Chapter 802 Hidden Gemstones (1/2)

Chapter 802: Hidden Gemstones

Translator: Nyoi-Bo StudioEditor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Within these rocks, Li Du found a lustrous piece of gemstone.

The piece of gemstone was approximately the size of a newborn baby's fist, had a pale black base color, was translucent, and had a colorful top.

Generally, the gemstones were like painter's palettes that had been filled with a variety of colored pigments. The various colored pigments blended with each other and were arranged in a messy but interesting manner, giving the gemstones a strange and eccentric charm.

With just one glance, Li Du was able to figure out the identity of the gemstone.

Black opal!

Indeed, the gemstone was a black opal. Furthermore, the gemstone was a top grade specimen that had a black base color.

It was common knowledge that the term, ”black opal” generally referred to opals that were black or grey, had play-of-color, and displayed vibrant colors within their dark-colored bodies.

Although black opals were described as being black, they were not actually completely black. It was just that when compared to the light colored bodies of other types of opals, the bodies of black opals had darker colors.

Despite that, there truly were opals that had naturally black bodies. Due to the rarity of the patterns that black opals had, the prices of black opals were very high.

Right now, Li Du had spotted a piece that was embedded in a wall.

As he had already predicted something similar to this before releasing the little bug, he was not shocked by the discovery.

Instead of being isolated like the fire opals in the national park, the black opals in Lightning Ridge were embedded inside rocks and were one with them.

As such, it was much more difficult to find them. Just like jade, black opals were encased inside rocks. If a person wanted to find black opals, they would have to shatter the rocks.

However, it was impossible to shatter every rock on this piece of land, as no one would have that much energy and resources.

Generally speaking, there was a pattern to the discovery of black opals. Black opals were very rarely found alone and were usually found in groups that formed a black opal rich zone.

Under such circumstances, the shattering of rocks was targeted at the black opal rich zone. Once a piece of black opal was found, all the rocks in the surrounding area would be shattered.

Despite that, not every black opal was located in a black opal rich zone. Consequently, a lot of black opals that were hidden inside rocks had been overlooked. Most of the time, gemstones that were found by tourists fell into this category.

Li Du knew that he would find black opals in open mines on the ground. However, he did not expect that the first black opal he spotted would be under such circumstances.

Even though he had found a black opal, he was not able to take it out from inside the wall. Just like the Single Prince Castle, this infrastructure was also government property and was considered something like an intangible cultural heritage site and hence, no one was allowed to demolish it.

After the little bug continued flying along the wall, another piece of black opal appeared in his vision.

Li Du knew that no matter how many gemstones the infrastructure had, there was no way for him to retrieve them.

Logically speaking, it would be best for him not to continue searching under such circumstances. Not only would it be a complete waste of energy, it would also cause him to be tempted by the gemstones.

However, humans were flawed creatures. Being curious, Li Du wanted to take a look inside the infrastructure to find out exactly how many black opals there were and how unlucky the person who built the infrastructure was to have missed so many precious gemstones.

While the little bug was flying in and out of the infrastructure, Li Du kept finding black opals: three, four, five, eight, ten pieces… so many that Li Du could no longer be bothered to count. The infrastructure contained at least tens of millions of AUD worth of gemstones!

Furthermore, he slowly began to realize that the owner of the infrastructure might have found the gemstones. As some of the gemstones were embedded near the surface of the rocks, and the rocks had been smoothed out before being stuck together, it was impossible for the owner to have not noticed the gemstones.