Chapter 115: The Spiral Rock Boring Machine and the Mysterious New Mine

The most dangerous place is the safest place—for instance, right beside the enemy.

One cannot catch a tiger cub without entering the tiger's den.

...

On the 30th day, at twelve noon, Ren Zhong, clad in a full set of deep-blue armor and riding a blue jet-ski, rendezvoused with the other five members of the Lin Wang team outside the small town, right on schedule.

The high-spirited Lin Wang waved his hand. "Let's go!"

The straight-line distance from Spark Town to the newly named Morning Glow Mining Area was 620 kilometers. When accounting for the rugged terrain and the detours necessary to avoid perilous mountains, the total journey was approximately 1,000 kilometers. Traveling by hover-jet-ski at full speed, they could arrive in about two hours.

The reason Lin Wang and his team had been delayed until three in the afternoon on their return trip last time was because they had taken a shortcut through a mountain valley, encountered a Level 5 Ruin Beast, survived a desperate battle by the skin of their teeth, and subsequently spent a long time resting with the Chongyi County caravan.

This time, Lin Wang was in no hurry. He didn't risk a shortcut, instead leading the group to advance steadily along the standard route.

They encountered many Ruin Beasts of varying sizes along the way. If they were Level 1 or 2 beasts, Bei Lihui would often execute them with a wave of his gun; he couldn't even be bothered to pick up Level 1 chips, and he would only check Level 2 chips to see if they were worth more than 30 points.

They encountered Level 3 and 4 Ruin Beasts seven or eight times, but Lin Wang didn't let anything go to waste. If Bei Lihui could take them out with one shot, he did. If it was beyond Bei Lihui's reach, the team's modified warrior, Song Qianlian, would step in, and Sima Wan would be responsible for salvaging the chips.

Ren Zhong observed Sima Wan’s technique closely and noticed that while her equipment and tools were much more advanced than Chen Hanyu’s, her movements were stiff and rigid, lacking the spiritual dexterity that Chen Hanyu’s fingers possessed.

When they encountered relatively powerful Level 4 Ruin Beasts, it was time for the demolition expert, Pan Fenglian, to take action.

Occasionally, when they encountered clusters of Level 2 or 3 Ruin Beasts, Lin Wang would let Ren Zhong take a crack at it. After Ren Zhong clumsily yet steadily skewered several Level 2 Ruin Beasts with his dual guns, Lin Wang nodded in satisfaction. "Although you aren't skilled yet, your progress is visible to the naked eye."

Ren Zhong thanked the captain for his encouragement, though he was secretly relieved. Yesterday, he had trained intensely with Ma Xiaoling for an entire day. Last night, he had spent 960 points of his own money to hire Teacher Ma again, and had even dragged Ju Qingmeng into six hours of grueling practice in the Level 3 virtual reality training program. With two technical mentors—one for equipment analysis and the other for tactical commentary—his progress had been rapid. After waking up at six this morning, he had dragged Teacher Ma into the training room again until eleven-thirty, significantly boosting his mastery of the Level 3 exoskeleton. Otherwise, he never could have pulled off such a natural display of "visible but not excessive" improvement.

At four in the afternoon, the group arrived at the Morning Glow Mining Area, situated at the border between Chongyi County and Spark Town.

Looking from afar, a triangular, pyramid-shaped structure about a hundred meters high rose from the ground. If not for the light blue hue of the alloy surface and the glass, Ren Zhong would have thought he was looking at the Great Pyramid of Giza on Earth.

With a fortune within reach and in high spirits, a rare sense of generosity moved Lin Wang to act as a guide for Ren Zhong.

"This is an mobile mining excavation station from Amethyst Mining. It contains advanced equipment—the principle of which no one knows—that can greatly restrict the birth of new Ruin Beasts within a ten-kilometer radius. Do you understand?"

Ren Zhong was shocked inside, but his face remained impassive. He merely said, "So that’s why Amethyst Mining was able to stand out back then and quickly become one of the industry leaders."

Lin Wang scrutinized Ren Zhong’s expression, then nodded. "Exactly. Alright, accelerate! Move out!"

With that, Lin Wang increased his speed, his jet-ski roaring ahead and kicking up clouds of dust. The other four followed suit, leaving only Ren Zhong trailing slightly behind, appearing cautious. This fit his persona as a greenhorn. Hover-jet-skis were not like wheeled motorcycles; crashing them could be brutal.

Watching the backs of the five fading into the distance, the solemnity on Ren Zhong’s face vanished in a flash. This was Lin Wang—suspicious and selfish to the extreme.

Just now, Lin Wang had acted on a whim, testing Ren Zhong’s "destitute citizen" persona. He had been probing for a surprise. Fortunately, Ren Zhong hadn't been careless.

However, all of this had been within Ren Zhong’s expectations. What truly made him wary was what he had seen and heard over the four hours of stop-and-go travel. Aside from Lin Wang, who hadn't made a move, Ren Zhong had closely observed the methods of a professional scavenger team. As expected of a team that had occupied the pinnacle of the Spark Town scavenger pyramid for two and a half years, heaven only knew how much wealth and capital they had accumulated.

Their equipment was bizarre, all-encompassing. Take Bei Lihui, for instance. Don't let his single scorpion-lion gun, combat suit, and tactical glasses fool you. That was merely the surface. The two hundred sniper rounds in the bandolier wrapped around his body consisted of twenty-five different types, each suited for different scenarios. Furthermore, the box behind his jet-ski seat was packed with all sorts of specialized magazines. As long as he was moving on his jet-ski, he was a walking sniper turret.

That was just offensive weaponry. The team members were also equipped with endless layers of self-reactive defensive gear. Ren Zhong had seen Ruin Beasts attempt to ambush Bei Lihui or Song Qianlian more than once, only to be unable to get close; they were either efficiently killed by small self-reactive weapons hidden on the duo’s belts, shoulders, backs, or heels, or they were forced back. The air-curtain defense and instantaneous anti-gravity shield on Bei Lihui alone were enough to withstand a Level 3 explosive attack.

Ren Zhong couldn't help but think: it was no wonder that even after Lin Wang and Bei Lihui had endured a brutal battle and exhausted much of their equipment and resources, he still hadn't been able to finish them off on the spot with his information-flow interference rounds and array-style remote-controlled bombs. His ability to complete a cross-tier kill and force a mutual destruction last time had truly been a matter of luck and coincidence.

Arriving two minutes after the others, Ren Zhong slowly drove into the ground-floor hall of the pyramid structure. After parking his jet-ski, he looked back. Aside from Lin Wang’s team, nearly fifty people were already gathered there. Judging by their attire, there were eight professional teams present, including Lin Wang’s.

On the way, Lin Wang had roughly explained the details of the new mining operation. Usually, when Amethyst Mining opened a new mine, they hired four professional teams, and clearing the underground Ruin Beasts took about a month. But for some reason, the subsidiary developing the Morning Glow Mining Area had broken with tradition, hiring eight teams from the surrounding areas. The estimated work time was compressed by half to just fifteen days, while the original payment of 1 million points was maintained.

The team's average daily pay would reach as high as 66,700 points. This didn't seem extravagant compared to their average daily income in the abandoned mines, but this money was on top of everything else. Including the normal income from hunting Ruin Beasts, the team’s average daily revenue could reach 100,000 points, which was quite substantial.

At the time, Lin Wang had encouraged Ren Zhong, "Bringing you along is mainly for you to learn, but I will still give you a share of 100,000 points. Additionally, the proceeds from the Ruin Beasts you hunt personally, after deducting Sima Wan’s service fee, will all be yours."

"Thank you, Captain."

...

In the hall, the crowd waited in silence for a minute. A middle-aged man in gold-rimmed glasses walked out from a side door, stepped quickly onto the inner platform, and made a gesture for everyone to quiet down.

"To be brief, I am Yu Junren, General Manager of the Morning Glow branch of Amethyst Mining, and the overall commander of this excavation project. Everyone here is a veteran, so I won't waste words. This time, the company is extremely well-prepared. There are forty-eight people participating in the excavation, and we have prepared forty-eight 'Rock-Borer' excavators, along with forty-eight kangaroo-hide bags for storing the ore."

"I have only one requirement: everyone is to give their all. You must finish the excavation within half a month and clear every single Ruin Beast from the underground of the mining area—leave none behind! If you complete the mission on time, each team will receive a performance bonus of 1 million points on top of the regular pay."

When these words were spoken, everyone, including Ren Zhong, wore an expression of astonishment. In previous new-mine excavations, imported Rock-Borer excavators were a rarity.

The "imported" here did not refer to conventional inter-regional trade. This specialized machinery came from interstellar trade, and if the core components suffered a serious malfunction, they could not be repaired on Source Star. They had to be returned to the seller via interstellar shipping, which incurred huge costs to repair and return. The round-trip cycle could take decades—a wait longer than the lifespan of a Source Star resident. However, they rarely broke down to the point of needing factory repair. Even if a Level 5 Ruin Beast breached the defenses and killed the operators inside, the core components, like the dashboard, would remain unscathed. But with enough units in circulation, accidents were inevitable, and one could still say there were Rock-Borer excavators traveling through space every day.

Because the equipment was so scarce, previous excavations could only reach 50% capacity. Assuming 24 people participated, there were only 12 excavators. They had to be used in two shifts, with each person using them for eight hours. It was reasonable; after all, the scavengers still had time to rest.

But this time, listening to Yu Junren, it seemed he had no intention of allowing any rest.

Lin Wang was the first to ask, "Manager Yu, what will our daily working hours be?"

Yu Junren grinned, revealing a mouthful of white teeth. "Everyone, you will work from seven in the morning until nine in the evening—fourteen hours a day."

*Hiss!*

A chorus of gasps echoed through the hall.

Ren Zhong had already instantly analyzed another factor. Double the personnel, a full complement of Rock-Borer excavators, and daily working hours forcibly pushed to 14 hours! The scale of this Morning Glow Mining Area was likely much larger than the Spark Mining Area!

This didn't make sense. Ren Zhong had seen the exploration map of the Spark Mining Area. The exploration data contained the following sentence: "This molybdenum-iron mine is the largest metal mineral deposit within a radius of 1,500 kilometers." The Morning Glow Mining Area was clearly within that 1,500-kilometer radius. The Spark Mining Area had been mined out two hundred years ago. Ren Zhong did not believe that the technology of two hundred years ago would have failed to detect the Morning Glow area, nor that it would have left such a fallacious conclusion in the database.

So, what had happened in these two hundred years to suddenly give rise to a larger new mine?

On the other side, many professional team captains, including Lin Wang, had already begun to protest, arguing that this level of work intensity was seriously excessive and posed a huge safety hazard.

Unexpectedly, Yu Junren simply waved his hand coldly. "I said, this company is extremely well-prepared! We have the best mechanics, the most advanced equipment repair workshops, the best medical teams, the best life-support teams, and the most comprehensive logistical support system for weapons and equipment. Apart from rest, whatever you need, we can provide. You scavenger 'wastelanders' have only one thing to do: ask no questions and do your jobs well. Before you came here, you signed a contract with Amethyst Mining. You know the cost of breaching the contract; it is definitely something a wastelander cannot afford."

The hall fell silent.

Ren Zhong quietly watched Lin Wang’s expression—a mixture of anger and helplessness—and began to understand why Lin Wang was so desperate to climb the ladder and so pathologically afraid of being replaced.

Wastelanders were truly... very lowly.

In Spark Town, Lin Wang was already second to none, but in the eyes of Yu Junren, he was still just a tool.

The exploitation pyramid of this world was truly as solid, cold, and ruthless as the "Great Pyramid" looming above them all.