The Underground Was Full of Treasure

Every fingerprint was exactly the same, whether it was a thumbprint or an index-finger print.

Put together, they formed a string of sixes—six sixes sixes sixes...

"..."

Luo Wendi looked at them and said softly, "You brought invisible gloves with fake fingerprints? There isn't even the slightest flaw. Are they the latest model?"

He stared at Bai Ge's hands. His fingers were smooth, and the creases looked natural.

There was no mistake. Bai Ge really was bare-handed.

"One million each. I made them myself... Want to buy some?" Bai Ge asked with a smile.

Luo Wendi smiled. "That expensive? I don't need them..."

Bai Ge had changed his fingerprints long ago, back when he brought out Danmu.

His shaping ability had already benefited him enormously just by changing appearances.

Faking the true cause of death of a corpse, disguising himself by changing his face, and altering fingerprints directly from the flesh.

Taken together, the effects were practically a criminal's divine skill...

"If you need my help with something, just say so. There's no need to question me like this."

"If you don't trust me, then don't come looking for me. As it happens, I don't want to take the job either..."

Luo Wendi had heard Bai Ge say this more than once. Bai Ge was clearly someone with a mind of his own.

"I'm sorry. I apologize!" Luo Wendi hurriedly apologized.

"You know, it's always difficult to trust someone the first time. If you aren't careful enough, you might end up harming the client instead."

Bai Ge shook his head. "I'm an honorary citizen now. Don't come to me for anything illegal or criminal. Naturally, you don't need to worry about whether I'm thorough enough, either. From now on, I want to do something more legitimate..."

Luo Wendi froze. He had also looked into Bai Ge's background. Supposedly, Bai Ge was not very wealthy and certainly did not know how to do business, so what business dealings could they possibly have?

But then he remembered that he had paid ten million for the flowers last time. Bai Ge could now be considered a minor tycoon.

After pondering for a moment, Luo Wendi said, "Bai Ge, I've already witnessed your abilities. I truly do have something I'd like to ask for your help with. But since you want to quit, I won't force you."

"At the Chinese Academy of Sciences, I said you were my friend. From now on, you are my friend. Once words are spoken, they can't be taken back."

"If you want to do business, come to me if you run into any difficulties. In Xiangfan City, I have quite a few connections."

"Bai Ge, if you need investment, just ask."

After saying that, he handed Bai Ge an exquisite business card.

Luo Wendi himself was in charge of an investment company that held shares in several industries. His contact information was also printed on the card.

Bai Ge had not activated Calm Command. It consumed too much energy, and if it lasted too long, it would send him into depression.

So when he heard Luo Wendi say this, he was somewhat moved and secretly nodded.

Bai Ge had rejected Luo Wendi, yet the other man had not become angry or used his influence to pressure him. Instead, he had said that Bai Ge could come to him whenever he needed help.

There was certainly an attempt to win him over and appeal to their personal connection, but considering the enormous difference between their social statuses, the fact that Luo Wendi was willing to do this already showed considerable sincerity.

Actually, Bai Ge was not incapable of continuing to take money for favors. After all, he enjoyed it, and it was a quick way to make money.

After learning that materializing imagined properties could cause containment objects to appear in reality, Bai Ge had basically abandoned the idea of creating useless things that could only be sold for money.

Now that he could charge himself with electricity, creating diamonds and antiques was not impossible either.

Diamonds went without saying. They were merely carbon. The reason he had been unable to make them before was that he had not possessed enough energy to alter the atomic arrangement of matter.

Now, as long as Bai Ge was willing to spend the energy, creating the largest and most beautiful diamond in history was entirely possible.

Antiques were also simple. He could study the relevant knowledge, shape an object into the form it should have had historically, and make it impossible for anyone to distinguish it from the real thing.

Finally, he could expend some more energy to alter the carbon-14 test results. A genuine antique would then be born.

Using this method, Bai Ge could even forge the Heirloom Seal of the Realm.

"However, abusing my imagination for money and causing more containment objects to appear in the world is ultimately not a good thing."

"I didn't know before, so I could let it go. But now that I do know, I should naturally use my energy and opportunities to strengthen myself as much as possible."

At that thought, Bai Ge's eyes suddenly lit up.

"Why do I have to make diamonds myself? Things like that aren't actually worth much. Who knows how many there are deep underground..."

Several hours later.

Luo Wendi drove Bai Ge home. Bai Ge remembered Luo Wendi's hospitality.

He really wanted to help Luo Wendi, but he had even more important things to do and no longer had the mind to take on jobs.

Improving his strength as quickly as possible was the right path. So many containment objects were still waiting for him to search for them.

"Some things don't necessarily require me. How about this? If your people can't handle it and truly have no other options, then come find me."

"I really have something to take care of these days. Sorry."

Luo Wendi hurriedly smiled. "I told you, you're my friend. There's no need to be so polite."

As he spoke, he watched Bai Ge leave.

After the car drove away, the driver asked, "President Luo, aren't you being too polite to him? He really doesn't know how to appreciate kindness."

Sitting in the back, Luo Wendi shook his head. "You don't understand. He's far more capable than you imagine... I've never been wrong about people."

The driver had always admired Luo Wendi's eye for talent. Luo Wendi was skilled at investment, and none of the companies or teams he had backed had ever lost money.

"Then... President Luo, should I still find someone to handle that matter?"

Luo Wendi nodded. "If it can be done, naturally that's good. If it can't... we'll talk about it later. Just do your best."

Bai Ge returned home and immediately collapsed onto his bed, resting properly for more than ten hours.

He was truly exhausted in mind. He had not slept properly for two days.

When he woke up in the dead of night, he infiltrated his imagination to study the black bow tie.

"The Shadow Person is a state. Everything about it is good... but unfortunately, it still has flaws."

Inside his imagination, it was much simpler for Bai Ge to understand the bow tie's various properties.

He did not need to conduct experiments. By spending a small amount of energy, he could directly view the properties attached to the bow tie within his imagination.

This was an innate ability of the Master of Imagination: insight into settings.

Of course, he already knew most of the bow tie's properties. He was merely confirming them now.

Still, he really did discover some details he had not known.

For example, the maximum duration of the Shadow Person state.

Liang Wei repeatedly claimed that he could remain a Shadow Person forever, but that was actually impossible. At most, he could maintain the state for seventy-two hours before automatically reverting to human form.

After that, the same person had to wait another ten hours before transforming into a Shadow Person again.

During that time, the bow tie entered a useless vacuum period.

"And sure enough, as I suspected, the Shadow Person isn't immortal, and the Shadow Person state isn't invincible either."

"Physical damage and all chemical reactions that should have occurred are absorbed by the bow tie. Once the bow tie leaves the body, everything is returned to the wearer."

"It's not that I can't use it, but if I use it to block a fatal attack, I can't afford to lose it. Otherwise, I'm definitely dead..."

"Also, the bow tie has a limit to how much it can withstand. To put it in simple terms... it's roughly equivalent to enduring the close-range impact of a three-hundred-trillion-ton nuclear explosion. Beyond that level, even the Shadow Person will die."

The limit itself was not a concern. The combined yield of all the nuclear weapons in the world was not even three hundred trillion tons.

But the backlash after removing it was a considerable flaw, because the wearer's weakness would become concentrated in the bow tie. The bow tie would become the most obvious weakness of the containment object's user.

Especially when combined with the bow tie's useless vacuum period, this weakness would become even more pronounced.

But things were different for Bai Ge. It was not that he could not use it. Once he had enough energy in the future, he could set himself as "invincible" for a short period and block the backlash damage.

Put simply, the bow tie was a damage storage device. When Bai Ge was weak, he could use it to save his life. Later, he could find a way to "zero out" the accumulated damage.

At this thought, Bai Ge decided to use it.

Although it had quite a few flaws, it was ultimately a life-saving tool. What was there to fear?

"I want to use it right now!"

When it came to how to use it, the first thing Bai Ge thought of was reaching the heavens and entering the earth.

In fact, he had already thought of this back at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, when he used the Shadow Person for experiments...

He needed energy, and the sun and the Earth's core were undoubtedly two places with extremely violent energy.

Modern humanity had reached outer space and even built space stations.

But in reality, there were not many places humans could explore. Forget the universe—even on Earth, there were far too many places humans could not reach.

The seabed was one example. Humans had only reached a depth of slightly over ten thousand meters.

As for underground, drilling might seem simple, but the deepest land-based well was only twelve kilometers deep.

To Earth, that hole was merely an insignificant pit drilled into an extremely thin layer of skin.

That layer of skin was the crust. Its average thickness on land was thirty-three kilometers, while the mantle was approximately 2,865 kilometers thick. The crust did not even amount to a fraction of the mantle. Since humans could not even break through this layer of skin, how could they speak of reaching deeper layers?

Bai Ge knew that within the thousands of kilometers humans were unable to explore, countless minerals lay hidden.

At depths of six hundred to one thousand kilometers in the lower mantle, there was a diamond layer.

The high-pressure, high-temperature environment caused the atoms to rearrange, forming vast quantities of diamonds. These diamonds were often enormous. A single diamond might occupy an area larger than Los Angeles.

There were diamond layers like this everywhere in the lower mantle.

And besides diamonds, the mantle contained even more "gems." Olivine and spinel were found in countless numbers, making up more than fifty percent of the mantle.

Although only a tiny proportion could be considered gem-quality, even that proportion amounted to a considerable quantity when applied to such a massive total.

If the deep sea was a treasure trove, then the deep mantle itself was an immense treasure. Ninety percent of the resources on the surface came from underground.

On the seabed, one still had to search for shipwrecks, and in the deep mountains, one still had to excavate ancient tombs... In the deep mantle, taking just one "stone" would be enough.

Unfortunately, with humanity's current capabilities, it was completely impossible to reach the mantle. Temperatures there ranged from four thousand to six thousand degrees Celsius, and the pressure was even more unimaginable.

The various extreme environments made it a true hell. The high temperature melted the mantle's material, while liquid magma rampaged beneath the Earth.

Humanity would need a long time to develop before it could reach such a place.

However, Bai Ge could solve the problem by using a containment object.

The black bow tie allowed him to remain unaffected by the mantle's extreme environment. Neither the high temperature nor the immense pressure posed a problem.

"Unfortunately, absorbing and storing thermal energy is far more difficult than Safe Electricity Storage!"

If Bai Ge could absorb thermal energy in the deep mantle, then a trip one thousand kilometers underground would not only allow him to acquire countless gems but also provide him with a steady stream of thermal energy!

In reality, however, this was difficult to achieve. Too many factors were involved.

He had to make himself immune to temperatures of six thousand degrees Celsius, withstand pressure a million times greater than that at the surface, and also ignore oxygen deprivation and various chemical reactions.

"Even if I achieved all that, I still couldn't absorb heat with my own body. With my weight of less than fifty kilograms, an environment of five thousand degrees Celsius would only give me the equivalent of around three hundred kilowatt-hours of energy."

"Heat is heat, and thermal energy is thermal energy."

"The thermal energy I can absorb is proportional to my mass. Changing that would violate the laws of thermodynamics. I might have to expend tens of thousands of times more energy than the Safe Electricity Storage property just to materialize it..."

"No, I only need to add a property that converts thermal energy into electricity instantly. Combined with the electricity-storage property I already have, that should solve the problem."

"And instead of absorbing heat with my body, I can directly put high-temperature matter into my imagination and then convert it..."