Swallowed Star

Volume 09 Chapter 33 – Time of Crisis

The thunderstones were shiny, every one of them was almost similar in size, the largest were at most only twice the size of the smallest ones. At the same time, they stored a little bit of thunder energy within. This led to Luo Feng conjecturing that these stones were probably forged when the world within a world was first opened.

128,926 of them!

Even if they spent every second obtaining a 100 of them, they would still require 1300 seconds. What’s more, even if the cloud contact vine extended more vines, including little vines, it was mostly the digging…that took up a lot of time.

“This job of obtaining the thunderstones, requires quite a bit of time.” Within the cave underground, Thunder God lamented.

“We have the cloud contact vine, hence it’s a bit faster. If it were just a fighter looking for it, even with a spirit reader, this digging would be a real problem. I estimate that it would take about a thousand people to catch up with the vine’s speed.” Luo Feng laughed, the cloud contact vine as a plant, originally was meant to have its roots extend deep into the ground, plus it was slender, hence its speed was very fast.

If it were a human, with the world within a world’s mud, the rock stratum’s sturdiness, it would indeed take very long.

……

Luo Feng and his team waited patiently in the underground cave, letting the cloud contact vine do all the work.

Two hours later.

“All done.” Luo Feng was extremely excited, he couldn’t help but rub the vine wrapped around his arm, “Vine, it’s been hard on you. These few days we will require your help a lot, come, eat a Mu Ya crystal.” Luo Feng threw a Mu Ya crystal at the cloud contact vine, it extended a vine immediately and shook excitedly.

Since the first evolution, it already recognized Luo Feng as it’s owner.

Hence it was very reliant on Luo Feng, like he was its parent.

“This is a thunderstone.” Luo Feng flipped his hand, a thunderstone appeared in it.

It was a incredibly shiny stone, with a slight sense of thunder energy emanating from it, however its energy was very little.

“Let me look.” Thunder God took it curiously.

“120,000 thunderstones.” Hong couldn’t help but exclaim, “This sort of chance encounter, it’s really a huge windfall.”

“Let’s grasp the time, right now time is thunderstones! Time is the treasure!” Luo Feng laughed as he said, leading the group towards the surface.

“Let’s go, up.”

The five swiftly reached the surface.

“Luo Feng, this area’s thunderstones have probably been separated by more than this 20 km area. You should look around more.” Babata’s voice resounded in Luo Feng’s mind.

“Understood.”

Luo Feng and his team began to swiftly search around the surrounding area.

“Within this 20 km area over here, there are 16,924 stones.”

“This area has 9,156 stones.”

“This area has 3,208 stones.”

“This area has 853 stones.”

……

“Haha, we’ve struck it big, Luo Feng, this area actually has 159,835 stones, close to 160,000 of them.” Babata shouted excitedly.

Indeed.

This area of thunderstones was close to a hundred km area in total, of which there were two spots with more stones gathered together. One was the first spot Luo Feng and his team dug from, with 128,926 stones. The other was the later discovered spot with close to 160,000 stones. The other spots, the ones with more ranged over ten thousand while the ones with less didn’t even reach a hundred.

Luckily they had Babata’s scanner, scanning with every detail and carefully.

“This is the true treasure trove.” Thunder God was extremely excited.

“So much treasure.” Tie Nan He and Ao Gu, the two slaves were also very shocked, these thunderstones represented invaluable amounts of treasures. These were the treasures in this world within a world, if they were used to buy Star level 9 slaves, they could completely buy a huge strong army.

“Begin digging.” Luo Feng’s eyes gleamed, ordering.

Immediately the five pierced into the ground.

Relying on the cloud contact vine, they began the process of swiftly collecting the thunderstones.

Luckily as this place was very far away from the center region, most of the ten thousand explorers from before were searching close to the center region and away from them. Luo Feng and his team flew non stop from day to night to reach this place. After all, this place had plenty of thunderstones.

Compared to the size of the whole area, ten thousand explorers were indeed very little.

“Vine, I’m relying on you.” Luo Feng was extremely elated, feeling his blood pumping with adrenaline.

This time it took about 8 hours before all the thunderstones were dug up, not one was left!

“How many?” Hong couldn’t help but ask.

“Third brother, how many thunderstones do we have?” Thunder God couldn’t help but ask too.

“Including the just dug up 128,926 stones, our total amount at the moment, is…” Luo Feng smiled, “396,201 stones.”

“Damn, close to 400,000?” Thunder God stared.

“Just this area alone and we’ve struck it big.” Hong laughed.

It was indeed true.

This area’s thunderstones, if it were the other teams digging around here, it would be hard for them to sweep it clean. Afterall they were scattered randomly with some clustered and others dispersed, Luo Feng relied on Babata’s scanning system to sweep it all clean. With one area, they obtained close to 400,000 thunderstones, the level 5 genetic energy fire wheel was only priced at 100,000 stones.

“Let’s go, grasp the time and head to the next place.” Luo Feng said.

On the path they came from, Babata had discovered two places, this was but one of them.

“Right, to the next spot.” Thunder God’s eyes gleamed, almost like a beggar spotting a golden mountain.

……

From the central region to this first digging spot, it took about 10 hours of flight. And the digging time took close to 11 hours.

Luo Feng and his team continued flying.

Another 38 hours later, they arrived at their second spot, within the mountain region.

……

The sky was dark.

This was a continuous mountain region, it was filled with plant life, trees and vegetation.

“According to the thunderstones distribution map, in this 20,000km area, there are two thunderstone areas. However, that’s a 20,000km area! Every area will require spending quite a bit of time, normal scanning devices are completely useless. Only the top tier devices, those two that we have are useful, using those two, walking around this entire 20,000 km area, how long would it take?”

“Don’t complain, just do it seriously.”

A team with a vast number of over a thousand was scattered searching around, and the conversation before was from two of the searching members.

18 km away from this team.

Luo Feng, Hong, Thunder God, Tie Nan He and Ao gu were squatting on the surface.

“Big trouble.” Hong said softly.

“The 2 million strong army outside has arrived.” Luo Feng was anxious, “In this forest, there’s a team with at least 10,000.” They were preparing to head to the second spot to dig, but along the way they met another 10,00 strong team, detouring, but during that detour, they met another 1,000 strong team.

Along with the distant flying group of people.

With a guess…

Within this forest, there should be a large team of close to 10,000 gathered.

The initial group of explorers was only a little more than 10,000, so there was no way that so many people could appear. Then it could only mean one thing, the 2 million man army had arrived! Actually since the treasures were first displayed at the castle, the 2 million strong army’s first leaders had already arrived, however they were at the outer reaches of the world, and after two to three days.

World within a world, the silhouettes of the 2 million strong army appeared throughout the areas.

As for the simple map of the thunderstones layout, it was obvious that they had acquired it too.

“Quickly, continue to detour.” Luo Feng ordered.

The night was dark, mountain region.

Luo Feng and his team swiftly re-routed again, along the way meeting another 1000 man army, detouring again…after flying a few thousand km, they finally reached the second digging spot!

******

“They haven’t dug here.” Luo Feng and his team hid amongst the thistles and thorns, extremely excited.

Obviously, this area didn’t have any traces of digging yet.

Babata’s scanning had shown that this area had a lot of thunderstones below.

“Thunderstones aren’t like universe crystals, scanning for them is very difficult. From the conversation of the members earlier, this large team only has two top tier scanning devices able to scan for the thunderstones.” Babata was very satisfied, “And the thunderstones map is only a simplified map, the entire diameter of this world within a world is about a million km, it only at most lets them know that in an area of tens of thousands of km, there are some thunderstones.”

“Begin digging.” Luo Feng ordered.

The five quickly dug downwards, Tie Nan He was in charge of covering up the hole entrance behind.

Underground.

In this 20km area, there are 210,397 thunderstones.” Babata said.

“Vine, I’m relying on you.” Luo Feng didn’t hesitate, with a thought, a large amount of vines extended from Luo Feng’s arm and swiftly pierced through the mud, heading in different directions.

Babata was in charge of directing them.

The cloud contact vine was in charge of grabbing the crystals, the vines extended through the mud and rock stratum, the moment it touched a thunderstone, the vine would extend a leaf and swiftly wrap them up.

……

In a 20,000 km area, with the gravity force in the world within a world, required Star level 9s to fly close to about an hour. The most important thing was…with a 20,000km area, it required multiple flights back and forth with they top tier scanning devices as their scanning area wasn’t big, Babata’s 20km scanning was considered very strong.

Even scanning with a 20 km area scanner, a 20,000km area required 1000 scans!

One hour of flight, with two devices, required a total of 500 hours to completely scan the area.

……

Underground.

After digging for over 3 hours.

The vines were swiftly retracting, shrinking and returning into Luo Feng’s skin.

“Very good, this area’s excavation is complete. Let’s go look around.” Luo Feng communicated mentally, “Everybody be careful, don’t ever be discovered.”

“Understood.”

The five carefully swiftly came out from the underground, beginning their search around. Very quickly, they searched around, this thunderstone area was about 96 km long, 129 km wide, with such a huge area, there were three spots with more clusters of stones. These three spots, each had 210,397 stones, (Just excavated), 128,302 stones, 198,355 stones.

And the other places, were all below 50,000 stones, the least with just a few hundred.

Overall, this area had more stones than the area they had just dug up before.

“Next area quickly, 198,355 stones.” Luo Feng swiftly ordered.

They fought to grasp every second!

Every minute represented a large amount of thunderstones being dug up. When Luo Feng was digging hard for the stones, there were occasionally other teams flying in the air above them, oblivious to the fact that there were people underground.

“You all, go dig over there, this area hasn’t been scanned by the devices.”

“Yes Captain.”

A little team finally headed towards the area where Luo feng and his team were digging.

“Captain, thunderstones, there’s thunderstones here!!!”

“What, thunderstones?”

“Quickly inform the Head Captain, also the Sector Lord.”

……

Underground.

“Luo Feng, quickly there are people digging here.” Babata’s voice resounded in Luo Feng’s mind.

Luo Feng’s expression changed.

The cloud contact vine was swiftly digging, every second gaining more and more thunderstones.

“They’ve dug up some thunderstones and are reporting to their superiors. Very soon, many other members will come down. Let’s leave!” Babata roared.

“Vine, quickly, quickly, quickly.” Luo Feng ordered.

The vine swiftly retracted, leaving behind the other thunderstones. Within the blink of an eye, it returned to Luo Feng’s arm.

“Let’s go!” Luo Feng ordered.

“Everybody be careful, the moment we burst out from the surface, immediately follow me and flee. Right now above us there are about a 1000 Star level 9 explorers. However with the forest area, we still have a guarantee of escaping.” Luo Feng ordered through genetic energy, they other four slightly nodded.