Chapter 587 The Cash Auction (1/2)

Chapter 587: The Cash Auction

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

After eating supper, Li Du slept.

He had originally wanted to sleep only for three to four hours before waking up to continue the search, and had set his alarm to wake him.

When he woke up, however, it was already bright. He looked at his watch. It was 8:30 am. He asked gloomily, ”The alarm didn't go off?”

Seeing that he was up, Sophie chuckled. ”It was turned off by someone, cause that someone saw someone else was sleeping soundly, so wanted to let him sleep more.”

Li Du also laughed; he had enough sleep and so was feeling recharged.

”I'm fine. You shouldn't have worried,” he said as he went over to give Sophie a kiss.

”Remember what I had said last night?” Sophie asked. ”A stress fracture is a kind of injury caused by excessive fatigue. When the muscles are overused, they cannot absorb the vibrations caused by repeated collisions. The stress is then carried to the bones, resulting in fractures or cracks in the bones.”

Li Du understood what she meant. ”How could that happen?” he asked with a smile. ”I'm not that tired out.”

He continued his search for fire opals. Conducting the search on a specific piece of land made for a targeted and efficient operation—the gains were also much more.

Over two days, he found another 40 opals on this one-hectare piece of land. In total, he found 58 pieces. Although it wasn't yet double the number of opals from the last round, it was already quite a lot more.

But, Li Du was dead tired!

Over the last two days, he'd used the little bug more extensively and for a longer duration than the last time. This was why he could find more opals than before.

Finding 58 opals within two days was quite a feat—he made searching for opals look easy.

But that was not the case. It was not easy to search for opals. This was why some regular folks might not find a single piece over a whole month.

The fire opals that Li Du had found were mostly lying inside the gravel. Some required him to dig nearly a foot deep while those that were deeper required him to dig through rock layers over three feet deep.

Besides, most fire opals were usually not exposed. With the passing of tens of millions of years, most of them had been wrapped up in soil and gravel.

If he hadn't had the little bug to fly in for a look, there was no way Li Du would find the gemstones' true identities.

The little bug's ability to penetrate most materials was like having X-ray vision. This made the search for fire opals much easier.

The reason why regular hunters found it so challenging to search for fire opals was that searching for them was inefficient.

They were not allowed to bring machines into the national park and could only search by hand. When they found lumps of gravel or mud balls, they needed to crumble them to check if there were any gemstones in them.

They had to pick up pieces of rock, crumble them, or break them apart, by hand—it was way too much work.

If they were checking at least a couple feet below the ground surface, it would be considered quick of them to finish searching an area of about three to six square feet in one hour. To search through 60 square feet in a day was quite an impossible feat.

Li Du had almost emptied all these plots of land of the easily-accessible fire opals. It would not be easy for hunters on these plots trying to find fire opals after him . . .

Granted, the national park was a huge place spanning hundreds of kilometers. One square kilometer was one hundred hectares—there was a limit to what Li Du could cover.

This time, he kept the fire opals that he had found instead of selling them.

Anything abnormal would definitely arouse suspicions, especially if he were to sell dozens of fire opals every two or three days.

After securing the 58 fire opals, he brought the three of them back to the motel for a rest.