After a moment of thought, Jiang Ye decided to dig an inclined tunnel from the side, leading to the surface.
This was almost the only way out at the moment.
The walls were all made of hard ice crystal stone, making excavation very difficult.
Fortunately, the effects of the physical enhancement drug had not worn off, and he was full of energy.
Jiang Ye swung his pickaxe, striking the pit wall directly in front of him.
Amidst the clanging sounds, pieces of ice crystal stone peeled off and fell at his feet.
An hour later, the entrance to the tunnel had taken its initial shape. It was slightly lower than Jiang Ye's height, half a meter wide, and one meter long, just enough for him to stand in.
Bending his head, he entered the tunnel, and the visibility dimmed.
Relying on his senses, Jiang Ye swung his pickaxe to continue excavating, gradually increasing the height of the tunnel as he dug.
In a daze, he suddenly had the illusion of playing Minecraft.
When he played Minecraft in school, he was inexperienced at first and dug straight down. In the end, he found he couldn't jump back to the surface, so he had to dig a tunnel from the side, slowly reaching the surface like digging underground stairs.
Of course, digging dirt in the game was incredibly simple, just holding down the mouse button, and it would be done in a few minutes.
But now, doing it for real, the trouble was a hundred times greater. Every piece of rock and soil had to be personally chipped away.
The only thing Jiang Ye was grateful for was that the soil underground was very solid, and there was no soil falling from above.
If it weren't solid, there was a high chance of a cave-in, burying him alive.
While digging laboriously, Jiang Ye realized a serious problem.
He couldn't just dig randomly like he had for the past two days; he needed to plan the entire mining process.
Mines are very dangerous and complex. The underground world is completely different from the surface; this is, after all, a high-risk profession.
Getting trapped down here today out of sheer excitement was a warning!
Jiang Ye's movements suddenly stopped, his eyes fixed straight ahead.
With his last pickaxe strike, a hole appeared on the pit wall in front of him!
A fist-sized hole, pitch black, with nothing visible inside, and no idea where it led.
But he could confirm that this hole had always been there, and he had just happened to dig it open.
Jiang Ye felt a little creeped out.
He remembered the pangolin-like creature he encountered during the rain last time.
When that little beast escaped, it also burrowed into a fist-sized hole and vanished.
Could this hole also be a tunnel to some creature's nest?
Jiang Ye instinctively reached for the grenade on his waist but then realized it couldn't be used here. The mine was too narrow; if the grenade exploded, he would be blown to smithereens.
He immediately gripped his samurai sword, pointing the tip towards the dark opening.
Taking a deep breath, Jiang Ye thrust his arm forward and plunged the samurai sword into the hole!
Screech! A sharp, piercing cry immediately sounded.
The tip of the sword had clearly pierced something, and it was alive, struggling violently.
Jiang Ye's heart pounded so hard he could hear it, and sweat poured from him like an opened floodgate. Damn it, there really was something alive in the hole!
A pulling force came from the sword; the thing in the hole was trying to drag the samurai sword in!
Jiang Ye gripped the hilt with both hands, holding on tightly, playing tug-of-war with the creature on the other end.
Initially, the creature in the hole pulled with immense strength, as if a strong man was desperately yanking.
"You son of a bitch! Let go!" Jiang Ye couldn't help but roar, gripping the hilt tightly.
After a few minutes, the force on the sword grew weaker.
A faint smell of blood wafted from the hole.
Jiang Ye judged that the creature stabbed by the sword might have lost too much blood and was losing strength.
Taking a deep breath, he tried to pull the samurai sword out.
Soon, the entire sword was pulled out.
A small, dark beast was impaled on the tip of the sword!
"It really is you!" Jiang Ye was both delighted and angry.
This little beast should be the one he encountered a few days ago, but there were some changes.
When he encountered it before, it had a layer of oily, shiny black carapace, which was incredibly hard, and even his samurai sword couldn't cut through it.
But now, its carapace was gone, leaving only its gray, fleshy back, with fine fuzz on it.
The samurai sword had pierced its belly and emerged from its back, like a skewer for roasting, going all the way through.
Bright red blood flowed from its wound, dripping down along the tip of the sword.
The little beast raised its head, glared at Jiang Ye with hatred twice, then its four limbs twitched, and it died.
Urine and feces dripped from beneath its tail, emitting a foul odor.
"Amitabha, meat for tonight," Jiang Ye muttered to himself.
Breathing a sigh of relief as if he had narrowly escaped death, Jiang Ye placed the samurai sword and the little beast aside and continued to swing his pickaxe.
There was much less ice crystal stone in this section; it was mostly soft soil, and the excavation speed increased further.
After digging forward a meter, Jiang Ye reached the beast's nest.
The nest was small, only about the size of a washbasin. It was very clean inside, with half a corn cob, some small white pebbles, and a set of black scales.
Jiang Ye reached out and picked up the set of black scales. That's right, it was the layer of scales it had when he encountered it last time.
These scales weren't actually attached to its body; they could be shed?
Did it wear armor when it went out and take it off to be naked at home?
This little beast was quite the connoisseur of comfort.
It probably never expected Jiang Ye to break through from underground directly into its lair.
After another two and a half hours, with a final pickaxe strike, he broke through the soil layer and saw the sky above.
A blood-red sky.
Unknowingly, it was already dusk. The day really passed quickly.
"I'm exhausted!" Jiang Ye climbed out of the tunnel and sat on the dirt, panting.
The drug's effects had worn off, leaving him aching all over.
But he didn't rest for long before sitting up again.
Before it got dark, he had to transport everything back to the base.
Tools, weapons, the dead little beast, and he also had to pick up some ice crystal stone to sell.