Underground Crystal Island

The temperature at a depth of one thousand kilometers underground is approximately five thousand degrees Celsius, with pressure a million times that of the surface.

Bai Ge only intended to go as far as one thousand kilometers underground.

Considering everything, this depth was the most suitable, as it had both large amounts of high-temperature molten lava and smaller amounts of diamonds and gemstones.

Anything closer consisted entirely of massive chunks of ultramafic rock or orthopyroxene.

Anything further was entirely fluid, liquid matter, and the deeper he went, the more energy it would consume.

"If I teleport, will 200,000 units of electricity be enough?"

Bai Ge tried it, but the characteristic of teleporting anywhere within the Earth was completely insufficient; there was no reaction at all.

"I need to set it up in more detail."

"Hmm... how about random teleportation? I'll randomly appear somewhere a thousand kilometers below the surface..."

"As for the reason for the teleportation, it's a cosmic coincidence: on my third step on the surface, I happened to encounter something like a micro wormhole."

Bai Ge didn't know if setting it up like this would work. He only knew that he had to make it as realistic as possible.

From the knowledge he had absorbed, the Earth had actually experienced many strange disappearances, with many people vanishing suddenly right in front of others.

Some attributed it to wormholes, others to spacetime tunnels, and some to alien abductions.

There were many similar records and many speculations, but they were mostly baseless guesses and sensationalist nonsense from the media.

Bai Ge didn't know if wormholes that appeared and disappeared instantly truly existed in the universe.

If they didn't, his energy would definitely be insufficient to forcibly impose such an objective law on reality; this characteristic would be impossible to achieve.

But what if they did? The universe was so vast, and due to some coincidence, a micro wormhole had appeared on Earth for a fraction of a second, only to disappear due to instability.

As long as there was a possibility, that was enough. Bai Ge just needed to utilize this possibility.

To coincide with this brief moment, allowing him to teleport randomly once.

"It consumed energy, 100,000 units of electricity. Is that all it took?"

Bai Ge returned to reality, standing in his factory.

He felt a bit excited. The fact that it consumed energy meant the characteristic had been realized.

"This low consumption is typical of a realistic, chance-based characteristic. Does the universe really spontaneously generate wormholes? No, no, what I set up was something like a micro wormhole, so it could be something else too. In short, it's a phenomenon that can only be encountered by chance!"

Bai Ge stood on the ground, looking left and right, but he didn't notice anything unusual.

He knew he had to take three steps to trigger it.

Choosing a direction, Bai Ge took a step and simultaneously tightened the bow tie around his neck, his body instantly transforming into the Shadow Lord.

He took another step, took off his jacket, and casually threw it on the ground.

On the third step, a tremendous force struck him, a pulling sensation that lifted him off the ground instantly.

A sharp pain shot through his limbs and bones. He knew that in his Shadow Lord form, pain was already dulled, so Bai Ge immediately realized that if he hadn't transformed, he would have been crushed to death by the immense pressure in that single moment of teleportation.

With a dizzying spin, a fleeting 'spherical mirror' appeared in Bai Ge's vision. It lasted only for an extremely brief moment, and then his surroundings became a strange area, both dim and flickering with various reflections.

Sharp pain, discomfort, oppression, suffocation—immense suffering he had never experienced before washed over him.

It was like an itch he couldn't scratch or a blow he couldn't block, a continuous pressure acting on every single cell! It was unbearable for Bai Ge.

The momentary pain during teleportation was nothing compared to this.

In just a few seconds, Bai Ge felt like he was about to break.

"Calm down!"

He activated the "calm down" command, and Bai Ge barely managed to stabilize himself, thinking of retreating into his brain hole world.

But the calmer he became, the worse he felt. He wasn't sure how long he could endure it.

He had once tricked the Shadow Person into burying himself underground, never expecting to experience this sensation himself.

"Am I being crushed by rocks? No..."

Bai Ge realized that when he teleported down, a gas had also come with him, exploding and burning all around.

Flames twisted into various shapes appeared around Bai Ge. These flames formed a white light, illuminating countless reflective surfaces around him, making the surroundings flicker continuously.

This was different from the lower mantle he had imagined; there should have been high-temperature molten material here. Why was it so dim?

Bai Ge tried waving his hand and found he could move his arm. Although the pressure brought a great sense of resistance, the surroundings were indeed...

"Empty?"

Bai Ge was utterly confused. He wanted to pull the surrounding matter into his brain hole to see what it was.

"Carbon dioxide? I'm in a cavity?"

As the surroundings grew brighter, Bai Ge finally saw clearly.

"Ah! So it's this kind of place!"

From near to far, countless 'mirrors' reflected light. Some reflection points were above his head, some below his feet, in all directions, everywhere.

Bai Ge felt as if he were in a starry sky. The dense points of light surrounding him finally allowed him to see the true nature of this place.

"Crystal cavity..."

All around Bai Ge, and even beneath his feet, countless reflective surfaces were actually pieces of spinel.

These spinel crystals looked like rock candy, with crystal blocks tens or even hundreds of meters high visible everywhere.

They were like countless crystal skyscrapers, standing unevenly.

Looking up, it was all these things, as if he were in a massive stalactite cave, with countless sharp crystal edges angled obliquely or straight downwards.

The scenery was spectacular and magnificent, sparkling and flashing under various refractions, reaching the peak of beauty.

The spinel crystals were colorful, displaying different colors due to their rich content of various elements like zinc, aluminum, iron, and manganese.

Some were pure blue, some pure red, some purple with blue undertones, and some blue with green.

There were even pink and colorless crystals.

Of course, there were also orange-yellow and brown spinel crystals, which were considered impure and not translucent enough.

"I should be inside a super-large composite crystal block right now. The empty space in the middle alone feels much, much larger than a big city!"

"The internal crystals weren't melted by high temperatures, so the exterior must be extremely thick, insulating a lot of heat."

"If that's the case, the diameter of the entire giant crystal could be as large as one-fifth of HB Province!"

"Meaning, I'm currently at a depth of one thousand kilometers underground, inside a super crystal potentially the size of HN Island?"

It was also a kind of luck to randomly land inside a crystal block as large as HN Island...

In the lower mantle, molten magma occupied the majority of the space, with everything turning into liquid matter at temperatures exceeding five thousand degrees.

Bai Ge's primary objective was those things.

After collecting them into his brain hole and absorbing the thermal energy, once the liquid matter's temperature decreased, various crystals or rocks would form.

Even if only a tiny bit formed into crystals, he could sell it for money.

Even the other cooled substances were rare on the surface and quite valuable.

It was a guaranteed profit, which was why Bai Ge chose a depth of one thousand kilometers.

However, there were always exceptions. Even at this depth, not all crystals and rocks necessarily turned into magma.

Just like here.

Although the external temperature was enough to melt crystals, the problem was that this crystal was too large! Spinel has pretty good heat resistance, which allowed the crystals inside to remain in a solid state.

Simply put, this was a crystal island drifting within countless magma flows.

Such super-large crystals were insignificant compared to the lower mantle.

But Bai Ge happened to encounter one.

Bai Ge was helpless, unsure if this was due to his luck being too good or too bad.

The magma he wanted wasn't here, and his brain hole could only absorb things within his power limit. This meant that by coming here, he might not be able to take anything besides air!

After all, as far as the eye could see, any random piece of spinel weighed tens of thousands of tons.

Taking too much was also meaningless.

"What a beautiful random selection!"

Bai Ge couldn't just do nothing. Although the randomly chosen location had disrupted his plan, The saying that the underground was full of treasures wasn't an empty phrase.

The interior of this giant crystal had an environment of at least two thousand degrees Celsius.

The carbon dioxide and other inert gases in the cavity, with their high temperatures, could still provide Bai Ge with thermal energy.

Bai Ge continuously absorbed air into his brain hole while walking on the multifaceted crystals.

"This piece must weigh at least several million tons..."

"That one is even bigger! It's a crystal mountain..."

"If brought to the surface, it could flatten a city..."

As he walked, Bai Ge witnessed various bizarrely shaped giant spinel crystals, each frighteningly large.

Such large spinel crystals couldn't exist on the surface. Spinel could be rough or transparent.

Transparent, gem-quality spinel was also a world-class top-tier gemstone in human society, calculated by the carat.

Here? They were measured by the ton!

"Hmm? This one is relatively small!"

Among the many behemoths, there were always smaller spinel crystals, such as fragments broken off from larger spinel crystals.

Bai Ge soon discovered piles of such fragments.

Looking up, he could see a hundred-meter-long spinel crystal lying horizontally on several towering stone pillars. It was clear that the horizontal spinel crystal had once been one of the inverted crystals overhead. Due to some reason, it had fallen, striking the crystals below and shattering into a pile of small crystal fragments.

These small crystal fragments weighed one or two tons, or a few hundred pounds.

The smallest ones were about one pound.

"About a thousand jin, I can absorb it all."

Bai Ge was currently in his Shadow Person state, capable of lifting five hundred kilograms. This meant he could absorb about half a ton of spinel into his brain hole.

He busied himself for a while, clearing away a large pile of broken crystal fragments around him.

After a rough calculation, he estimated he had taken over five hundred tons of spinel fragments.

"These fragments are also around two thousand degrees Celsius... Bell, do these spinel fragments or gases contain radioactive elements?"

"No!"

Spending a bit of energy allowed him to perform internal visualization. Seeing the molecular structure of the microscopic world was just a matter of spending more energy.

Any elements present were immediately obvious.

"So, once this heat is absorbed, it's gone."

"I want five-thousand-degree Celsius magma! That would definitely have radioactive elements, constantly releasing energy!"

Bai Ge looked up, gazing at the vast expanse of countless giant crystals.

These crystals had isolated the high-temperature magma from the outside, trapping Bai Ge here.

"Coming here resulted in a containment item, and such a small harvest won't do..."

"I have to find a way out..."