The engines activated, and the Cangqiong began speeding through the silent sea of stars. This drop point was still terrible; the Sky-Patrol Radar's detection range revealed no celestial bodies.
After wandering around like a headless fly for several hours without finding anything else, Song Chi's heart nearly sank to the bottom.
For this exploration, he had specifically bought another Raging Tiger I Floating Land Mining Vehicle, along with two vehicle-mounted surveying instruments, spending a full four hundred strands of Zero Rank Floating Continent Essence just to greatly improve mining efficiency.
Now, aside from that batch of temporary emergency resources, he had only three hundred strands of Zero Rank Floating Continent Essence left.
If this expedition did not yield enough, the profits from future openings of the Market Ruins would inevitably be greatly reduced.
Just as he was growing anxious, the Sky-Patrol Radar suddenly sounded a shrill alarm.
Dense red dots clustered in the upper-left portion of the radar display. Two enormous fleets were engaged in fierce combat.
At some point, the Cangqiong had blundered into a stellar battlefield between two alien civilizations.
The Cangqiong slowed to its minimum speed and did its utmost to conceal its tracks, while Song Chi silently observed the sizable war from the edge of the battlefield.
Both sides had more than ten thousand warships. Judging from the energy fluctuations unleashed by their naval guns, most of these warships were Zero Rank, with around a hundred First Rank vessels mixed in. Overall, this was the lowest-intensity type of civilization war on an interstellar battlefield.
Even so, that was on the scale of civilizations. For Song Chi, a battlefield of this size was still extraordinarily dangerous, and he had no intention of getting involved.
The Dark Matter Energy Shield was certainly impressive, but it was hardly enough in a battlefield with over ten thousand warships, where a moment's carelessness could bring concentrated fire upon him.
Moreover, the Cangqiong's current firepower was rather weak. At most, it had a thicker health bar. Its chances of fishing up any major gains amid the chaos were practically zero.
He continued drifting around the edge of the battlefield for over ten minutes. Only after locking onto an alien warship that had largely disengaged from the battle did Song Chi seize the opportunity and strike swiftly. The already heavily damaged alien vessel was easily destroyed.
Since he had decided not to participate in the war yet still lingered near the battlefield, he was naturally not there to watch the show. His goal was the star charts aboard those warships.
He knew nothing about this completely unfamiliar star region, but that did not mean the local civilizations were equally ignorant. Rather than charging around blindly like a headless fly, wouldn't it be far better to spend a dozen minutes obtaining a star chart?
With the star chart in hand, Song Chi immediately piloted the Cangqiong away without the slightest hesitation.
Several minutes later, the Cangqiong, now far from the battlefield, turned sharply and sped toward the nearest small debris belt marked on the star chart.
In truth, the star chart covered a vast region. Not only were there small debris belts, but there were also three Star Sea Floating Continents. One of them was a Level 2 resource floating continent, rich in all kinds of resources, with more than one or two medium-to-large metal veins.
However, they were simply too far away. A distance of twelve light-years was utterly out of reach for the Cangqiong in its current state, without a "Warp Device" installed. Only that debris belt could be reached in a short time, making it the only choice available.
More than an hour passed, and the Cangqiong finally arrived at the target small debris belt.
Compared to the one he had encountered during his last exploration, this debris belt was clearly much smaller in diameter. Song Chi did not care. Conservatively speaking, there were hundreds of thousands of celestial bodies within it, while less than twenty hours remained. He would likely be able to survey only a few hundredths of this debris belt, not even counting the time required for mining.
Knowing there was no time to waste, Song Chi entered the Market Ruins and brought out a Fierce Tiger Mining Vehicle. Then the Cangqiong plunged headlong into the debris belt.
Time passed, and the vehicle intelligence aboard the Fierce Tiger Mining Vehicle continued issuing notifications.
"Ten kilograms of Adamantine. Skip."
"Gas deposit. Unfortunately, only a few hundred kilograms. Skip."
"Astral Cold Iron. Fifty tons. Mining will take half an hour."
Mining time always passed quickly. In the blink of an eye, another five hours had gone by. There had been gains during that time, but none in significant quantities, so there was still no opportunity to deploy the second mining vehicle.
After all, if the deposit was too small, mining would be finished in around half an hour. Going back and forth would only be troublesome.
The Cangqiong continued wandering aimlessly. The debris belt was large enough anyway, so there was no need for any survey plan.
The surprise came suddenly. Just a few minutes later, Song Chi discovered a fragment containing more than a thousand tons of Adamantine.
"Radiation reaction from 'Adamantine ore' detected on a fragment at coordinates xxxxx. Preliminary estimate: over 'one thousand tons.'"
Song Chi carefully parked the Cangqiong on the target fragment, then lowered the Fierce Tiger Mining Vehicle from the shuttle. He assigned three First Rank Fire Sunflower Soldiers to guard it, then brought out the second mining vehicle from the Market Ruins and piloted the Cangqiong onward to continue surveying.
A thousand tons of Adamantine would take at least several hours to mine, enough time for the Cangqiong to survey a whole area.
"Damn it, this place is cursed. The fragments are packed way too densely."
After a violent shudder, the Cangqiong narrowly passed through a gap between several tightly packed fragments. The shuttle, which had only been repaired a few days ago, suffered a few more minor scrapes. They were not serious, but they still drew a stream of curses from Song Chi.
If the surveying instruments had not detected unusual radiation fluctuations within this cluster of fragments, no sane person would have drilled into an area like this.
Then again, even the surveying instruments could not determine the exact result. They had merely detected a layer of unusual energy fluctuations. Song Chi was quite curious about it; otherwise, after releasing only two general-purpose drones and preliminarily confirming that there was no danger, he would not have rushed in so hastily.
Song Chi swept his gaze around and frowned slightly. At a glance, there seemed to be nothing unusual in the area beyond the dense fragments. The vehicle intelligence behind him still reported, "Unknown energy fluctuations. Further surveying required."
Looking at the dozen or so fragments ahead, each at least ten meters long and wide, Song Chi felt a headache coming on.
If he wanted to manually inspect them one by one, it would clearly take several hours to finish.
Seeing this, Song Chi could only bring the Cangqiong closer while having the surveying instruments determine exactly which fragment was emitting the energy fluctuations.
More than ten minutes later, after eliminating over half of them, Song Chi began lowering the mining vehicle and had it conduct carpet-style excavation on the remaining five fragments one by one.
An hour quickly passed. The first, second, and third fragments were eliminated in succession, and the Fierce Tiger Mining Vehicle began work on the fourth fragment.
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