"Yes." Lin Li nodded and said with a smile, "It's just me."
"You've got quite the nerve, then." Chen Che chuckled. "If there's nothing else, we'll get back to work."
With that, he turned and called to his companions to keep digging.
Lin Li watched their arms tremble from the cold as they swung their picks, then glanced at the ground beneath his feet, which had frozen rock-hard... The permafrost beneath the snow was as hard as iron. The picks could only leave white marks when they struck it.
He thought of the shovel on the Mysterious Small Island. That thing was fine for dealing with soft soil, but trying to dig through permafrost with it would be a complete waste of effort.
He was wondering whether he should borrow a pick when his eyes suddenly lit up, and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
Then Lin Li raised his right hand and slowly held it palm-up. Faint golden Spiritual Light curled around his fingertips.
"Whoosh."
A fist-sized fireball suddenly ignited. The flames did not go out in the cold wind; instead, they burned more fiercely, transforming into a half-man-tall fireball that hovered in midair. The waves of heat it gave off instantly melted the snow nearby, and white mist billowed up from the ground.
"Hiss..." Chen Che and the others all stopped working and stared at the fireball, dumbfounded.
The fireball dropped onto the area Lin Li had chosen. When the frozen earth came into contact with the waves of heat, it sizzled, and the surface quickly softened into mud.
Lin Li took out the shovel and easily drove it into the soil. With a single scoop, he lifted a large chunk of wet earth, digging the pit without the slightest effort.
The scar-faced man swallowed.