Chapter 6

As night fell, Tianming set up his tent and rested for a while. He played with his phone, but due to the lack of signal, he could only play a few rounds of offline games and take some photos. Tianming didn't have many valuable possessions, just a Dell 8780M laptop and a CoolCat 5280S phone. The Dell laptop cost over 8,000 yuan, and the CoolCat phone cost over 4,000 yuan. The laptop had high specifications, making it great for watching movies and playing large games. The CoolCat phone had the best camera among all domestic phones, with an extremely long battery life. With these two pieces of equipment, Tianming could be considered a well-off representative in the otaku community.

Tianming put the laptop into the spatial ability space. Even when fully charged, its battery life was only about 3 hours, which wasn't enough to be of much use. For now, Tianming didn't take the laptop out. Before entering the small space, to avoid the problem of his phone running out of power, Tianming specifically bought a 20,000 mAh portable power bank, which could charge his phone over 10 times, ensuring it wouldn't run out of power again.

Taking out his phone, Tianming looked through the photos he had taken. Forests, valleys, rivers, skies, and stars. These landscapes, unseen on Earth, were all stored on the 32GB memory card of Tianming's phone. As he flipped through them, Tianming felt a sense of happiness and satisfaction that others couldn't feel.

...

After resting, it quickly became light. He quickly packed up his things and set off toward the next destination. If Tianming's map were laid out on a table, it would show that the landing mountain was in the lower middle, the yellow jujube forest in the lower right, the chaotic stone mountain in the upper right, and the strange fish lake in the middle right. This time, Tianming's destination was the mysterious forest in the upper left of the map.

The small space had a typical basin structure, with mountains surrounding it. The inner area was a vast hilly grassland, and the central plain was clearly visible. From the central plain, looking at the distant target, the towering trees were a clear landmark.

How tall were those trees?

Tianming's answer was very tall. From the plain area of the strange fish lake to there, the straight-line distance was conservatively estimated to be over 6 kilometers, spanning nearly a thousand meters in altitude (or lake level). The trees were clearly much taller than this altitude, rising significantly higher.

According to the formula for the relationship between plant height and the size of plant transpiration and gravity, the maximum height of trees on Earth is 150 meters. However, Tianming estimated that most of the trees in front of him were at least 200 meters tall.

Actually, this wasn't an exaggerated number. The gravitational constant in the small space was only 6.83, the sunlight was gentle, the atmospheric wind speed was minimal, reducing evaporation, and there was ample sunlight, making it not surprising for the trees to grow so tall.

Moreover, with a gravitational constant of 6.83, Tianming found that he could jump over a meter high with ease. This made him feel so good that he often jumped around to express his joy.

Heading toward the forest, Tianming started a long-distance run to stay fit. The 6-kilometer straight-line distance didn't seem far, but after running for over half an hour, Tianming was already drenched in sweat.

"I wonder if it's 3 kilometers, it really feels like running to death," Tianming wiped the sweat from his forehead and decided to walk the rest of the way.

In fact, due to some small steep slopes and small mountains, Tianming didn't walk in a straight line, and the distance was estimated to be over 8 kilometers.

"Uh, there's a small river ahead."

At the top of the mountain, this small river wasn't very large. Following the river, Tianming found that it originated from the waist of an unnamed mountain with an altitude of nearly 800 meters.

Fortunately, the river flowed in the direction of the giant tree forest he was heading to, which was now in front of him.

Touching the giant tree in front of him, Tianming felt his own insignificance for the first time.

Previously, from a distance, he already thought these trees were very tall and large.

Up close, the impact was even more intense!

The diameter of the tree wasn't 2 or 3 meters, but terrifyingly over 6 meters! Even more terrifying was that, from a distance, he thought these trees were about 200 meters tall, but in reality, the base of the trees hidden behind the mountain was at least 50 meters high.

In summary, these trees were generally over 250 meters tall.

The tallest one, the king of trees, Tianming estimated to be 300 meters tall!

Walking into the giant tree forest, stepping on the soft needles, the dense branches and leaves of the giant trees blocked the sky, and only a few beams of light as thick as chopsticks shone through. In the depths of the forest, the light was dim and the cold was bone-chilling, making Tianming feel a bit afraid to venture deeper.

What made Tianming feel more at ease was that each giant tree occupied a large area, with only one tree growing on two or three acres of land, leaving a lot of space for movement within the forest.

The bark of the giant trees had a dark red marble-like texture, and it was difficult to carve with a small knife. After much effort, he managed to chisel in half a centimeter.

After the bark of the giant tree was chiseled, a few seconds later, a jet of red liquid suddenly spurted out, shooting over a meter away.

This 200-meter-tall tree had a significant pressure difference in its internal nutrient circulation system. Tianming guessed that the liquid flowing out was the nutrient solution transported from the roots of the giant tree.

Taking out a plastic bottle, Tianming, who vaguely felt that this liquid might be good, quickly filled the 550 ml bottle.

The red nutrient solution flowed for several thousand milliliters and took a long time to slowly stop.

Sealing the bottle filled with nutrient solution and putting it into the spatial ability space, Tianming took out his map.

Marking a region that took up one-tenth of the map, Tianming wrote "Giant Redwood Forest" on it.

In nature, cypress trees are the tallest conifers. A thousand-year-old redwood tree in the United States reaches over 150 meters in height. 150 meters is already the limit for plant growth on Earth. The giant trees in the small space were very similar to redwoods, so Tianming called them "Giant Redwoods."

This forest covered about 7,800 acres. Tianming roughly counted the number of giant redwoods, which was about 3,000, occupying the entire upper right corner of the map.

Tianming also made a note in the reserved blank space on the map: Giant Redwood, diameter 6 to 8 meters, estimated height 220 to 280 meters, bark dark red, secretes red sap, effects unknown, can be used for furniture or building materials...

Tianming thought, to build a house with such a large tree, one would be enough, right?

After staying in the Giant Redwood Forest for a while, Tianming took many photos of the giant trees with his phone.

Tianming once had a whim to try climbing these trees. So, he found the tree with the smallest diameter and climbed it using all four limbs.

After climbing less than 10 meters, Tianming felt a significant physical strain and couldn't hold on much longer.

For his own safety, Tianming had to climb down and decided to bring some professional tools to try again later.

After collecting enough information, Tianming decided to start his next journey.

Following the small river he had discovered earlier, Tianming stepped across the river and decided to see where its downstream endpoint was.

In fact, Tianming had only found one main river, which flowed into the strange fish lake, the Crystal River he had passed earlier.

There were a few other rivers of various sizes, but they were all endorheic, forming a small pond and then stopping.

This small river was slightly longer than the others, stretching for several kilometers, flowing through the Giant Redwood Forest, and heading toward the lower left of the map.

Reaching the endpoint of the river, Tianming didn't find a lake or pond. Instead, near the spatial barrier, he heard the rumbling sound of water and saw a golden pond.

Approaching the pond, the dazzling golden light from the bottom of the lake made Tianming squint.

After adapting to the golden light and opening his eyes, Tianming found that the average water depth of the pond was about one meter. The source of the water sound was a small underground cave in a rock wall, where the water flowed through the cave and entered the Earth Mother and the underground river.

The most important discovery wasn't the final destination of the water, but that Tianming found that the pond was filled with the legendary gold sand.

The 60-square-meter pond was full of gold sand, and even the water appeared golden like a thick soup.

Leaning over the pond, Tianming scooped up a handful of gold sand with his hand, and several lines of light shone through his fingers.

Squeezing the gold sand in his hand, it felt soft. Tianming found that there were almost no impurities, and it was 100% pure gold sand.

Reaching into the pond again, his fingers dug into the bottom and scooped up another large handful of sand.

Even the sand at the bottom of the pond showed about half of the yellow color symbolizing gold sand.

How much would such a full pond of gold sand be worth? A wave of dizziness hit Tianming, and his consciousness became a bit hazy, his brain temporarily short-circuited.

Fortunately, after the experience at the Crystal River, Tianming quickly returned to normal.

"The current gold price is affected by international financial speculation and has been falling. Many gold mines have stopped mining, so the price of gold sand per gram probably isn't much higher. I'll put the gold sand aside for now. This pond isn't going anywhere, and I can deal with it when I need money later," Tianming thought.

Tianming's mindset was very mature, and he considered everything comprehensively. If it were anyone else, they would have been eager to sell all the gold sand, buy a car and a house, marry a couple of wives, and live a carefree life with a few mistresses, enjoying life with a goddess three times a day, three times a day... But Tianming didn't have such an urgent desire. Since it would eventually be his, why rush?

Taking out the map, he first marked the position of this hilly area, then drew a winding curve to the spatial barrier, and wrote a small note: "Western Hills, Gold River, Gold Pond."

"I'll call this small river 'Gold River' and this pond 'Gold Pond.' It's simple and fitting," he then wrote on the left side of the map: "Gold River, winding about 3 kilometers long, ends at a mysterious cave in the spatial barrier. At the cave entrance, there is a pond filled with gold sand, estimated to be several thousand pounds, hence the name Gold Pond."

It seems I still have a flair for classical Chinese. After finishing the note, Tianming couldn't help but praise himself.

Walking around the Gold Pond a few times, Tianming took dozens of photos that made people feel the urge to commit a crime.

Near the Gold Pond, there was a spatial barrier. Approaching the barrier, Tianming couldn't resist touching the invisible barrier a few times.

It didn't feel like glass; there was only a faint repulsion, and he couldn't touch it.

Looking closely, Tianming couldn't see the scenery on the other side of the spatial barrier, which was blurry and had no light reflecting back.

On the other side was another universe.

After entering the small space, Tianming knew how to enter another universe outside the small space.

There were only two pairs of runes that could form the "Yuan" character channel: the light green pair, which was the channel between Earth and the small space, and the gray-black pair, which must be the channel between the small space and another universe.

Tianming had also tried to open a space channel to another universe inside the small space.

But the enormous suction from the other side made Tianming realize that it must be a vacuum environment similar to outer space. Standing in a vacuum without any protection would cause his blood to boil and die instantly, a gruesome sight.

The plan to explore another universe was temporarily put on hold by Tianming.