Aether Energy can be converted from Gold Coins at a rate of 100:1, with a daily conversion limit of 1 million.
Thanks to the Eternal Mineshaft, Weilin could hit that daily cap without fail. For over a year now, she had never missed a single day. Even after producing countless pieces of Aether Technology every day, she still had a surplus of up to 200 million units of Aether Energy.
A quick conversion: Weilin was losing 100 million gold coins every day, which meant she was losing 1157.4 yuan every single second…
A voice called out, “Master, what are you still hesitating about? The Aether Gate is practically the only place in the entire Eternal Mineshaft where you can actually spend money.”
Spending money for the sake of spending it—too real.
Weilin felt a flicker of confusion. She turned her head slightly and asked the Aether Shield, “What condition did I meet to unlock this new authorization? And how do I unlock the ‘Apocalypse’ and ‘Erasure’ technology authorizations?”
The Aether Shield replied:
“No comment.”
“Replying to Madam Executor: To unlock ‘Advanced Technology,’ you must accumulate a total expenditure of 100 million Aether Energy on Aether Tech production. ‘Apocalypse Technology’ requires a cumulative expenditure of 1 billion Aether Energy…”
She didn’t even need to hear the requirement for ‘Erasure.’
It wasn’t that Weilin couldn’t afford the Aether Energy—it was that there was a damn daily conversion limit!
“Fine… Unlock the ‘Advanced Technology’ production authorization.”
The moment Weilin gave the command, even the Time Devourer on her left and the Mushroom Empress on her right couldn’t help but sharpen their focus, brimming with anticipation.
The Aether Gate was, after all, a World Item. Its long-term strategic value far surpassed that of Guardians like them, who had Lv100 power but barely any chance to use it.
—They also wanted to see if this bottomless pit of a gate, which had already swallowed nearly 400 million gold coins from the Eternal Mineshaft, could finally prove its worth.
On the text screen floating above the Aether Gate, everyone could clearly see that the previously empty ‘Advanced Technology’ column was now displaying new entries.
Ordinary Technology: Can produce Exploder, Spiker, Recoiler, Patroller, Crane, Crusher, Transporter, Cooker, Repeater…
Advanced Technology: Can produce ‘Vertical Aether Wormhole,’ ‘Random Aether Wormhole,’ ‘Improved Aether Wormhole,’ ‘Blank Battle Blade,’ ‘Blank Armament’…
As expected of Advanced Technology—just adding the word ‘Advanced’ made it feel like a massive upgrade.
“Wormhole… is it a hole where a bunch of worms crawl out?” the Mushroom Empress asked with a strange expression.
“—It’s a space-time wormhole.”
Shi Luo’s deep blue eyes were as profound as the boundless cosmos. Upon seeing the word “wormhole,” her delicate brows lifted slightly, then she calmly remarked, “Passing through a wormhole allows for instantaneous spatial transference… or even time travel. Aether truly was a civilization of Chaos, classifying even a wormhole as mere Advanced Technology…”
Weilin was no stranger to the concept of wormholes. Hearing Shi Luo speak with such admiration, a look of surprise crossed her face. She hesitated, then asked, “…So what is a Vertical Aether Wormhole?”
This time, the Aether Spear answered: “Replying to Madam Executor: Place it at a point leading toward the surface. Passing through the wormhole allows for instantaneous travel from the Earth Core to the surface point vertically above it, or into a surface-level underground city.”
Mushroom dismissed this with a curl of her lip. “Bleh~ It’s just a teleportation spell, and you can’t even freely choose the destination! To me, no matter how you look at it, it’s trash!”
“…Hmph, how foolish!”
Shi Luo raised her small face, her expression cool, but a rare, needle-sharp light flickered in her eyes. She spoke in a slow, deep tone.
“To teleport from the Earth Core to the surface, the cost in Magic Stones for a single spell is more than just expensive. Moreover, a portal can last for just over ten seconds at most. If that weren’t the case, why do you think the Eternal Mineshaft has been content to huddle, isolated and peaceful, in the Earth Core? …But a wormhole, once placed, becomes a permanent solution until its lifespan ends, and it requires no Magic Stones at all to maintain… For its strategic value to the Eternal Mineshaft alone, this item is enough to secure the Aether Gate’s position as a World Item.”
Shi Luo’s words were like parting clouds to reveal the sun for the Mushroom Empress. Her thinking became instantly clear.
“…Doesn’t that mean!!!!”
“Yes!” Weilin’s heart surged with emotion. She couldn’t help but take a deep breath, then smiled. “…It means we can finally stop sitting around eating through our resources. We can go dig for minerals on the surface.”
?
?
This was a continent where the sky was round and the earth was square.
Its dusty history and the origin of all things could be traced back over a million years.
To be frank, compared to the 4.54 billion-year-old Earth, the Divine Crystal Continent didn’t even amount to a fraction of a fraction of its history.
Even the Eternal Steel Empire, with the deepest heritage, had only existed for a little over three thousand years to date.
And compared to the Snow Kingdom, which had stood for a millennium, the twelve-hundred-year-old Star God Free Federation wasn’t much older.
A million-year continental history seemed like a single grain of sand in a vast river when compared to other novels that casually span epochs or billions of years… But the reason the Divine Crystal Continent could develop such a flourishing magical-technological civilization and theocracy in a mere million years—a span normally insufficient for even microbes to evolve—was all because…
Its rate of evolution was terrifyingly fast!
Iron deposits that took Earth a billion years to form could appear in the rock strata of the Divine Crystal Continent in just a few hundred years. If aided by magic, or with the presence of a Crystal Companion White Mouse that could evolve mineral veins, the time could be shortened by several times, or even dozens of times…
This also meant…
As long as one didn’t court death, the mines on the Divine Crystal Continent almost never faced the day they’d run dry.
————————————————
Eternal Mineshaft, Third Layer.
Clay City.
True to its name, this was a city molded from clay. The master of this city, also one of its Guardians, was a true God.
The Clay God—Gelun!
Like Nüwa, the goddess from myth who molded humans from clay, He excelled at tearing off “clay” from His own body, mixing it with various ores, Magic Stones, and other materials to mold legendary high-grade magical beings known as ‘Golems.’
He could also satisfy any of your bizarre preferences—double-ended ♂ plugs, futanari with huge dicks, even intricate machines with countless guns and cannons—nothing was off the table… as long as you were willing to go there with your own “chisel.” After all, the items were molded from Gelun’s own “flesh.”
It’s worth noting that the Clay God’s creations only possessed rigid, machine-command-like behavioral patterns. They were at best “magical puppets” and would never become true living beings.
So…
Within this massive Clay City, no smaller than Illusory Snow City in scale, not a single human existed.
There were only Golems carrying ore and scurrying about… along with the Eternal Mineshaft’s other “miners”—Moles, Slimes, Giant Birds, Varanium-Flame Giant Pythons, Mimics, and so on.
Although called Clay City, Gelun was a Clay God, and His clay-shaping skills were nothing short of divine. The Clay City He created was by no means inferior to the Federation’s Sky City—the former was globally majestic, the latter as beautiful as a scroll painting.
But…
In this incredibly majestic Clay City, over 90% of its buildings… were ore warehouses!!
The Eternal Mineshaft was located in the hollow region at the very innermost part of the Earth Core.
The Third Layer, where Clay City was located, occupied half of this entire hollow region.
More than fifty Varanium-Flame Giant Pythons, over a thousand Golems, three thousand Giant Birds, over ten thousand Slimes, and over a hundred thousand Mole Miners…
On top of that, there was a constant stream of transport vehicles, Exploders, Recoilers, and more, providing support from the Second Layer…
Such exaggerated manpower and resources. To dig through the 600-kilometer-thick continental core, they had been working almost non-stop, day and night, for ten years. The various rare ores they extracted continually filled the Clay City’s warehouses to bursting.
Gelun ate until He was stuffed. Then, the Slimes, Giant Birds, and Mole Miners also began eating, until their entire races evolved into ‘Variant Slimes’ or ‘Super Crystal-Eating Moles’…
Until one day, they finally breached a passage through the inner core and excitedly gazed upon the ‘outer core.’
The ‘outer core’ was liquid…
…To be precise, it was an 800-kilometer-wide, boundless Golden Ocean, composed of 10% liquid gold and millions of other types of liquid ore.
On that day…
The Golems, Slimes, Giant Birds, and over a hundred thousand Moles all came to understand one thing.
They hated gold!!!
