Primary Crystal Stone Mine

Zhou Yi seemed to possess a magical ability: whenever she had something to do the next day, her biological clock automatically activated its wake-up service.

After sleeping a full eight hours, Zhou Yi opened her eyes and slowly stretched.

But halfway through the stretch, she silently lowered her raised arm.

Her waist hurt...

Her arms hurt too...

Her neck hurt as well...

Although her stamina was sufficient, it was still her first time doing a full day of hard labor. Her body clearly had not adapted to such high-intensity work, and her muscles ached terribly.

"Hiss~"

Zhou Yi rubbed her shoulders and waist.

The best way to fight muscle soreness was to keep working. Charge on, Miner Zhou!

Compared to Zhou Yi herself, Xiao Fu seemed to have adapted to Zhou Yi's new identity as a miner even faster.

After leaving the library, Zhou Yi returned to her dormitory and put the Crystal Marrow back into the little pink box. Then she examined the seven Crystal Stones freshly unearthed yesterday.

It was visible to the naked eye that there were far fewer impurities inside the Crystal Stones than yesterday. They were clearer and more transparent, and their quality had evidently improved considerably.

"These are even better quality than the Primary Crystal Stones they dug up yesterday, right?"

Zhou Yi said excitedly.

What excited her was not that she possessed Primary Crystal Stones, but that the Crystal Marrow could actually purify ordinary Crystal Stones and improve their quality.

"Yeah, they're indeed a little better than the junk rocks they dug up. But they're still a little short of reaching intermediate quality."

Zhou Yi had yet to see a genuine Crystal Coin since arriving here, so naturally, she had no idea what quality intermediate Crystal Stones were.

"If the Crystal Marrow is stored directly in the Space Ring, can it still purify Crystal Stones?"

With a let's-try-it-and-see mindset, Zhou Yi took the Crystal Marrow out of the little pink box, tossed it into a small storage room, then threw the seven Primary Crystal Stones into the same room and shut the door.

With the Crystal Marrow inside the Space Ring, she could not sense its energy from outside. She did not know whether other items inside the space could sense it.

After personally witnessing just how useful the Crystal Marrow was, Zhou Yi immediately no longer felt comfortable leaving it alone in her room.

Dawn was almost here. Zhou Yi drank three tubes of Nutrient Solution for breakfast.

After finishing work yesterday, she felt as though her appetite had grown again.

Carrying the little shovel she had just made, Zhou Yi swaggered out of the school, even greeting the security guard uncle on her way out.

By the time she reached the gathering point, it was just time to start work and head down into the mine.

Zhou Yi swept her gaze over the little vests around her. Aside from the veteran miners, nearly everyone had been replaced by a new group. In particular, none of the female faces she had seen yesterday remained.

"You worked all day yesterday. Can you handle coming again today? Don't force yourself. People here usually work one day, then rest for three."

Gal still remembered this young girl, who had asked him ahead of time to exchange Nutrient Solution and had successfully completed her task.

Oh, that was rather considerate. Zhou Yi looked at Gal, not expecting to hear something like that from the mouth of capital.

"If you work yourselves to death in the mine, we have to pay compensation. It's a real hassle."

Gal looked into Zhou Yi's eyes and spoke with complete seriousness.

Zhou Yi: I knew it. 🙂

"I won't die from exhaustion. Even if I do, that's on me."

Zhou Yi familiarly picked out a clean little vest, put it on, and stood at the back of the line.

Since they would not have to pay compensation, Gal naturally said nothing more. However, he did take a few extra looks at the little shovel in Zhou Yi's hand.

Quite a few people who came here to mine brought their own tools, but the shovel in this girl's hand...

No, that was impossible. Mechanical Shovels were so expensive that even their chamber of commerce was unwilling to equip mines below the rank of intermediate Crystal Stone mines with them. How could a D-Class Star Block like this possibly have such a shovel?

Gal dismissed that wild thought, shook his head, and led everyone down into the mine.

Just like yesterday, Zhou Yi pushed her cart into an empty mine tunnel.

She could actually have put the little shovel into her Space Ring and brought it in that way, but it was a tool she would be using all day. Someone might spot it by accident.

Rather than expose the fact that she possessed a spatial treasure, she might as well openly bring the little shovel in.

What if someone asks where you got that shovel? Not everyone is incapable of recognizing it. I think that Gal is quite knowledgeable.

Sometimes, Xiao Fu, as an Intelligent Brain from a higher plane, truly could not understand this human's way of thinking.

"Well, you may not know this, but I was born on an unknown little Star Block. My family has mined for generations, which is why I'm so exceptionally gifted at mining. Then my grandfather—no, my great-grandfather, or perhaps my great-great-grandfather—happened upon an ancestral little shovel by chance."

From the moment the little shovel had been completed, Zhou Yi had already begun fleshing out her new persona.

It was logical and well-supported, moving enough to bring tears to one's eyes.

Xiao Fu: ...

Xiao Fu had been too naive. Xiao Fu needed to update its understanding of the data on human cunning. Going offline.

After saying that, Xiao Fu truly fell silent. No matter how Zhou Yi called for it, there was no response at all.

"So this is what passes for cunning? Looks like higher intelligence is nothing special after all."

Zhou Yi scratched at her hair, narrowed her eyes, and smiled.

The little shovel she had just made was incredibly useful. Its sharp, thin blade and hard material made it much easier to dig into the Crystal Soil.

Compared to cutting through rock yesterday, today felt more like cutting potatoes.

With a handy tool and no one beside her to chat with, Zhou Yi worked at lightning speed, finding a crystal stone before long.

"This part of the handle should have a ring of anti-slip grooves."

"The shovel blade needs to be polished smoother to reduce resistance."

"How about adding a star pattern to the shovel? I'd need to add an energy core as a power unit, and then it'd become an invincible fully automatic little shovel?"

Zhou Yi dug for crystal stones while talking to herself. The more she thought about it, the more excited she became, sinking into a state of total absorption.

She had read through the Star Weaver Master's guide Hao Wuduan had left behind several times, memorizing even every punctuation mark.

Unfortunately, she had no complete mech to use for experiments.

Read a book a hundred times, and its meaning would reveal itself.

Her grasp of the theory was too thorough, so she could never help coming up with all sorts of strange ideas that she wanted to try out herself.

The more she thought about it, the more excited Zhou Yi became. She almost wanted to go back right then and work on her automatic little shovel.

But fortunately, her last shred of reason stopped her...

She still had no energy core, and she still had no money for next week's meals.

Poverty gradually calmed her down.

"A Star Weaver Master who doesn't work hard at digging crystal stones has no future."

Zhou Yi silently recited this to herself. The little shovel in her hand swung with even greater vigor, and the crystal stones on her cart piled higher and higher. Once they could no longer be stacked, she put all the crystal stones from the cart into her ring and started over.