven hundred thousand. If they want to buy some advanced goods, they wouldn’t struggle.
Moreover, five hundred Spirit Stones are enough to hire an entry-level practitioner, and that’s a task with a risk of death.
However, the profit from destructive extraction in the Spirit Stone Mine is indeed a bit low, indicating this mine is rather mediocre.
Still, it’s just a scattered Spirit Stone Mine, and expecting more would be impractical. Even large Spirit Stone Mines often hire low-level cultivators for extraction—using High-Rank Practitioners simply isn’t cost-effective.
But Feng Jun wasn’t satisfied; the portion he had mined was far less than one ten-thousandth of the total.
Calculations show that extracting the entire small Spirit Stone Mine might be worth tens of millions of Spirit Stones, but the problem is, it could take him thirty years… or even longer.
With such inefficiency in destructive mining, he had to consider… was there a more efficient method?
So he halted the mining—for a bit over five hundred Spirit Stones, considering overseas expenses, it was a sensible decision.
Next, he felt it necessary to consult the Yin Spirit Bigwig.
As for the Spirit Stone Mine here being exposed, pausing it for now seemed harmless; the technique of turning stone to mud has temporary effects and soon returns to stone, effectively masking the mining traces.
Even if traces couldn’t be completely concealed, Feng Jun didn’t care. He drilled through over seven thousand meters of rock, not to mention two thousand meters of seawater above the rock.
The current Earth Realm’s underwater mining technology couldn’t achieve this level, and it wouldn’t be feasible anytime soon.
Meanwhile, the Spirit Stone Mine in Alxa League, once discovered, could be easily mined.
Unexpectedly, as Feng Jun left the site, two submarines silently approached the location, accompanied by a survey vessel and a destroyer on the surface—it was unmistakably Mai Nation’s fleet, as Australia didn’t have such capabilities.
It was coincidental for Mai Nation to come; the Seventh Fleet was conducting exercises nearby. After the exercises, they heard sonar detected unusual activity here, prompting them to investigate.
The hole Feng Jun drilled wasn’t very big, nor was it too small. He had camouflaged it upon departure, making discovery unlikely under normal circumstances.
Yet the two submarines conducted a thorough search: coral reefs are convenient hiding spots for fish, and if they formed holes, submarines could hide there too. They decided to conduct a meticulous search since they were already there.
And unfortunately, one of the three holes excavated by Feng Jun was detected as abnormal by sonar.
Feng Jun returned to Amstan with Sofia, continuing to wait for the Earth Vein’s guidance. Sofia’s sporadic disappearances had become routine for others.
Two days later, he suddenly recalled that the Spirit Stone Mine might contain mid-grade Spirit Stones. So that night, he discreetly revisited the coral reefs over a thousand kilometers away.
Upon arrival, he was surprised to find Mai Nation’s warships, astonishing him greatly, prompting him to unleash his Divine Sense to investigate.
Mai Nation had discovered a vertical passage he had excavated. Despite being abandoned with a depth of only over a thousand meters, they identified human factors in the passage among the coral reefs.
Initially, Feng Jun stored the excavated coral directly in his Storage Talisman without backfilling. He used the stone-to-mud technique for excavating coral paths, but the texture of the coral reef differs from ordinary rock,
leading to significant differences between the corridor walls and coral as if there were a glass layer on the surface, akin to a nuclear blast crater.
However, thoroughly inspecting an underwater corridor over a thousand meters deep posed many challenges.
Now, the warships guarded the site, waiting for deep-sea robots to be deployed for careful investigation.
Feng Jun pondered for a while and finally took decisive action, dragging all four vessels into the Mobile Phone dimension, including two submarines—none of the personnel onboard survived.
Over two hundred lives vanished, yet Feng Jun felt little emotional disturbance. The interests involved were genuinely immense; deaths were a normal occurrence, and it was simply unlucky they discovered what they shouldn’t have.
His hesitation stemmed from the fact that the information had leaked, undoubtedly leading to more arrivals. This prompted him to ponder the dilemma of whether or not to eliminate them, ultimately deciding to artificially create another “Bermuda mystery” if need be.
Furthermore, tales of ghost ships abound in the ocean.
The four vessels—particularly the destroyer—had real-time contact with satellites. Their disappearance promptly alerted Mai Nation, triggering alarms.
A satellite quickly focused on the incident area, witnessing intense thunderstorms like an electromagnetic storm.
A while later, the thunder subsided, yet the vessels remained out of contact. Due to it being nighttime, Mai Nation’s military assumed they suffered from strong electromagnetic interference and anticipated a brief recovery period, thus not rushing.
Over an hour passed without establishing contact with the four missing vessels, leading Mai Nation’s military to truly prioritize the matter, dispatching a rescue fleet of four ships to the incident zone.
Meanwhile, Feng Jun was in the sea, wreaking havoc on the coral reef.