Chapter 1313: Chapter 1060: Old Friend!
At that moment, the Group Leader was speeding towards the planet with a fleet of no less than ten large and small warships. But when they arrived, they found the place deserted, the mine had collapsed, and the signal jamming device was gone.
All that was left were the bodies of the heavily armed soldiers, as if taunting him.
The Group Leader thought for a moment and immediately decided to abandon the place. Without the signal jamming device, the cosmic stone deposits were sure to attract the covetous gaze of some nation. They as pirates could handle hijacking merchant ships, but facing a national military meant only one thing: fleeing.
After returning, the Group Leader gave Mahal a severe beating and half-killed more than a dozen of his subordinates. Even though his rage was not quelled, he understood that as a band of space pirates, what they most dreaded was encountering such overbearing powerhouses who didn’t play by the rules. Especially when even the heavily armed soldiers were useless, losing a mining field was nothing.
Fortunately, he still had another secret mining field.
At this time, Mahal was there, acting as a deputy. His power was not great; he basically helped the local crew leader with various things. Originally, they were on the same level, but now Mahal had become the deputy, which made the pirate crew leader nearly overjoyed. Mahal was a very astute person; knowing his current weakness, he adopted a low-profile approach, honestly completing various tasks without uttering a single word of complaint, waiting for the Group Leader’s anger to subside. Then Mahal could still become a crew leader again. Besides, when it came to understanding people, he was far superior to others!
Long Yi felt that the world was truly too small, having unexpectedly encountered an acquaintance again.
Perhaps because of Long Yi’s previous attack, the mining field was heavily guarded. When Long Yi appeared, another spaceship landed and a group of people wearing collars walked out. They had just been captured to fulfill orders on a tight schedule. The group was driven toward the mine entrance where pirates distributed tools to them. These tools were very worn, some even stained with blood. Long Yi shook his head; it seemed they wanted to improve efficiency, but how could they do that with such shoddy tools? But strangely, why did they have to mine with people instead of using machines?
Scratching his head, Long Yi felt his thoughts were perhaps too scattered, so he decided to concentrate a bit more.
From afar, Long Yi walked towards the mine like a person with nothing of concern, strolling over nonchalantly. Because he walked so naturally, nobody paid any attention to him. It was not until he drew closer that Mahal noticed him—the big guy was actually that person from before!
"Hello there, it’s been a few days. Why do you look so miserable?" Long Yi approached Mahal and asked with a smile.
At this, the pirate crew leader by Mahal’s side looked at Long Yi with curiosity, then at Mahal—could this be an acquaintance of Mahal’s?
Mahal was nearly scared out of his wits; how could he have known that Long Yi would suddenly come over and say these things! The reason he didn’t shout at the start was because of sheer surprise, and now he didn’t dare to shout for fear that as soon as he did, Long Yi would punch him to death!
He considered himself a smart man. If the situation didn’t allow him to use his wit to overcome the enemy, he had to use it to stay alive.
How to stay alive? At least he knew that following what Long Yi said would definitely not be wrong!
"Ah, don’t mention it. I messed up something last time, made a mistake and got a beating from the Group Leader," said Mahal. After uttering those words, he felt like he was losing his mind. He was actually cooperating with the very person who had caused the trouble?
Long Yi laughed; he didn’t expect the guy to be so cooperative.
"What, Mahal, is this a friend of yours?" asked the crew leader beside him.
"Yes, this is..."
"I’m Long Yi; nice to meet you." Long Yi immediately introduced himself, jokingly; how could Mahal possibly know him?
"Right, he’s Long Yi, my friend. This is our crew leader, Yati," Mahal said, feeling that his lies were becoming very smooth.
"Introducing a friend to visit without giving me a heads-up, it really caught me off guard," said Yati, half-joking and half-blaming. He wasn’t sure of what to make of Long Yi, so it was also a form of probing.
"Hehe, I thought I wouldn’t have time when Big Brother Mahal invited me over, but then I suddenly found I could make time, so here I am. I hope you don’t mind my impromptu visit. Because even if you did, here I am—you can’t really send me away, can you?" Long Yi said with a laugh.
Yati’s brow furrowed slightly; did this big guy really see himself as one of the family? Some pirates began to slowly move closer, but Yati shook his head, indicating there was no need.
"Come on, Big Brother Mahal, you promised to show me around. I’ve always been very interested in this," Long Yi said to Mahal.
Mahal felt close to tears. What interest could you have, just speak up, I’m dying of tension here! Why would such a person who isn’t even afraid of heavily armed soldiers go for a secret infiltration? Why not just start a killing spree? That would at least give us some time to escape! I’d rather have the Group Leader beat me up a bit more than to be in this constant state of fear and anxiety!
"Such things, still require the approval of Crew Leader Yati," Mahal said, feigning composure to Long Yi.
So Long Yi immediately turned to Yati with a look of anticipation.
At this moment, Yati was also clueless about who this Long Yi truly was. However, since he was a friend of Mahal’s, could it be that the Group Leader had sent him? It was said that Mahal was quite adept at brown-nosing the Group Leader, and the fact that the kid had suffered a hefty loss yet got away with just a beating was proof enough of that. Could this so-called Long Yi be someone the Group Leader sent to watch out for Mahal?
After giving it some thought, Yati immediately concocted a respectable background for Long Yi and then, with a smile, said, "Since you’re a friend of Mahal’s, feel free to look around for now, there’s nothing much happening anyway."
Mahal was dumbfounded; he had hoped that Yati would be entirely uncooperative, prompting Long Yi to lash out and take Yati out then and there. But why was Yati being so compliant?
Thus, with no other choice, Mahal had to take Long Yi to the mine.
"Sir... what do you mean by this?" Mahal asked in a hushed tone.
"Nothing much, just purely curious," Long Yi replied with a smile.
Curious?
Mahal felt like crying. Your mere curiosity doesn’t matter to you, but I’m practically on the edge of losing my life here! But now that it had come to this, Mahal had no choice but to play along with Long Yi’s whims and satisfy his curiosity.
Long Yi just wanted to know exactly how these miners were extracting the stones underground; and what they were using these Cosmic Stones for.
Leading Long Yi down, Mahal showed him numerous overseers barking orders at the workers. Some workers were exhausted and skeletal, clearly not just a day or two into their labor. Long Yi guessed that even on the days when monsters rampaged everywhere, this place probably never stopped operations. Or perhaps these people were forced to do some other kind of work during that time.
Seeing Mahal with Long Yi, the pirates immediately smiled and greeted them respectfully, while Mahal put on his full authoritative leader act, showing no signs of weakness.
The mine wasn’t deep, and soon they arrived at the working face. Long Yi discovered that the entire work area was shielded from Mana. Neither the workers nor the overseer pirates had any Mana with them.
"Why is their Mana being suppressed?" Long Yi asked Mahal.
Don’t you know? Mahal almost wanted to retort that line because mining for Cosmic Stone fragments was not exactly a new industry in the Plane. Nearly every nation within the Plane had its share of Cosmic Stone mines. Then again, he thought, a powerhouse like Long Yi might be an ascetic who pays no heed to the outside world, so ignorance of such matters wouldn’t be odd. Moreover, questioning him like that could very likely bring trouble upon himself. So he straightforwardly answered, "There is a special energy resonance within the Cosmic Stone veins. If one doesn’t suppress their own Mana here, it could lead to a fatal expansion of personal Mana."
So that’s how it is, Long Yi nodded.
The same principle applied to why no machinery was used for mining; the machinery of this world relied on Mana for operation, and the energy resonance here would surely cause abnormalities in the Power Core. Hence, the mining of Cosmic Stones had to be done by hand.
With that, Long Yi’s first question was answered.
Following Mahal, Long Yi wandered around the work face, watching the workers chisel away at the rocks, trying their best to break down the layers containing Cosmic Stones and separate them. However, they were not very meticulous. Often, they would strike directly onto the Cosmic Stones, which were extremely hard and remained undamaged despite being hit.
"Actually, I have another small question—I hope you won’t laugh at me for it," Long Yi said to Mahal with a smile.
"Not at all..." Mahal hastily replied, his heart nearly in tears. How could I dare to laugh at you? The moment I even crack a smile, I’m probably a dead man!
"I really want to know, what exactly do you intend to do with these Cosmic Stone fragments you’re mining?"
This question left Mahal dumbstruck. Where exactly was this Long Yi from? Some pampered young master from an unknown place? Or a country bumpkin from some remote planet? He didn’t even know what Cosmic Stones were used for? It was like asking a person on the street what the purpose of bread was. How could anyone not know?
But Mahal didn’t dare mock Long Yi. He answered seriously, "Actually, Cosmic Stone fragments are the ammunition for our battleship’s Light Cannons."
Long Yi felt a moment of speechlessness. This was close to admitting to someone that he was a complete bumpkin. In this era of great battleships, the use of Cosmic Stones as ammunition for ship cannons was standard, with different nations varying only in their rates of energy utilization of the stones. In other words, Long Yi’s ignorance about the use of Cosmic Stones was utterly inconceivable.
However, in the vast myriad of worlds and vast expanses of the Plane, there surely existed others who were just as uninformed as he was? Long Yi comforted himself with this thought.
No wonder although Landers had invented the Ship Cannon Technique based on the principle of ship cannons, the ship cannons here were more powerful—a direct use of Cosmic Stones as ammunition in this Plane!
How extravagant! (To be continued. If you like this work, you’re welcome to cast your vote for recommendation and monthly tickets at Qidian (qidian.com). Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please visit m.qidian.com to read.)
