This time, breaking the restriction took even longer than before—a full three incense sticks' worth of time.
Only then did the middle-aged man let out a long breath. He carefully set the storage ring aside, cold sweat already covering his forehead. The moment he placed it on the ground, his hands began trembling uncontrollably.
After keeping one's mind highly tense while doing delicate work for too long, one's hands would start shaking beyond control.
Clearly, he had been forcibly suppressing it just now. The instant he set down the storage ring, that suppression came undone.
"Young friend."
The middle-aged man's face was somewhat deathly pale, and he looked to be in terrible condition. In a hoarse voice, he said, "I really can't do it anymore. Not even a little. We can only stop here today. How about we meet here again tomorrow night and continue with the remaining rings?"
This time, the hoarseness in his voice was not an act.
It was as though he had shouted for dozens of minutes and made his own throat hoarse. His lips were already cracked and dry. He truly looked as though he had reached the end of his tether.
"Alright."
Chen Qiu stood and looked at the middle-aged man. He handed over a storage pouch and said softly, "You've worked hard, sir. The price we agreed upon is inside this storage pouch."
The cost of breaking a storage ring's restriction was not high.
One Spirit Stone could pay for the restrictions on three storage rings to be broken.
Though this was forbidden under the Great Xia Law, well... there were many things prohibited by the Great Xia Law. Some absolutely could not be touched openly, some were iron laws where anyone who reached out would surely be struck, some went unpunished unless