"Haa… I certainly feel like I've improved." Lin Mu said after seeing his handiwork.
In his hands he held an immensely precious resource… The Source vein of a High Grade immortal stone mine!
It was barely a meter long, but its overall shape was irregular. It had taken Lin Mu over ten hours of work to get the shape right before he was finally able to use Meld to cut it out from the rest of the cluster.
The source vein shimmered in a chromatic light and gave one a refreshing feeling if they touched it. Even now, when it was detached from the main cluster, it was still condensing and emitting Immortal Qi.
There were very few people that would ever be able to hold an Immortal stone mine's source vein like this. In fact, even Transcendent Immortals would not dare to cut one out like this.
After all, it basically meant destroying an Immortal Stone mine that could continually supply Immortal stones to them for hundreds of thousands of years.
As for implanting them?
There were very few instances in the history of the Rust Sky world when a power had tried to do something like that. Most of the time, they would simply build another base around a new mine, as it would be very risky to transplant a source vein.
Not to mention, it would need a long time to adapt to the new location as well as regrow more Immortal stones.
And even when transplantation of a source vein was done in the past, it was only done so with low grade immoral stone mine source veins. The one that Lin Mu held in his hand was a High grade Immortal Stone mine source vein!
Just thinking about transplanting one of this quality would make most immortals shiver. After all, if they accidentally damaged it during that process, they might just die from regret. And this was if the others didn't kill them for their stupidity.
There were even laws in place to prevent someone from doing exactly this.
Even when different powers entered wars or attacked each other, they would not touch the Immortal Stone mines. They would leave them be and take over them when they had won the battle.
After all, destroying them was the same as cutting down their own spoils of wars.
"Let's tuck this away for now, shall we?" Lin Mu stored the Source Vein in the ring while making sure it was isolated.
~phew~
Lin Mu wiped away the sweat off his brow, feeling relieved.
'That took long enough, wonder how much Little Shrubby got?' Lin Mu thought and called for the beast.
With how spread out the mine was, and the materials that were dispersed in it, even Little Shrubby needed time to dig out the various materials. His speed only helped when it was time to get to the next material, and not actually in digging.
He needed to be careful not to cause damage to the other immortal stones around it, and also to the material itself.
~WHOOSH~
About a couple of minutes later, Little Shrubby finally responded.
"I think I'm stuck." The beast spoke.
"Huh? Stuck?" Lin Mu furrowed his brows before sensing Little Shrubby's position.
He found him to be far from the central area, where several tunnels spread like spider webs.
"Hang on then, I'm coming." Lin Mu replied.
"Alright," Little Shrubby said, sounding a bit embarrassed.
Lin Mu flew towards Little Shrubby's location. He had to navigate through a complex set of tunnels that seemed to be made due to underground water channels.
'These are certainly not new… and there are no underground rivers here either.' Lin Mu was a bit surprised seeing this. 'Were these made when the plane was still normal?' he wondered.
Then there was also the fact that the density of Immortal stones was low here. They weren't spread everywhere and a few small pieces could be seen embedded in the rocks every so often.
This showed that Lin Mu was now in the distant reaches of the mine. But as he continued onwards, his expression changed.
'Just how far did he go?' Lin Mu discovered the tunnels getting narrower and narrower.
After a certain point, it was even difficult for Lin Mu to pass without using Phase.
"If Little Shrubby came this far, he definitely shrank to get inside." Lin Mu reckoned.
It took Lin Mu another five minutes before he finally reached Little Shrubby's position.
"Little Shrubby, what happened?" Lin Mu questioned.
He found the kitten stuck at an awkward angle. His head was stuck downward while his limbs were stuck diagonally.
"Umm… I was trying to dig this out without damaging it. But then the wall shifted and I got stuck. I couldn't get out without breaking it." Little Shrubby answered.Copyright by Nôv/elDrama.Org.
"Damaging it?" Lin Mu realized he had missed the material that was actually trapping Little Shrubby.
"Wait a second…" Lin Mu created a small flame and looked at the rocks around Little Shrubby.
The rocks were a mix of grey and had intersecting streaks of indigo in them. These streaks overlapped and were densely packed, looking similar to Damascus steel. But Lin Mu knew this was an entirely different material.
"Barely any energy can be felt from it, making it hard to detect; has these overlapping streaks, as well as being fragile… there's no doubt." Lin Mu analyzed the material. "Nine Fall Thunder Earth Amalgam Ore!" he identified.
This was a rare kind of ore that was only found in areas with constant thunderstorms. It was only made when a part of earth was struck nine times in a row and all of its energy was contained before it could escape.
"Why is it this far deep in the ground though… this is formed on mountain tops." Lin Mu was confused once more.
"Umm, can you get me out first?" Little Shrubby asked again.
"Ah yeah! Gimme a second." Lin Mu spread his immortal sense and got the dimensions of the ore before using Meld to accurately cut it out.