Chapter 1 Crisis

In truth, sometimes when a crisis exceeded one's capacity to bear it, it felt less oppressive.

For someone as carefree as Suren, who would rather be a pirate than a prince, the sense of crisis from a planar invasion wasn't even as great as that from an enemy like the "Ten Legendary Hunters".

The same went for Qian Tiao.

The only change in this gambling-addicted woman, who only cared about the sword dao, after hearing that intelligence was that the restrained sword intent in the depths of her eyes became three times sharper.

Suren organized the intelligence and told Mr. Mirror about it through the communicator.

His own senior apprentice-sister was the one who should be in charge of the planar war. Let her have a headache over that intelligence.

The unexpected incident that didn't even count as a major battle brought a small interlude to the Dawn Mercenary Group, and everyone returned to their normal seafaring routine.

Suren and Qian Tiao rarely had leisure time, so they sat on the sailboat's mast, poured a little sake brought from Mount Hermit, and drank.

The sea breeze caressed their faces, and the setting sun's afterglow shone a fiery red glow on the sea.

There was also a faint taste of freedom and leisure in the sea breeze.

However, having said that...

While drinking and chatting with Qian Tiao, Suren replayed the previous battle in his mind.

Personally killing four seventh-tier mages also gave him an accurate concept of the extraordinary system of other planes.

Alchemists were, after all, a group of people seeking the truth. With a combat power reference, most of the doubts instantly dissipated.

Extraordinary power was ultimately obtained step by step. The powerhouses of other planes, apart from that ethereal god-tier, no longer seemed to be terrifying monsters.

"Legion warfare, huh..."

War scenes appeared in Suren's mind.

It was a pure magic and battle qi world, without any machinery, not even cannons.

But the bombardment of ten thousand mages, the release of tens of thousands of spells, was even more exaggerated than the might of ten thousand cannons.

Moreover, magic was not limited by gun barrels, and it was flexible and diverse.

What Meteor Shower, Storm, Earthquake, Tsunami...

Used by a single mage, it was painless and harmless, but if a mage legion used it, that power... could destroy cities and extinguish life in minutes!

Below the god-tier, in front of the top mage legions of that plane, they were all cannon fodder.

Thinking to this point, Suren felt that his "Legion Golem Stream" had a bright future.

And another major good news was that he also discovered in that battle that his gargoyles were natural enemies of mages.

Living Silver, a god-tier material, possessed almost perfect all-elemental magic resistance. So, although mage legions were powerful, if they encountered gargoyle legions... the scene would be too beautiful to imagine.

Moreover, gargoyles could inscribe almost any rune, which meant they could have the effect of any rune golem.

If he could get a few thousand or tens of thousands of gargoyles by then...

Mage legion?

The scene of a group of gargoyles physically charging a mage legion was exciting just to think about.

Just as Suren thought of this, his brow furrowed, "But... where am I going to find so much Living Silver?"

His gargoyle was still collected by Barrett in the Burial Grounds of the Gods before. There might be more silver mines underground there, but it was too dangerous, and he couldn't consider it at all now.

"I wonder if the Mafa Empire, which is developed in mining, will have any clues..."

Suren thought of something and could only hope that this trip to Mafa would yield some gains.

......

Several days later, the Dawn Mercenary Group had sailed to the edge area marked on the Luying official nautical chart.

"Gold Digging Island" was in this deserted sea.

Legend has it that deep-sea monsters often haunt this sea area, and the climate is harsh and changeable.

Normally, no merchant ships would pass by at all. Even if there were adventure ships and fishing boats blown away by storms, no one had ever heard of any returning alive.

Over time, even pirate ships would avoid that dangerous sea area.

And such dangerous areas were countless in the West Sea, and no one cared.

Suren now knew that there was a secret base here, and it was not difficult to guess that those rumors were deliberately created by Grand Duke Raphael to protect it.

Having approached the destination, Suren didn't stay holed up in the captain's room to cultivate.

He stood at the bow of the ship with the Rune Black Umbrella, constantly paying attention to everything nearby.

The black crow shared his vision in the sky, and he could already see the huge island twenty nautical miles away.

That was "Gold Digging Island".

The island was lush and green, and looked no different from an ordinary deserted island.

The Evernight deliberately circled around, detouring to the west side of the island, avoiding Raphael's densely deployed area on the east side of the island.

Just then, Tani suddenly jumped down from the mast and reported: "Mr. Suren, the fish say that there are some strange guys appearing in the sea over there. They should be mechanical creatures. If we get any closer, we might be discovered."

Hearing this, Suren nodded thoughtfully: "Mm."

How could he not know that the island seemed to have no defenses, but those mechanical creatures hidden in the sea were the best reconnaissance devices.

If unfamiliar humans approached, they would not only be discovered by the people on the island, but would probably be sunk.

Fortunately, Tani had the ability to "Listen to the Voices of Sea Beasts", otherwise, no one could approach Gold Digging Island silently.

However, Suren also looked at Tani. This first mate of the Dawn Mercenary Group had advanced to the third tier in just a few months.

After the plane passage was connected, the laws of heaven and earth gradually improved, and job promotion became easier and easier. Especially in the low-level professional field, the original first, second, and third tiers had no threshold, and now it was as easy as drinking water. As long as the spiritual power was full, they could almost all advance smoothly.

After Tani advanced to the tier, he became more and more skilled in using his talents.

Seeing this, Suren didn't delay and greeted everyone on the ship: "Brothers, those who are going to rob, get ready to go."

"Haha, finally waited."

"..."

Hearing this shout, the Dawn Mercenary Group, who had been prepared for a long time, shouted excitedly.

Qian Tiao also walked over, with a look of sharpening her sword, "Are we going to land directly on the island?"

"No, let's sneak in first."

Suren shook his head.

Although forcibly landing was not a big problem for the current Dawn Mercenary Group, he looked at the distant island and chose the safest method, "I discovered in the battle at Lingdun before that an indispensable part of Raphael's Mechanical Magic Beast Legion is the 'Beast Tamer'. If I'm not mistaken, the Great Beast Tamer from the Ten Legendary Hunters, who has disappeared from the public eye for a long time, should also be on the island. If I guess correctly, even an eighth-tier professional won't be able to take him down in a short time if we fight. And once we are discovered in advance, there may be other changes in the laboratory in the base. We are going to rob property this time, so there is no need to fight head-on..."

Qian Tiao shrugged her shoulders after listening, "Okay!"

She was not good at using her brain. With Suren around, she didn't want to bother with that.

Everyone entered Suren's small void realm, and Suren took out the Shroud of Ozzy the Iceman and wrapped himself in it. While transparent, his aura had completely disappeared.

......

Just when the Dawn Mercenary Group approached Gold Digging Island, in the underground of the island, in a secret mechanical research institute.

A technician in a white coat was secretly communicating with a guard.

"This is part of the design drawing of Mechanical Magic Beast A3. You take advantage of the next supply and send it back to the empire as soon as possible. Also, ask the military to arrange for another group of people to be sent over. If there are enough people, I will be able to seize control of this secret research institute. Those equipment and scientific research talents are very important and will save us decades of research time, so there must be no mistakes!"

"Yes, Colonel!"

"One more thing, recently there is a mechanical modification plan for high-level sea monsters in the research institute. I suspect there are top professionals on the island. You notify the military that no matter which intelligence force it is, they must not be allowed to approach the sea area near the island rashly! No one should come to test, otherwise it will interfere with my plan. Once the mine like the old Lingdun is militarily blockaded, it will be difficult to obtain these technologies again..."

"Yes!"

If anyone else was here, they would be surprised by the conversation between the two.

No one would have thought that a spy from the Mafa Empire had infiltrated the secret research base that Grand Duke Raphael was strictly guarding.

......

Suren appeared on Gold Digging Island after multiple teleports.

The climate here was rainforest, and tall trees blocked out the sun.

Various animals were active in the forest, creating a vibrant scene. Monkeys jumping around on the branches, vipers coiled under the fallen leaves, fish swimming in the creeks, and deer grazing and daydreaming in the forest...

Everything seemed no different from an ordinary tropical island.

But no one saw that the skin of some animals was scratched by branches, and metal shone in the sun.

Quietly, a transparent figure appeared standing on a fallen leaf.

A small lizard passing by seemed to have discovered this subtle movement, sniffed, but found nothing, and left again.

Suren looked around, there were many soul fluctuations, and he didn't dare to be careless.

Snakes, insects, rats, and ants themselves have extraordinary perception abilities. Even if you use deodorant potion, humans exposed to the air will be discovered by animals a few kilometers away.

And any small animal on this island may be the "eye" of the beast tamer.

Suren looked for a direction with no soul fluctuations and teleported again.

Looking again, he had already appeared in a secluded cave.

Stopping to expand his perception range, he muttered in his heart: "There are very powerful soul fluctuations lurking on the island, it seems this is the place."

From the appearance, the island was nothing unusual.

But in Suren's perception, he had discovered several monsters with at least sixth-tier soul fluctuations on this island of several square kilometers.

This was very abnormal.

It was not strange for there to be high-level monsters on the island, but it also had to follow the basic supply and demand ecology of the natural world food chain.

This island could not support so many high-level monsters.

This abnormal situation made it easy to infer the only result, that the high-level monsters on this island were raised here by someone.

"In other words, the secret base is underground here..."

Suren recognized this and confirmed the location.

The information he had peeled off before only knew that this island was Raphael's research base, but he didn't know how to get in.

Raphael's combat personnel and scientific research personnel were always absolutely separated, which also prevented his base from being discovered by outsiders for so many years.

Although he didn't sense the underground space, Suren wasn't surprised.

The only reasonable explanation was that the research base was hidden very deep.

He carefully arranged an isolation formation, and then summoned the Earth Elemental Wax Statue again.

Just like looking for the altar of that outer god in Lingdun, as the wax statue elementalized, Suren also merged into the soil.

He didn't plan to look for an entrance, but simply and rudely drilled directly underground.

He sank all the way down. Fortunately, he was not discovered.

When he sank about two thousand meters, Suren suddenly sensed a huge space appearing underground.

Moreover, there were dense soul fluctuations in that space.

"Found it!"

Suren was overjoyed.

After confirming a direction, he teleported again, and he had already appeared in a lively mining city.

......

"It's really an underground mine. And looking at the traces, it's actually hundreds of thousands of years old..."

Suren clung to the rock wall and looked at the ancient mining traces.

In other words, this mine was still an ancient ruin.

It existed before Grand Duke Raphael came to mine it.

Seeing this mine, Suren also felt a little emotional. Grand Duke Raphael was really lucky to have not only discovered the old Lingdun, but also discovered this ancient mine ruins.

This underground space was several hundred meters high, and in the distance was an underground city almost entirely constructed of steel.

In Suren's perception, there were many humans in the city, estimated to be hundreds of thousands.

With so many dense humans, Suren didn't have to worry about being discovered.

He observed for a while, then tore off the shroud, used stage magic to change clothes, and put on a sloppy miner's outfit.

Teleporting again, he had already appeared in an empty room in a high-rise building in the city.

Suren stood by the window, his eyes staring at the bustling streets below.

This city was like a super-large "steel mill", with steel pipes everywhere and high-rise buildings of one or twenty floors. But almost all buildings were steel structures, and the air was filled with a strong smell of rust and waste gas from ore smelting.

Steam boilers were chugging and emitting white smoke everywhere in the city, and there were large and small smelting workshops everywhere. It was not difficult to see that the overall mechanization of the city was very high, but the technology was not too advanced.

The entire city was like a steel monster hidden deep underground, constantly swallowing stones and spitting out gold.

"There are so many rare metal resources, how rich is this mine..."

Suren identified it, and the buildings here were not ordinary steel, but alloy steel that was expensive outside.

Those rare metals were not extracted, but directly used to build houses?

The only explanation was that the ore deposits here were so luxurious that they could be squandered like this.

The corner of Suren's eyes twitched slightly, and he became more and more expectant in his heart: this time he was probably going to make a fortune...

Looking into the distance, not far from him was a super-large ore refining factory.

Countless workers were working in the workshop, refining the ore into metal ingots, and then loading them into carts and transporting them away.

When Suren looked over, he saw a steam train roaring on the exclusive track for ore transportation leading to the factory workshop.

"Clang", "Clang", "Clang"...

The mine car pulled a cart of ore into it.

Suren's eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at the colorful ore exposed in the carriages, and he was greatly surprised: "Rainbow ore? And the quality is so high!"

Rainbow ore does not specifically refer to a certain type of ore, but refers to rich ore mixed with some rare metals.

Magic-patterned brass, mithril, black iron, ribbed steel...

These rare metals mixed together will reflect various brilliant colors.

Outside, a purity of more than "20%" is already a valuable rich ore.

The high-purity ores that are currently identified are generally "purity 25", "purity 29", "purity 27"... of the highest quality purity.

If you really take it outside to sell, one car is worth millions of Leso.

Looking at the workers' numb eyes, is this just ordinary ore?

"This... no wonder..."

Suren looked extremely greedy.

In an instant, he knew why Grand Duke Raphael had so much financial resources to manufacture those hundreds of thousands of mechanical warriors!

The value of the current mine is definitely enough to rival a country.

The Raphael family seems to have been operating here for decades, God knows how much wealth has been accumulated!

.......

Suren silently observed from a high place for a while, and teleported again. He walked out of a small alley and quietly mingled with the crowd on the street.

"It has actually grown to such a large scale..."

Suren was also quite surprised when he looked at the bustling city in front of him.

For a moment, his memory was in a trance, and he thought he had returned to the underground world of the old Lingdun that never saw the sun.

But the situation here was a little different.

The old Lingdun used to have an ancient city ruins, and its main industries were mechanical military industry, biological research, and wilderness hunting and treasure hunting. Although the industrial chain was deformed, it was similar to a normal city.

And this was purely an underground pit dug out of mining, and then a densely populated city was spawned.

Moreover, just looking at the gray-faced attire of the people on the street, the occupational structure here was very single, and almost all of them were "miners"!

Hundreds of thousands of miners!

Suren sensed the spatial structure and found that there were spider web-like passages underground, and he didn't know how deep this mine extended.

As he walked along the way, he also saw some shops selling basic materials and alchemy knowledge, but more of them were mechanical modification shops.

There was a high possibility that miners would have missing limbs, so miners with mechanical prosthetics could be seen everywhere on the streets. There were also some "advanced miners" equipped with mechanical exoskeletons, which did not look like combat functions, but were for more efficient mining and transporting heavy objects.

Potion shops, food shops, various daily necessities stores, and recreational hotels, taverns, and public bathhouses.

The commercial ecology in Steel City had been very complete, enough to maintain the lives of these hundreds of thousands of people.

.....

Suren walked along the street.

In his soul perception, there were all low-level professionals and ordinary people.

Miners did not need too strong combat ability. Along the way, he did not even see a single third-tier professional.

Grand Duke Raphael controlled the Sunstone necessary for advancing to the fourth tier, and no one in this mine could break through to the fourth tier.

The skin color of the people was pale because they did not see the sun all year round, but from the facial features, it could be seen that there were not only people from all over Luying, but also from Mafa.

The source of the population was obviously slaves brought from various places.

This was exactly the same as the situation in the old Lingdun.

In addition to the miners, there were also a few professionals wearing weapons on the street. Listening to their conversations, they were the "hunting team" responsible for hunting the cave monsters in the mine.

Suren turned a street when he smelled the hustle and bustle while wandering around the street, and happened to encounter a hunting team with blood on their bodies returning to the city.

The leader was a third-tier bearded man.

This was already the strongest professional Suren had seen in this city.

As those people walked along the way, people greeted them one after another as if welcoming heroes.

"Yo, Captain Mark, you are back. Have you cleaned up the damned giant cave rats in area t5? If you don't bring some monster corpses, the cannery has been short of meat recently."

"Of course. Not only was the giant rat group killed, but a new purple gold mine was discovered there. Oh, the guys who are assigned to mine there next month are going to be happy. Not only will they be able to complete the monthly task of the city lord, but they will also be able to save a lot of money."

"Haha, Old Mark, you have completed this task, and your contribution points should be able to enter the inner city guard, right? Oh, then you will really have no worries about food and clothing for the rest of your life."

"Uncle Ward, thank you for your kind words. It seems that your Ike will also join the hunting team this year, right? I will ask my teammates to take care of you..."

"Oh, then thank you so much. Go home quickly, your beautiful wife Joanna is waiting for you..."

"Hey. Then I'll go first, I'll ask you for a drink next time."

"..."

These were just some very ordinary neighborhood chats, and the folk customs were simple.

To outsiders, these conversations may seem incredible.

But Suren, who came out of the old Lingdun, was too impressed.

These "miners" had all been cleared of their memories and didn't know there was an outside world at all.

If there were no outsiders, they would stay in this "underground world" for the rest of their lives and reproduce.