Extraordinary Voyage-Chapter 849 - 728: Horsetail Rush and the Fuse

Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, it was already mid-March.

As a typical high-altitude mountainous region, with an average elevation of three thousand meters, the Elbert Mountain Range, covered with folds and numerous mountains of varying sizes, still showed sparse vegetation even in this season of rebirth.

However.

Beneath its unremarkable appearance, this mountainous area, along with the "Broken Star Sea Coast Zone," constitutes one of the largest gold mine distribution belts in the northern continent. The Hilus people have already identified over a dozen gold mines of various sizes here.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Carrying the clouds in the sky, three graceful figures descended from the sky and landed lightly in front of a cluster of yellow-green herbaceous plants that seemed out of place in this area.

They resembled bamboo with segments, but their diameter was less than a centimeter, topped with yellow oval seed heads, swaying gently in the mountain breeze.

"Angie, in the current spirit-rich environment of the New Continent, these modified horsetails are growing really fast. The seeds sown just a month and a half ago have already grown close to a meter tall."

A beautiful girl with chestnut long hair and amber eyes waved her hand gently, and a blade of grass automatically broke off from the ground and flew into her hand.

Snap!

Breaking the grass stem into two sections, the three girls leaned in to see the layer of golden substance inside the hollow tubular interior. Whether poor or rich, their eyes couldn’t help but light up at the sight.

"Shall we check the actual yield?"

Angie nodded to the sisters Clareesa and Leonara. Though she hadn’t lacked money since becoming Aiven’s student, aside from the times she chewed on wild vegetables during childhood, she couldn’t help but feel a bit excited at this scene.

With a thought, under the control of the [Activated Spiritual Light], all the horsetail stems within a square area of 50 meters by 50 meters simultaneously flew up and landed in front of them.

"Let me do it!"

The younger twin, Leonara, volunteered, summoning a magic book with a cover covered in fine scales. She gently pressed her hand on the cover.

Swish—

In an instant, bright yellow flames surged up, engulfing a large pile of horsetails, burning fiercely.

Just by looking at the magic book, which bore a strong resemblance to Angie’s "Silver Ring," it was evident that it was a dragon skin magic book, clearly a gift from Aiven to the twin sisters as a family present.

These two Official Wizards of senior rank, lacking the funds for mana crystals, couldn’t achieve their potential Tier 3 combat strength, which was truly wasteful. These two magic books became their most valuable witchcraft tools, something they brought out to practice from time to time.

Soon.

In just a few minutes, a large amount of ashen-grey plant ash was blown away by the mountain wind.

After cooling down, a gold glint in the sunlight slowly settled into Leonara’s fair and tender palm, a bead of gold the size of an adult thumb!

The three girls passed it around, savoring the warmth of the flame still lingering in the gold bead, and couldn’t help but exclaim in delight:

"About 150 grams, this research project was a success!"

In the foyer of the [Clock Tower], Aiven first encountered the organic mechanical ecosystem created by the author of "Transcending Race and Life and Death: Life Artist’s Pink Book."

The root-level position of such a magical ecological system, able to directly absorb metal elements from the soil, supplying the entire steel jungle ecosystem, inspired a huge revelation in him.

And that was—the "bio-enrichment effect!"

In fact, it’s not just extraordinary species; many ordinary plants in nature can absorb various nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, from the soil through their roots.

Some prefer to absorb traces of copper, some prefer zinc... The ability to absorb and concentrate trace external materials into their bodies is known as the "bio-enrichment effect."

The simplest application of the "bio-enrichment effect" is to help ordinary people more easily locate various mineral deposits. For instance, thriving plantain areas might indicate zinc mines, dense purple alfalfa can point to tantalum deposits, and abundant mugwort might suggest iron ore...

Moreover, the "bio-enrichment effect" can be used to achieve an even more magical technology—biometallurgy.

This involves utilizing plants’ ability to gradually concentrate metals from low-concentration soil or seawater within their bodies, significantly increasing the metal concentration, sometimes by hundreds or thousands of times, before extracting it from the plant.

By gathering data, artificial sampling, testing, and some deduction, Aiven discovered that about ninety-nine percent of the gold on this planet is in the planet’s core, with the average gold content in the Earth’s crust being roughly one part per billion, and in the ocean, about one part per trillion.

Many eras ago.

Due to billions to tens of billions of years of tectonic movements and geological changes, tiny gold elements were enriched to form mineable gold ore deposits, which eventually participated in the commodity circulation of human society.

Typically, gold ore deposits with industrial mining value have a gold grade of 2-3 grams per ton, rich ores have 5-50 grams per ton, and exceptionally rich ores have 50-500 grams per ton.

Meanwhile, a large amount of worthless barren veins and even ordinary soil contain traces of gold, just like the valley where Angie and the other two found themselves.

From 2,500 square meters of land, 150 grams of gold were harvested, a yield delightful enough to surprise anyone.

Natural horsetails have a gold content as high as six parts per ten thousand, and the strains modified by Aiven are even more potent.

With extremely dense roots, able to grow a root system over 600 kilometers long in ten square meters and to a depth of 130 meters, these roots can sweep all trace amounts of gold within.

Moreover, as perennial herbaceous plants, the modified horsetails continue to grow as long as they aren’t harvested, and in theory, could become gold grasses with a purity of over 20%.

No human labor is needed; just scatter seeds and come back later for harvesting, practically a money tree in disguise!

Additionally.

Now, each "experimental field" is under real-time monitoring by the Mind Network controlled by Bess, ensuring that the wealth belonging to the Duchy won’t be accidentally stolen by anyone else.

This is also one of Aiven’s most personally invested money-making projects, aside from the production comeback plan hosted by Hawkins.

Because the sacrifice value required by the Libra Balance Holy Sword is not the value of wealth itself to Aiven, but rather the value it represents in social exchange and circulation.

For example, a decently quality synthetic gemstone, produced by Aiven utilizing the Gem Shell costs only one Silver Bull to produce, supplied through Nymph’s channels to the Gem School can bring back six Golden Lions, whereas a natural gemstone of the same quality would be worth at least ten Golden Lions.

So, in the eyes of the Libra Balance Holy Sword, it is worth six Golden Lions.

If ten thousand of such gemstones are introduced into the market at once, although their quality remains unchanged, the Gem School, with only five or six hundred members, would not be able to consume them in a short time, which would immediately cause a crash in value due to oversupply.

Far inferior to the robustness of gold, silver, and other "almost" non-renewable hard currencies.

And with this vast territory and wood sorrel, even if the Libra Balance Holy Sword can’t be turned into a conventional weapon, it won’t be as timid as before.

Take action when it’s time to take action.

Aiven witnessed the on-site detection of the three girls through the Mind Network.

Snap——!

Aiven snapped his fingers with a bright smile.

This project, my king... ahem, Galliot is in!

...

At this time, on the Source Continent. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Half a month away from the final deadline to ransom people, under the heavy propagandizing of the Phaletis intelligence personnel about the "ultimatum," public opinion within Hilus was already boiling over like boiling water.

Even though Philip II, as an authoritarian, doesn’t care about so-called public opinion, the unrest that gradually appeared in both the navy and army became something he could no longer ignore.

He could only suppress his hatred for Phaletis with all his might, while urgently allocating part of the ransom to stabilize the envoy of Phaletis, he began extreme pressure on the Frisia Region.

As the Emperor of the Empire, he still had to save face, he couldn’t say it was to collect ransom for soldiers after a defeat, and nominally it was for unifying faith, collecting fees for building churches and statues for the Tinder Sect, barely wrapping himself with a fig leaf.

But, compared to the Master of Gold who wildly distributed money and the Wealth Church, the so-called Eternal Flame and the Tinder Sect were simply at the other extreme.

Moreover, regardless of the nominal reason, the decree issued by Philip II more than half a month ago, after a period of brewing, eventually acted like a fuse that completely ignited the long-held resentment of the Frisian people!

Just today.

Rumble——!

In the center of Antwerp City, several Eternal Flame statues, which were among the first to be completed, were pulled down by horses, and the crowd rushed up to smash them to pieces.

"Destroy this place! I don’t need an Eternal Flame that only increases taxes!"

"Overthrow the tyrant, we want freedom, we want rights, we want normal commercial activities!"

"Frisia belongs to the Frisian people!"

"..."

Tens of thousands of artisans, urban commoners, farmers, and some small merchants, rare to see on Hilus’s former territory, raised clubs and shouted slogans, destroying all traces of the Eternal Flame in sight.

Throughout the Frisia Kingdom area, at least 12 out of 17 provinces were swept into this torrent. For a moment, this land even had a bit of the stormy scene of world-wide revolt.

"Damn heretics, how dare they go against the grace of the True God?!"

In the high sky, in a domain that mortals couldn’t have seen.

A being with fire-red wings, a face like a stone carving with a head towering atop like a volcanic crater, bore a face full of anger, its mood identical to the boiling magma in its mind.

This was Magma Angel Sute under the command of the Eternal Flame and once the owner of Holy Sword: Leivodin.

Just as when the churches of the Ilya Kingdom’s Goddess were destroyed on a large scale, the Saint Angel descended in person, the Eternal Flame naturally would not stand idly by when their statues on Earth were destroyed.

Just as it was about to take action, it suddenly turned around to look behind.

There stood a pitch-black figure quietly.

A faceless black-winged form with a blank face, each wing bore three red eyes constantly blinking at it. The essence of terror, slaughter, and death surrounded it, forming a dense cloud of darkness.

The Magma Angel’s expression was grave, and it slowly uttered a name:

"Slaughter Angel Kshatriya?"

But the horrifyingly bizarre Slaughter Angel made no move to respond, stepping aside, like a loyal knight welcoming their monarch, bowing deeply.

Behind it, accompanied by the ringing of clashing gold coins, a brilliant golden radiance suddenly filled Sute’s vision.

"What is that...!!!"