Clang!
The second shovel went up. The blade of the shovel was deformed again, but there was no trace of the stone on the ground.
"Hey, I don't believe that I can't get it out!"
The man used the deformed shovel to scrape away the dust on the ground and some small stones around him.
After wiping away the dust, he finally saw the stone.
There was a small torch on the wall of the pit next to him. With the weak light, the man saw a piece of white on the ground. The color was like frozen snow and it reflected the light.
Could it be … that he found a treasure?!!
The man was overjoyed. While he was happy, someone squeezed over.
"What is this? Let me see. "
"Hey, why are you squeezing over? I dug it out! "The man shouted.
"What's wrong?"
The others in the pit heard the noise and came over. They saw the white on the ground and looked at it carefully. They didn't know what it was. They had never seen it before.
"Is this ice?" Someone said.
"Let me touch it … it's cold, but it's not ice. It's hard." Someone squatted down and touched it with his hand.
"It's not ice. I think it's a kind of crystal." An older man guessed.
Crystal?!
Not only the man who found the stone first, but the others' eyes also lit up.
Crystal was good. Although the price was different, even if it was only used for decoration, it would sell well in the city. Especially the slave owners, they liked it.
However, in this salt mine, in this place where the fire crystals existed, it might be something extremely precious! Didn't you see that two of the shovels were broken?
"I'll report to the chief!" The man with the fastest reaction rushed out of the pit and went to the chief to ask for credit.
The others were slower. They stomped their feet in annoyance. "Why are you in such a hurry? Are you in a hurry to die?! "
The man who dug out the suspected crystal didn't leave. He was guarding his own piece of land. So what if someone went to ask for credit first? He dug out this piece, and the chief would reward him handsomely.
The others in the pit were quick-witted. Seeing that there was a white piece under the man's feet, they quickly picked up their tools and quickly dug down. The others also reacted. Since the fire crystal was not only found in one place, then did they have such a crystal under their feet? That person had only dug deeper than them.
Sure enough, after a short while, there was another crisp sound of metal colliding with hard objects.
"Haha, I found it too!"
"Me too!"
"Same here!"
After removing all the rocks and soil, the people in the pit found that the ground beneath their feet was filled with this kind of white crystal, all of it! They couldn't find the edge at all. Perhaps, this crystal was much bigger than they had imagined! It was an entire crystal slab!
"Hiss, so hard. How do I pry a piece off?" Someone tried a few tools, but only a small mark was left behind. Not a single chip was knocked off, and no digging could be done.
"Idiot! Prying also requires skill! "An experienced excavator proudly turned over a chisel and a copper hammer.
The man squatted down and carefully looked at the ground. Then, he stopped at a spot and placed the chisel close to the ground. Then, he swung the hammer with all his might.
Only then did the others notice that this large piece of crystal on the ground was not flat. Instead, it had some wrinkles and some gaps. It seemed to be divided into pieces of similar size and shape. They were almost connected in a hexagonal shape. The edges of each piece were slightly lighter in color. There were bumps and depressions, which should be the gaps. And that person had stuck the sharp edge of the chisel at the bumps or depressions. Then, he held the short shaft of the chisel and used his other hand to swing the hammer and hit the chisel heavily.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
If one strike couldn't pry it open, he would hit it a few more times. The hammer flashed, so fast that the knocking sounds seemed to be connected.
Ka!
The chisel blade rolled up, and a white piece of crystal separated and flew up. The person next to him had sharp eyes and fast hands. He stepped on the wall of the pit and jumped up to grab the white piece that was less than the size of a palm. And the hexagonal mark on the ground was missing a small corner.
The person who grabbed the white crystal came to the side of the torch and used the light to observe what this white crystal was. The others also came closer to take a look. The supervisors above all went down to take a look.
"Crystal, it must be a crystal!"
"Look, there seems to be a pattern on it!"
"What pattern is this? Is it a frozen snowflake? "
"What's a snowflake? This is a crystal flower! "Someone showed off his knowledge.
"It looks like it." The person holding the crystal bit it and shivered from the cold. "It's cold! It's so hard! "
"Quick, pry a few more pieces off before the chief comes!"
The others thought the same. They didn't waste any more time and quickly snatched the chisels and hammers. Those who couldn't snatch anything started fighting. There were not only Fox people in this pit, there were also Shen tribesmen. When it came to benefits, it was easy for conflicts to arise.
The person who got the chisel started swinging the hammer.
The Fox chief was discussing with the Shen tribesmen about their gains and future plans. The people they sent out had already found out about Taihe and Mountain Wind's movements. However, the people they sent out to spy on them were discovered and lost. They were killed by the enemy.
The three tribes were coming aggressively and the situation wasn't looking good either. They didn't know if they would come over to snatch their things so they had to be on guard. They had made long-term preparations. Although they didn't expect the weather to change so drastically, they had food and fur. They also collected a lot of firewood.
As they were discussing, the person digging for the fire crystals came over excitedly to report that they had found a new crystal.
This was indeed good news. The Fox and Shen chiefs stopped talking and hurried over to see what was going on.
"If it's really a new crystal, I wonder how much it's worth." The Shen chief walked towards the pit with a face full of joy.
"No matter what, it's a good thing. I told you, you won't lose out on this choice." The Fox chief was excited too.
"Let me see, what kind of crystal is it?"
They did not notice that the bird from the Shen tribe and the fox from the Fox tribe, who had been ignored for a few days, were now trembling all over. They tried their best to hide in a corner, trying to reduce their presence. No one dared to pull them away, no one dared to call them out. They were as still as rocks. It wasn't that they didn't want to make a sound. They were too scared to make a sound. Everyone else thought they were just frozen.
…
In Yanjiao's salt cave, Shao Xuan listened carefully to the heartbeat.
"The interval between each heartbeat is shorter now, it's louder too." Shao Xuan described what he heard to Zheng Luo and the others.
Even if the three chiefs couldn't hear it themselves, their hearts pounded nervously as they listened to Shao Xuan's description. They couldn't hear it themselves but they had to rely on others to tell them. It didn't feel good.
"Wait! Something's wrong! "
Shao Xuan's sudden words made the three chiefs jump up.
"What's wrong?!"
"The interval between heartbeats is shorter, it's getting louder. It's changing so fast!" Shao Xuan broke out in cold sweat. He didn't know what it was, it was just a physiological reaction. He couldn't control it.
The three chiefs' hearts were in their throats. They stared at Shao Xuan, waiting for Shao Xuan to continue. But Shao Xuan's next words made them feel like they had fallen into an ice cave.
"Chief, I have a guess." Shao Xuan gulped, suppressing the trembling in his heart. He hadn't felt this way in a long time. He still remembered when he got lost during his early days of hunting.
"You … Tell us!" Zheng Luo stuttered.
"I suspect that there's a king beast down there!" Shao Xuan said this sentence word by word. Every word he said was like a hammer hammering into the hearts of the three.
"King … King …"
The three chiefs opened their mouths but couldn't finish.
King beasts only existed in the records left behind by their ancestors. Most of them had only heard of them. Even the ancestors who left behind the records may not have seen them with their own eyes. They only knew of such creatures from their ancestors' records, from the stories passed down from generation to generation.
No one wanted to face a king beast. It was a true king. In the stories passed down, there were many stories of a king beast destroying an entire tribe. They didn't want to know the truth of the stories, but they couldn't deny that no one wanted to meet such a legendary creature.
But now …
They really hoped that Shao Xuan was scaring them, that it was just Shao Xuan's imagination.
"A long time ago, I met a king beast. I feel the same way now," Shao Xuan said, suppressing his shock.
As for the three leaders beside him, they were all stunned.
If they had only felt a little regret before, now they were so regretful that they wanted to bang their heads against a wall.
That was a king beast! It was not those random ferocious beasts that they usually hunted!
How could they fight it?
Even if all the people in the cave worked together, could they really fight it? If not for Shao Xuan, they wouldn't even be able to hear the king beast's heartbeat! Even if the three chiefs fought with their lives, they might not be able to save everyone in the team!
This was a dream, this had to be a dream.
…
In the Fox cave.
The Fox and Shen chief went down to the pit and watched the others work. They held a piece of cold crystal in their hands. There was no joy on their faces. Instead, there was an inexplicable sense of panic, so much so that they couldn't breathe.
"Wait, stop! Stop prying! I told you to stop prying! "The Fox chief roared.
The others looked at them, confused. They didn't understand why their chiefs were so angry. The pit fell silent.
Crack crack crack crack —
The soft sounds were very clear in the silence.
A soul-stirring pressure and a chill that seeped into his bones instantly enveloped his entire body.
A supervisor in the pit lowered his head stiffly and looked at the sword in his hand. He saw that the tip of the sword that was pressed against the surface of the crystal was beginning to be covered with a layer of white frost. The frost was spreading upwards at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The temperature in the pit dropped rapidly, and the two leaders who reacted quickly had already climbed up along the walls of the pit. As for the people who reacted slower, they found that they could no longer walk. Their feet were frozen on the crystal, and they thought that their feet were numb from the cold, but now they found that they were not numb from the cold, but completely frozen, and even their blood was frozen.
Whoosh —
The white crystal beneath their feet began to move. Frozen, they could only be dragged towards the walls of the pit. They couldn't escape. Even if they chopped off their feet, the frost had already spread past their waists. They couldn't feel their lower bodies anymore.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A series of crashing sounds came from the pit. The Fox chief didn't need to look down to know that the people below had been sliced into pieces.
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