Chapter 269: Discovery (2/2)

His pupils enlarged as he lowered his back and dug that very piece of soil with caution. He gave a stare, and another, his heart raced as his mind went wild.

Could it be…

Wait no. He still needed to confirm his wild belief. Ye Chong sprang from the ground, straightened his back, ”Sir? What’s… wrong?” asked Sang Pu, as his sharp eyes discerned that unusual expression of Ye Chong.

Ye Chong did not reply. His eyes scurried around. And at the one other corner within the circle nearby, there were other trio of Portabella resting.

A tip to his toes, Ye Chong flung and launched himself like an eagle to the mushrooms. Sang Pu also reacted promptly as he followed his teacher’s steps upon understanding what that gaze from his teacher meant.

Sang Pu acted like an explosive beast. It was a simple dash behind his teacher, yet it was speedy, with an indescribable grace.

Ye Chong jumped before the Portabellas and stomped to the ground, lowering himself as he searched through the gaps below.

I knew it! Ye Chong was breathing heavily, to extinguish that bit of flaring excitement, as he picked up that tiny speck of silver particles on interior of Portabella.

The particles were of sizes of green peas, with a dull surface, mixed within the soils. Nobody would have ever noticed their existence without proper observation.

”What are these?” Sang Pu asked, as he looked at the strange specks in Ye Chong’s hand.

”This, is what we outsiders called, metal,” glanced Ye Chong, he slowly spoke.

Sang Pu was as if struck by lightning, his widened eyes gazed upon the particles. So these are metals of the myths, longed by the Sang? Sang Pu shuddered to his realization.

Sang Pu only regained his calmness after a while. His shaking hand took one particle from Ye Chong and exerted his little bit of force, the particle flattened in his grip. His hope sank, the passion went extinguished, ”What’s the use of metals this soft?”

Ye Chong gave a kick to the Portabella, beside the thumping mushroom, ”What’s useful is this.”

Ye Chong realized how he had been taking the wrong approach the whole time. He had been thinking of how to extract the Lavagold itself from the ore by exerting extremely amount of heat at once. So he had been desperately searching for a factor to trigger the high density of heat within mildstone to perform extraction.

That, was the approach of a metallurgy researcher. But he forgot the fact that he was also an alchemist.

There were already a series of tutorial of alchemy illustrating methods to obtain metals from the ore itself. However, metallic extraction was a much more simplified and convenient methodology, it had gone so common that Ye Chong already forgot the fact that an alchemist approach had ever existed.

Not till the moment he saw metallic particles underneath Portabella, he did not realize such a forgotten fact.

If Lunatic Guan was beside him, he probably would have been smacked on his head. Thought Ye Chong, as he smiled in wry. I had learned so much yet I only remembered this little, I hardly had anything that could be identified as a master of it…. Even my martial arts expertise became nothing after I came to Sang family village.

The root of Portabella was so deep into the earth that, it felt like a carrot from the fairytale when both Ye Chong and Sang Pu tried pulling it out.

The remaining young adults stumbled upon the sight, it was certainly astonishing to see both grown men pulling and ravaging a poor stem of mushroom which refused to succumb to their violence and abuse. It stood firmly on the ground. ”Hnnnnnng!” Both men were pounding each other, pulling a giant fungus off the ground. The scene was weird, really weird.

The fluttering spores stuck on their bodies, their faces were looking dusty and sweaty.

On the way back to the village, all villagers were grinning upon seeing Sang Pu. The face was beyond their understanding and no way they could look at it with a straight face, including the ladies who were covering their faces, snickering.

His face was covered with some unknown dirts while he was shouldering stem of an unknown plant. It would have not been so impulsive if the person was an ordinary villager. But it was Sang Pu, the candidate for the next village chief, a prestigious figure, the leader of the younger generation. That respect exerted by he himself, through that unchangeable calmness of his, now all eradicated by a stem of mushroom.

Sang Pu was blushing red as the flame, though his expression was grim. At least the blushes were covered by the spores, so nobody really saw how the next chief was feeling embarrassed.

Ye Chong in the meantime was tailing him, his indifference remained, unlike the poor chief.