Chapter 69

Cheng Chen glanced indifferently at Baru's somewhat wary gaze, then took another bullet casing out of his sleeve, loading the primer, gunpowder, and bullet. Cheng Chen didn't make many bullets, but he had done it before, so the process was quick. △↗

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"Where do you plan to go next?"

"Well..." Baru seemed a bit hesitant, unsure whether to tell Cheng Chen. By the time he was hesitating, Cheng Chen had already stood up.

"Forget it, just tell me how to leave here, and I'll go." As he spoke, he prepared to leave with Lei and Xiyah. This encounter could be considered another unforeseen disaster, and Cheng Chen had nothing more to say about it.

"Um, that's fine." Baru scratched his head awkwardly, "The previous exit and nearby exits are definitely not usable, but other places are still possible. I'll lead the way."

It wasn't that he didn't want to separate from Cheng Chen, but in these underground mines, it was particularly easy to get lost. He wasn't so malicious as to do it intentionally.

"Strange, Grandpa Baum doesn't seem to have returned." As they passed through a special mine area, Baru thought for a moment and suddenly extinguished the small oil lamp in his hand, plunging the surroundings into darkness. When he was about to do this, Cheng Chen had noticed, but even after the surroundings returned to darkness, he didn't hear any running footsteps.

Instead, the nearby environment underwent a new change. The stone walls above glowed with a brilliant pale blue light, as if they were surrounded by stars. Although these lights didn't completely illuminate the area, they were sufficient to not significantly affect visibility.

"Wow! So beautiful!" Xiyah, with a look of surprise, squatted down and touched a glowing spot on the ground, "The stones are glowing."

Cheng Chen similarly looked down and touched it, his expression slightly changing. He had a habit of sensing special things with his patterns. Anything that could make the patterns react was definitely not ordinary. For example, the stone under his feet, which ordinary stones would not react to, but the stone under his feet did react. "Is there something wrong with these stones?"

"Um, Grandpa Baum said that these stones contain a trace amount of flight stone." Regarding this question, Baru did not hide it. Although there was a trace amount of flight stone, the problem was the extraction. Otherwise, this place wouldn't have been abandoned. The flight stone in the stones would immediately turn into ordinary stones upon contact with air.

"Flight stone?" Cheng Chen frowned slightly. Was it referring to the floating stone? Is this place also connected to the Wuruxiounai continent?

Seeing that Cheng Chen really didn't understand, Baru scratched his head and began to explain. It wasn't good to go out now, and staying underground for a while was safer. So he directly explained what he knew, which sounded like a story to many people.

Cheng Chen listened in the same way. Since Baru saw him listening very attentively, after explaining the legend of the flight stone, he unconsciously talked about other things he knew, such as the legendary 'Sky City' on this continent, which belonged to the ancient Laputans. However, to the people of this continent, it was just a legend.

After all, it had been hundreds of years, and no one had seen the so-called Sky City. Of course, Baru didn't think so. His father had seen the Sky City before he died, but when he returned, people found his story too fantastic and considered him a liar.

After saying this, Baru realized he had said too much, but seeing Cheng Chen listening attentively, he had some hope. "Do you believe in the Sky City?"

"I do." Cheng Chen said calmly. He believed not because of Baru's words, but because he mentioned something familiar. According to his father's account, the Sky City was enveloped in a super-large tornado.

Before coming here... he had seen it, and with Xiyah's perception, that place should be the location of the so-called Sky City.

"Super-large tornado? Isn't that the annoying tornado we saw before?" Xiyah suddenly said, puzzled.

Cheng Chen looked at Xiyah. She hadn't forgotten about it? Was it because the powerful plant there left a deep impression on her?

"You've been there!?" Hearing Xiyah's words, Baru became excited, and the girl behind him also became particularly excited. Although he had obtained sufficient evidence of the Sky City's existence from the girl behind him and Grandpa Baum, without seeing it himself, he still lacked confidence.

Now, he was actually seeing someone who had seen the Sky City!

"We didn't go inside." Xiyah, resting her chin on her hand, noticed Lei's puzzled expression and smiled gently, "When Lei was sleeping, I felt that there must be a great plant there. I originally wanted to take you to see it."

She shook her head, somewhat regretfully, "Unfortunately, the tornado blocked our way."

"Father was right, he was completely right." Baru murmured, then called out excitedly, "Big brother, thank you so much!"

Cheng Chen glanced at him, and the hand on the ground moved slightly. The patterns on his body instantly spread to his hand, but this time, the patterns didn't stop spreading, continuing to extend outward. As they extended, Cheng Chen felt his stamina begin to drain!

And as the range of the patterns expanded, his stamina consumption increased even more!

Was this an extra mining mode?

Cheng Chen raised his eyebrows slightly and immediately withdrew his hand from the ground. The glowing spot on the ground had disappeared, and the trace amount of flight stone in the stone had been completely refined and extracted by the patterns.

The amount of extracted flight stone was very small. Cheng Chen thought for a moment, and the patterns on his palm emitted some pale blue powder that glowed in the dark.

One peculiar feature of the patterns was that anything other than metal, once absorbed into the patterns, would be expelled as either a liquid or powder.

The flight stone in Cheng Chen's hand slowly drifted away from his palm and continued to rise into the air.

It stopped only when it touched the stone wall above.

"Is this flight stone!?" Baru also noticed the light floating from Cheng Chen's hand and called out in surprise, "It didn't turn into a stone?"

"Let's rest here for a while." Cheng Chen said. He planned to extract some flight stone here as a backup. Although the trace amount of powder had a small effect, a large quantity might be useful at some point.

The storage capacity of the patterns had been strictly calculated when Cheng Chen left his ear. He had even discarded some of the rare metal he obtained, leaving some space for other needs.

The speed of collecting flight stone was not fast, and the amount of flight stone in the stone was very small. Even if the entire mine was completely mined out, there wouldn't be much.

With a slight thought, the patterns on the ground rapidly expanded, covering almost a quarter of the small mine. However, in less than five seconds, Cheng Chen's stamina was drained by more than half by the activated patterns!

Without hesitation, he immediately withdrew the patterns from the ground. The patterns spread quickly, and the withdrawal was even faster, disappearing completely in an instant.

Feeling the amount of extracted flight stone, it was a very small part, not even as large as a thumbnail.

"Strange, why did the light dim so much?" Baru said, puzzled, and relit the oil lamp. The pale blue glow in the mine immediately disappeared.

After his stamina recovered, Cheng Chen repeated his earlier actions. To conserve stamina, he extracted flight stone slowly. By the time he had extracted all the nearby flight stone, more than an hour had passed. During this time, Lei and the others were not idle, chatting with Baru and the others.

Lei didn't say much, but Xiyah, like a caring older sister, chatted with the girl next to Baru, named Hilda.

Cheng Chen shook his head. They hadn't seen Xiyah's ferocious side when she went berserk.

Regardless, the flight stone here had been thoroughly extracted, but the amount was not satisfactory, with a total volume less than the size of a palm. However, it was much larger than the piece Hilda had.

He shaped a hollow metal ball in his hand, and with his finger inside, he used the patterns to inject the flight stone stored in the patterns into the ball. The metal ball immediately gained an upward force, almost flying out of Cheng Chen's hand.

He quickly grabbed the metal ball tightly, and as he rose, Cheng Chen immediately withdrew the flight stone powder, and the upward force on the metal ball quickly disappeared.

Although the amount was small, the quality was excellent due to the refinement by the patterns. It was at least as good as the flight stone Hilda had, but the controllability couldn't be compared. Otherwise, she would have been lifted into the air with that flight stone.

However, this didn't happen. It only worked when she was in danger of falling from the sky. Therefore, the ancient Laputans must have had the technology to process flight stone.

Flight stone and floating stone were not the same substance! The latter lost its flying ability after processing, while the former, if not processed, seemed to be unusable.

"Let's go." After resting enough, Cheng Chen stood up. They had been here long enough, and if those people were chasing Baru and the others, they should have retreated by now.

"Oh... okay." Baru looked at Cheng Chen with some doubt. Although he had some questions, he held back after seeing Cheng Chen's expressionless face.

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