The miners congratulated him repeatedly, “Well done boy! You found a great treasure!”

“HAHA Old Tian, you guessed that there was only a small spirit ore within, your eyes are getting worse as you age!”

“Ah, don’t jape at me, you’re not much better. Didn’t you lose all your wife’s purse money just that other day and had your ears nearly wrung off?”

The miner instantly became silenced like he swallowed a fly.

There are two other knee height stone eggs in this group, and they quickly gained the attention of everyone. If the first one is such a treasure, would the others be equal, or, even, better?

Their owners, Calculus and Snow, cracked their stone eggs at the same time. Coming from noble houses, they have seen plenty of treasures, and their hands are much steadier than Toprak when they worked on their find.

Compared to the treasure they could find the two nobles are more concerned on getting a higher score in ore extraction. Of course, no one would mind extra spirit ores that could be traded for more high-quality pills or made into useful equipment.

When Snow uncovered a shiny Black Lightning Ore, she exclaimed happily. It isn’t a prized find like the Unending Dust Ore, but it is extremely rare and valued after its property of tempering one’s flesh with a strengthening-type of electric element. After activating the metal with one’s blood, by keeping a pea-sized Black Lightning Metal close, the owner’s body will repeatedly receive light shocks to tense one’s muscles and receive constant muscle training.

It is a valuable spirit ore for External Martial Practitioners, unfortunately, because most people cultivate in the Internal Arts, the market is small, and the price is lower despite it being exceptionally rare.

She wrapped it with the film provided by Er Tian and happily kept it in her Time-Space Ring. Without asking, Kairos and the guys already know that she intends to pass it to Tommy. With it, he could cultivate his inner strength while his flesh slowly becomes tougher. Needless to say, the boy’s cultivation speed will increase a notch more.

Calculus snorted when he saw her find, and he proudly revealed the spirit ore hidden within his stone egg. A reddish golden ore that seemed to illuminate the place by its glow.

His expression seemed to say that his find is still better, and this time, he is correct.

What he discovered is a Gold Heartstone. An object that is worth more than the Unending Dust Ore. It is so infrequently found no matter how wealthy one is, it would be difficult to buy one. Even top noble families try to acquire such treasures by purchasing truckloads of stone eggs and hope to discover shards of Gold Heartstones within.

The use of this item is nothing short of being described as miraculous. It permanently coats one’s body to provides slight protection against cuts. Not only does it give a flattering appearance of gold dust on a person by giving one’s skin a light tinge of gold, but it also allows one to become immune to all kinds of contact poisons, venoms and corrosive substances.

In a fight, scratches and small wounds are in fact one of the most dangerous things. As cuts accumulate, your strength will slowly bleed away until without knowing when it had happened, you are already well past your limits; often, this is far sooner than how long you expected yourself to last.

Granted, it may not immediately kill you, but it will increasingly slow you down, and numb your senses. At that time, a swift edge which you could normally dodge will become deadly.

Gaining protection against light-bleeding alone caused the Gold Heartstones to become so coveted that people would bash in each other’s head to claim it, yet this is far from all it could do.

In fact, most humans could only utilise a portion of the ore’s potential. When a Contract Beast with a powerful regenerative ability and superior physique assimilate the ore into itself, the ore's ability will truly shine.

The Gold Heartstone, like its namesake, will cover the beast’s heart by layers of golden dust. Its blood they run through will be enriched, and in turn, cause the whole body to be filled with the special minerals. It is an excruciating experience as flesh and blood transformed, but if the creature survives, then it will be covered in a gold armour every part of its body. At that time, the weak points on its body will start to disappear, and few poisons or acids could harm it.

Of course, the more of this treasured mineral the beast absorbs, the tougher the golden shield will be, and the fewer toxins and acids could harm its body.

The only prerequisite is to find enough Gold Heartstone ores to refine, which is why a knee-height stone egg filled with it turned everyone’s heads and dropped their jaws. What Calculus obtained is more valuable than a castle, but castles could be bought if one looks around, while the ore will be hard to purchase even with money.

A conceited grin appeared on his face as he looked at Kairos.

“So what if you found a carriage-sized stone egg? It might be worthless rocks within. And, no matter what, can it win my Gold Heartstone when combined with my Five-Clawed Golden Dragon?”

He felt that it was destiny that brought this treasure into his hands, with this, the celestial beast will become even more powerful than before, and possibly grow beyond the juvenile stage it is currently stuck at.

Although he smirked at Kairos, Kairos secretly thanked Calculus in his heart.

“Aisa, he is spending such a large sum on our pet.”

Ooohhh! He is a pretty dumb bad guy. We are thankful. Hehe!

“God must’ve felt pretty apologetic after creating his brains.”

The resulting silvery peals of laughter from Aisa made Kairos smile, and it confused the prideful Calculus.

On the other side, Jim unhappily cracked his long and thin pole-like stone egg. Because he is already disappointed, he started making unnecessary mistakes.

“Stupid boy! Be careful with the tool.”

“No! That’s not the way to hold it! And, why are you using a hammer at this part?”

“Hey, boy, you should use a chisel here.”

“No no. File it down. Aren’t you listening?”

A bunch of miners that couldn’t stand his inexperience quickly took over, and they competed amongst themselves on who is better at ore extraction. But when one of them broke open the outer shell, he yelled in pain and jumped back clutching his hand.

“Hahaha Old chap, even you would make a mistake.”

“Man… That’s shameful, and in front of the boy we were just scolding.”

“No, I wasn’t hurt by my tools… the… the … stone bite me,” he said uncertainly. He looked at his now-bleeding hand, and then back at the part he was working on.

An eerie green tail of light seemed to escape the stone egg for a moment, waving in the air then disappearing.

“I… I didn’t see wrong! There’s something inside that stone egg… be careful… It... Oh My God, my arm! It’s turning black…!”

“Oh, damn it! It… it must be a Fiend Edge …! He found a Fiend Edge!”

The announcement was like a trigger, and all the miners and spectators alike jumped back quickly. The one with blacken hand immediately wrapped his wound up with a bandage soaked with healing salve.

“We’ll need special gear to extract this,” said one of them as he took out protective gear from his Time-space ring.

The miner went forward and tenderly chip off the rest of the limestone. The dangerous light appeared again and tried biting at his hand but was blocked by a transparent barrier.

When it was done, a long spear, immaterial and glowing dimly green, fell to the ground with a thud.

“It looks fearsome, what is this?” Jim asked excitedly.

“Don’t be too glad. This isn’t a good find. Well, it is certainly rare, but worthless.”

All kinds of extraordinary ores appeared in the Cave Trolls’ lair, but not everything scarce is useful.

“WAHHHHHHHH,” Jim cried out unreservedly. He did get a few other stone eggs with pretty good ores within, but right now such a beauty is in front of him turned out to be … rubbish?

“Boy, just give it up. This item cannot be tamed unless you’re born with the Malevolent affinity. For everyone else, contact with this Fiend Edge causes horrendous burns, injuries that cannot be healed without expensive treatments.”

“Quick! Tell me how to… tame it!!”

“You can cultivate this element?”

Jim’s eyes sparkled when he heard it, and without waiting, he followed the old miner’s instructions to cultivate the ore to become his artefact weapon.

“Bwahahaha! Boy, you’re lucky! You’ve found yourself a really good weapon.

After you refined it as your own, you'll be able to control it with your mind. Its shape is perfect as a projectile, but it will be an extremely difficult task to master it.

The extent of its reach and the speed you could move it will all depend on how strong your mentality is.

Most people will need to patiently spend a few decades cultivating it for it to be wielded as they wish.”

Unexpectedly, the spirit ore within Jim’s stone egg does not require any refining and could be used as a weapon as it is, just as he had hoped. In fact, this particular ore depends on the shape it was excavated in since it cannot be moulded. Therefore, more often than not, it is found in an unsuitable form.

The ones that laughed at him couldn't believe the turnabout and blushed with shame.

"What the heck? How much good deed did he do to have such luck?!"

Though the Fiend Edge is powerful, it is unusable for most cultivators and is too infrequently sought after to have a market.

After recovering from embarrassment, Edward put forward a strange, yet important question, “Why not use it as a spear? It certainly is long enough.”

The miner nodded his head and replied, “Well, not to mention that you can't hold the thing in your hands without hurting yourself, the ore does not have an actual physical form and is impossible to use it to block attacks.”

Although the Fiend Edge could go through most armours, it is a terrible weapon for a close-range fight.

“The Fiend Edge is a rare spirit-type mineral, that cannot be destroyed by normal means once the boy bounds it to himself. And, similar to a person’s soul, it is very different to damage and has its own consciousness except being completely void of life and sentience…. Ah…!”

The miner cried out all of a sudden, “I forgot to say this… Since the Fiend Edge has a conscious, it will try to take over the boy’s thoughts.”

“Old man…! Shouldn’t you say things like that earlier, like before he started cultivating it?”

This Jim had not finished asking the right questions and already jumped the gun to refine the ore!

Edward, Alan, and Kairos flew over with concern, wanting to make sure that nothing strange happened to him.

The miner gave them an apologetic smile and explained, “I did say it is very difficult to control, it all depends on how strong his mentality is. If he gives in, the Fiend Edge will corrupt his thoughts and… make him evil…”

Roused by the strong emotion Kairos has, Aisa awoke and heard the last part this old miner said.

Without being asked, the tiny dragon soothed the three boys by gently touching their minds.

In that moment, they realised for the first time just how ancient and powerful the dragon’s mind is, and by her reassurance they were quickly pacified.

Then after they calmed down, Aisa explained to them directly in their heads.

Jim will be fine~ Those who cultivates the Origin Cultivation Method have a stronger spirit than most.

A Mortal Realm spirit-type ore, no matter how powerful, could only act like a suggestive thought and is unable to hijack their minds. With this explanation, they all breathed a sigh of relief.

Silly Jim~ Hehe. He is lucky this happened in Gaia. If it is an Immortal or Divine Realm object, he might even go… BOOOOOM!

Instead of simply telling them with words, Aisa projected a mental image of something exploding after failing to tame a high-powered spirit-type mineral. The boys shuddered and refused to think if this image is real, and what actually turned into dust because it certainly didn’t look human.

Jim opened his eyes a while later, to the shock of everyone.

He could feel that the Fiend Edge has formed a basic link with him. If he wished, he could summon it out anytime, but making it fly around as the old miner said, is still impossible.

Furthermore, through their bond between weapon and master, he could tell that the spirit ore is like a vicious beast. If he holds it in his hand, it will burn and bite at his flesh even before he can use it to fight.

He looked around, suddenly noticing the attention he had gained. Without knowing why everyone is all so tensed up, Jim gave them a silly smile and immediately earned some knuckles on his head.

“Ow ow ow… why?”

“You idiot, why didn’t you ask properly what it is before cultivating it!?”

A few girls, more kind-hearted than his buddies, asked him if he feels anything wrong, and Jim simply scratched his head.

Whatever malicious intents that the Fiend Edge could plant, seemed to have completely failed on him.

Kairos couldn’t help but think of the words in Jim’s Secret Art incantation:

“I am the one whom encompass all,

The abyss of dusk and dawn,

The purgatory of good and evil,

The devourer of the enduring day.

I am Suzaku, vermillion bird of the South!

“Perhaps… he is naturally unaffected by … evil?”

After Jim got what he wants, Alan began looking forward to his own find. It seems that all the spirit ores found from the Cave Trolls’ lair are rare and precious. He did not know about the Origin of the Land causing the spirit ores in the area to become far more precious the normal since Kairos had yet the time to tell anyone.

But Alan truly looked forward to it and he chipped the stone egg’s shells off cheerfully.

As Kairos said, his spirit ore is just a quarter in size of the stone egg which shelled it.

When he removed the spirit ore he found, an amazing force enveloped everyone like a warm and gentle breeze that caressed their skin. Immediately all who are present breathed in deeply and smiled.

“Ahh… No time to be dumbfounded, quickly seal it up!” one of the miners roared.

Alan, with two left hands, fumbled clumsily with the transparent sheet to wrap the ore he took out.

Unfortunately, his spirit ore is the kind that very quickly dissipates.