Return to the Surface

"Seventy-eight million kilowatt-hours... I finally did it."

Bai Ge had soaked in the molten slag pool for thirty days.

The generator's diesel had run out within the first few days. After that, he had relied entirely on geothermal energy.

In the Material Universe, his food reserves were plentiful, but they were only enough to feed him for a month. If he rationed them, they could last a month and a half at most.

His food was almost gone, but fortunately, he had finally succeeded.

"It's clearly a Growth Trait, yet it requires so much energy... But the payoff is even greater!"

The pinnacle was gone! The limit had been removed!

In the vast universe, every living creature had a limit. But now, there was a human being without one.

His initial training might seem insignificant, but as he grew stronger, the effects would become unimaginably terrifying.

After sensing the consumption, Bai Ge returned to the pocket dimension.

He thought for a moment. He couldn't keep soaking in it forever. He needed a substitute.

"The appendix may be small, but it has plenty of capacity. It looks like it can hold out for quite a while."

"Then for the molten slag pool, I'll cut out the entire cecum!"

Although the smaller contact area with the heat source would greatly reduce charging efficiency, a whole cecum would only bring in about a thousand kilowatt-hours per hour.

But Bai Ge really had nothing else suitable to cut. His kidneys were still quite useful.

"If I urgently need electricity in the future, I'll jump in here and charge myself. That'll be more efficient."

"I'll use the cecum for charging normally. Losing a little efficiency won't matter."

Bai Ge decisively cut off his cecum and casually threw it into the molten slag pool.

This way, his cecum could soak in the pool while his appendix charged, freeing him to do other things.

"Master, the molten slag pool's temperature is showing a clear downward trend," Bell said.

"Is that so? I can't feel it... No matter. It's only a little over five thousand tons. I'll get some more and store extra."

As he spoke, Bai Ge transformed into the Shadow Person and entered the mantle once again.

The agony of the extreme heat and pressure was too torturous. Without the Calm Command, Bai Ge would collapse instantly.

But if he wanted to store more, he had to persevere.

Roughly every three hours, Bai Ge would return to the pocket dimension and rest for a while.

He would deactivate the Calm Command and vent for a bit.

His way of venting was simple... He would go to certain naturally developing pocket universes and indulge himself.

This was not physical pleasure, but mental relaxation.

In this place, his body as an Earth human could hardly feel anything.

He was merely finding some fun psychologically.

Here, he could experience an unbelievably satisfying life limited only by his imagination.

He was very restrained about it and never became addicted. Once he felt that the memories of the pain had been diluted, he would return to the mantle to suffer again...

Repeating this process, he could collect five thousand tons of molten slag every five hours.

After a little over two days, his Material Universe contained more than sixty thousand tons of molten slag.

"That should be enough... Let's go back."

Bai Ge was desperate to return!

He had already spent thirty-two days in the lower mantle.

He said to Bell, "Set it up. We'll still use random teleportation. It's a bit of a gamble... but at least it's cheap."

Bell instead said, "That will bring the molten material around you to the surface..."

Bai Ge immediately understood.

When he came down, it had clearly brought a mass of air with him. That was why explosive flames had appeared under the high pressure and high temperature inside the crystal.

This meant that the setting for Three Steps into Micro Wormhole had not only brought him down, but had also brought some of the air from the factory with him.

By the same logic, when he returned, even if the pseudo-micro-wormhole existed for only a fraction of a second, it would certainly bring some molten slag to the surface.

Molten material at five thousand five hundred degrees Celsius! Wherever it randomly appeared on the surface, it would be disastrous!

"I've been so busy these past few days that I lost my head... Good thing you reminded me. So when we return, we have to teleport precisely..."

Bell said, "Yes. At the very least, the destination must be located in a large body of water. A lake, river, or sea will do."

"How much energy do my appendix and cecum have?" A pseudo-micro-wormhole was already the result of an incredible coincidence. For that coincidence to also 'happen' to send him exactly where he wanted to go, the cost would certainly skyrocket.

Bell immediately answered, "There are only five hundred thousand kilowatt-hours remaining in the appendix. The cecum has accumulated fifty thousand kilowatt-hours over the past two days, for a total of five hundred fifty thousand."

Bai Ge nodded. One trait had consumed far too much electricity.

Still, the cecum had managed to accumulate fifty thousand kilowatt-hours in a little over two days in the molten slag pool, which was quite impressive.

After this return, he would not need to come down again for a long time.

Since that was the case, he should really start considering the issue of containment objects.

He truly had to control their growth. Including the bow tie, he now had twenty-six containment objects.

Bai Ge tried to directly manifest a permanent teleportation trait. That would only add one more, bringing the total to twenty-seven.

But after repeated experiments, he failed every time.

"Is it really impossible? Coincidence-type traits are cheap once or twice, but if I want one to be permanent, they're actually more expensive than other types!"

"Because that means I can permanently turn a certain kind of chance occurrence into inevitability..."

After dozens of experiments, Bai Ge helplessly gave up on permanently summoning a pseudo-micro-wormhole trait. He simply did not understand this kind of thing, and there was nothing he could do.

As for ignoring the issue and directly creating a fantasy-type teleportation ability, Bai Ge had tried that too. The cost seemed even higher.

"There's no other way. I can only make a one-time return."

"I will happen to collide with a pseudo-micro-wormhole exactly three seconds after returning to reality. It will be an accidental and brief coincidence in the vast universe. Its endpoint will be randomly sent to a location between one thousand and one thousand two hundred kilometers from here, and that location will happen to be in a large body of water."

Bai Ge did not set a precise endpoint. It was semi-random; as long as he landed in a large body of water, it would be fine.

After all, he only had five hundred fifty thousand kilowatt-hours left. A more precise setting probably would not have enough energy.

After setting it up, Bai Ge returned to reality in his Shadow Person state, placing himself in the molten slag.

This cost him five hundred twenty thousand kilowatt-hours from his appendix.

Adding one more coincidence parameter had cost more than five times as much as coming down.

Three seconds later, Bai Ge vanished instantly.

It was the height of summer.

At a bustling bay, ships were packed together, and voices filled the air.

In broad daylight, a small patch of seawater suddenly began to boil!

People on the ships soon noticed it and pointed at the sea in amazement.

"It's boiling! The seawater is boiling!"

The seawater was boiling? This wasn't the Red Sea!

Many people found the remark baffling, but some, driven by curiosity, came out and leaned over the railings to look down.

Only then did they understand. The seawater had not parted—it had boiled!

Countless bubbles were rising, mixed with a great many dead fish.

It looked exactly like the seawater had been boiled. The affected area was not large, covering roughly a circular patch of sea twenty meters in diameter.

The crowded ships around it were all docked. Many people put down their work and gathered around to watch, clicking their tongues in wonder.

The sea released huge amounts of gas along with the bubbles, which rose into the air and allowed even people in the distance to see it.

As a result, quite a few people gathered along the bay shore to watch.

"Look! The fish are cooked!"

Many dead fish floated to the surface, almost all of them cooked.

This seemed to be a fishing ground. When one of the managers saw the scene, he wailed, "What's going on? Who threw lime into the sea?"

As he spoke, large amounts of foul matter surged up, resembling black, filthy, unidentified powdery residue.

Not knowing what was happening, no one thought of volcanic ash.

While everyone's attention was focused on the black mud, a figure quietly climbed ashore from the bank.

It was Bai Ge, completely naked. The only thing on his body was a bow tie around his neck.

But he had specifically chosen a very secluded landing spot, and no one saw him.

Bai Ge hurriedly took spare clothes from the pocket dimension and put them on as fast as possible.

"It's near the coast. I got lucky..."

Bai Ge surveyed the bay. He knew this was some coastal city in his homeland, but he did not know which one.

It was not until he entered the crowd and glanced at the labels on the fishing-ground goods that he recognized the place.

"I actually ended up in Zhoushan..."

Bai Ge shrugged. When he went down, the destination had been random. The fact that he had returned within the country was already thanks to how large the country was.

By then, the seawater had stopped boiling and was gradually returning to calm.

Many fishing-ground workers were itching to get into the water and investigate.

"What exactly happened?" someone beside him muttered.

Bai Ge smiled. Only he knew what had happened.

In short, when he came up, the micro-wormhole had brought a lump of molten slag at five thousand five hundred degrees Celsius with him.

With such an extreme temperature appearing suddenly on the seafloor, the surrounding seawater had boiled and evaporated.

Many fish and shrimp had died instantly. Just before coming ashore, Bai Ge had even seen a large octopus in the sea get cooked in an instant.

Fortunately, the amount brought up was not large. The seawater had the upper hand and cooled the molten slag into a huge lump of oxides.

But these were not ordinary oxides. They were rich in deep-mantle minerals, including olivine and periclase.

Olivine was also a gemstone. However, because of the cooling conditions, the pieces that formed were not large. They were all small fragments, but even these rough stones were worth a great deal.

Not to mention, some of them were gem-quality.

When Bai Ge came ashore, he had seen more than a dozen relatively clear and translucent pieces of olivine and periclase settled in the cooled volcanic ash on the seafloor. Most were around a dozen carats, while some weighed dozens of carats.

He did not take a single one. After all, he had hundreds of tons in his pocket dimension...

"I don't see anything happening anymore. Should we go into the water and take a look?"

Suddenly, Bai Ge encouraged the crowd.

He hoped these people would find the gemstones on the seafloor. If a large group of people took gemstones they had picked up to sell, then he could sell some too without seeming suspicious.

People would naturally assume he was simply another lucky person who had found treasure in the sea.