Morning Exercise for an Old Man

(About how much would it cost to build a computer for around three thousand?)

Emperor was an interesting fellow.

No, perhaps calling this guy a person was a little strange, considering he was a penguin.

Still, he had a remarkably interesting soul.

The only intolerable thing was that Emperor actually said the name Namba Heavy Industries had no taste!

What Emperor had tossed to Bai Ye was an obsidian crystal.

As everyone knew, flowing lava turned into cobblestone when it met water, while a lava source produced obsidian when it met water.

Although that explanation was highly unscientific, it did, to some extent, explain how obsidian crystals formed.

The obsidian in Bai Ye's hand came from an independent city—Siesta.

Siesta was surrounded by lakes and also had a volcano. After the volcano erupted, the remaining lava met the frigid lake water.

Since the outer layer of the lava flow dropped in temperature rapidly and cooled the fastest, the silica-containing magma quickly solidified into chunks, forming obsidian crystals.

In a certain world, obsidian was the hardest thing besides bedrock, and the only way to mine it was with a diamond pickaxe.

Naturally, real obsidian did not possess such absurd hardness. It was only around 5 to 6 on the Mohs scale.

"Still, it looks pretty nice..."

Bai Ye tossed the obsidian crystal in his hand. This stone counted as a New Year's gift from Emperor.

It was quite valuable.

It was said that obsidian could suppress Oripathy, making it extremely valuable on Terra.

And since mining obsidian damaged the volcano's natural environment, its extraction had now been banned.

That had made the remaining obsidian even rarer.

Unfortunately, Bai Ye knew full well that obsidian suppressing Oripathy was complete nonsense.

But that did not affect obsidian's value. Like gemstones, the value of