Chapter 728 - Crystal Heart (1/2)

Chapter 728

Crystal Heart

After the Flaming Horns moved here, they held discussions and determined that this cave was the best place to store the core seed.

This place was not too close to the residential area to affect quality of life but not too far away to trouble the guards and transporters.

The core seed affected both biotic and abiotic substances, especially people with weaker bodies like anyone without awakened totems. Even stronger warriors must keep a certain distance away. The guards consumed herbs that strengthened their immune system every day but still could not completely withstand its effects at close proximity.

That was why the guards were all stationed a distance from the cave. The space between them and the cave was laced with many traps. Only people familiar with this area could cross safely.

When Shao Xuan arrived at the entrance, he did not ask the guards to follow him inside. They did not want to either, unless absolutely necessary because even standing at the entrance gave them an eerie, chilly feeling that made their bodies scream in alarm. This was intensely uncomfortable for sensitive Flaming Horn hunters so if it wasn’t for the fact that the core seed was an important source of material to make weapons, they would have stayed far away.

The guard passed Shao Xuan wormskin clothing. Once he had put it on, he pushed the boulder at the entrance aside, walked in, then closed the entrance again. Light was instantly cut off while a faint breeze blew faintly through hidden ventilation gaps.

He took out a water moon stone, instantly brightening the cave. It was brighter than usual- Shao Xuan learned at the desert that this was an effect the core seed had on the stone.

There was the smell of death in this place, as if warning every life form to stay away. This was why most animals stayed far away.

Opening up this cave required a lot of labour. The tunnel had to be wide and tall enough for them to transport rocks. Other tribes might need vehicles and way more people but to the Flaming Horns, if the rocks weren’t too large, they often carried one rock each.

One tunnel led to the place where they stored the rocks. It was a round, empty space inside dug by the Flaming Horns.

Carefully chosen pieces of rock were all arranged neatly in rings circling the core seed at the centre.

The better its quality, the quicker the rock transformed, the better the final product after forging. Flaming Horns were already great at evaluating rock quality anyway. Even without metals and the core seed, they still had to choose rocks to be made into weapons and tools. Now, this skill was put to use to be transported here and then making better weapons. Humans must make progress like this to survive in this competitive world after all.

There were walkways between the rings for convenience. People would come to check on them periodically, inspecting them to see if they were ready to be moved to the forging room.

With Shao Xuan’s special vision, he could inspect these rocks without the help of the water moon stone.

In the past, the quality of the rocks would show as different brightness within his special vision. However, the rocks here had already changed so there were various patches on its surface. Only these special patches were the metal material they would extract to make green bronze products. Other ores could be present, perhaps even valuable, but the Flaming Horns did not need them. Perhaps the Flaming Horns would turn their attention to these other ores if their technology advanced enough in the future.

Shao Xuan immediately walked over to the spot where the crystals were placed. They had sectioned off a part of the place to store the crystals given by the Zhi tribe. This section stood out greatly against the rest of the stones.

This was a sudden idea Shao Xuan had anyway. Initially, Zheng Luo wanted to keep these with the rest of their crystals to be traded with the slave masters on the other side of the ocean later. Those people liked rare, beautiful rocks anyway. Shao Xuan was the one who requested for some of the larger pieces to be moved here while the smaller pieces kept as Zheng Luo and Duo Kang said for trade or sanded into lenses. The lenses he made were given to Gui Ze for studying her herbs, a few made into telescopes for expeditions and watchposts.

The bright parts of the crystals in his special vision had transformed. While they looked the same from the outside, they had changed on the inside.

The core had become as bright as the moon within his special field of vision, much brighter than the other stones that were now as faint as stars. This was also why no one objected when he requested for more crystals subsequently given by the Zhi tribe at trades.

The crystals had undergone extraordinary changes in the presence of the core seed.

Not every type of rock was suitable to be placed here, for example, jade stones changed too slowly to be practical. A piece of jade changed very little even after several years, and the better the jade, the slower it changed so they were no longer used.