"Come on, take me to have a look."
Chu Xiu walked ahead, while Ah Yin rolled up two tough leaves and followed behind him.
They had barely made it up the mountain when a notification suddenly sounded in Chu Xiu's mind.
[Ah Yin feels intense anticipation toward you. Bond value +3] [Current bond value: 10 points.]
"Hmm?"
Chu Xiu froze for a moment.
He turned his head slightly and glanced at Ah Yin. She hurriedly looked away, not daring to meet his eyes.
"Interesting."
Chu Xiu broke into a wicked grin.
He had spent the past half month busy building the shaft furnace, leaving Ah Yin to search for iron ore on her own. He had gone so long without teasing her that this little minx must have been pent up for ages.
Chu Xiu suddenly stopped.
Ah Yin immediately panicked, her eyes darting about as she asked helplessly, "W-why did you stop?"
"I'm tired from walking. Time to rest my feet."
Chu Xiu plopped down on a large rock beside him and beckoned to Ah Yin. "Come here."
Ah Yin approached, putting up a token resistance even as she yielded.
Her face and ears flushed crimson. "What is it?"
"Building that shaft furnace lately has worn me out. Come help me relax."
Chu Xiu pointed at the leaf around his waist. His meaning was obvious.
Ah Yin knew this was wrong, but her body crouched down against her will.
An hour later.
Chu Xiu and Ah Yin arrived somewhere they had never visited before. Strange rocks rose all around them, and spirit beast tracks marked the ground.
The rocks on the ground were silvery gray-iron ore of extremely high purity.
"This is a thirty-thousand-year-old Silverback Gorilla's territory. We need to hurry, or we'll be in trouble if he discovers us."
Ah Yin spoke quietly.
As her lips parted, a faint smell of disinfectant drifted out.
Chu Xiu sneered. "Only thirty thousand years? If he stays out of our way, fine. If he comes looking for death, I'll send him off to meet his great-grandmother."
With Concealment and Wolverine Claws, Chu Xiu no longer feared the vast majority of spirit beasts.
Strength-based ones in particular posed no threat to him at all.
Only beasts with area-of-effect spells or mental attacks warranted a little caution.
But Ah Yin was with him. Although Chu Xiu had nothing to fear himself, he did not want her getting hurt.
"Keep an eye out for me. I'll do the mining."
Chu Xiu took the tough leaves from Ah Yin, spread them on the ground, then extended his Wolverine Claws and began digging for ore.
Although this was a surface deposit, the ore aboveground was too heavily oxidized and was not as useful as what lay underground.
Whenever Chu Xiu dug out a piece of ore, he wrapped it in a tough leaf, using the leaves as containers.
Soon, he had filled two large bundles with ore.
Standing beside him, Ah Yin said awkwardly, "Chu Xiu, this ore is too heavy. Pack a little less. I'm afraid I won't be able to carry it."
"Who said you had to carry it?"
Chu Xiu smiled. "I'll handle the work with my hands. You just need to do more with your mouth."
[Ah Yin develops unusual feelings toward you. Bond value +1] [Current bond value: 15 points.]
When they had left the cave today, Ah Yin's bond value had only been nine points. It had risen by one shortly after they came out.
Then, while she was helping Chu Xiu relax earlier, it had risen by another four points.
With this latest point added in, today's increase had nearly matched the growth of the past half month.
Ah Yin's face filled with shy embarrassment. She murmured her assent and said nothing more.
Seeing that he had gathered enough ore, Chu Xiu was about to stop when his claws suddenly struck something unusually hard.
His Wolverine Claws could slice through even iron ore with ease.
Yet there was something here that actually felt hard to him?
That was decidedly unusual.
"What is this? Hiss..."
Chu Xiu dug hard a few more times and unearthed a dazzling gemstone the size of a goose egg, glowing blue.
[Starlight sapphire] Grade: upper spirit tier Mutation: starlight Effect: contains spatial energy. Can be used to craft magical artifacts. --------
Chu Xiu was stunned.
Not because he had unearthed a spatial material, but because of the final term in its description.
"Magical artifacts?!"
"No wonder I can't use soul power on my Deserted Island. This damn place runs on magic power!"
Chu Xiu was thrilled.
The Douluo World was a lower-dimensional world, its density not even one-tenth that of Emperor Earth. In other words, an ordinary person from Emperor Earth could lift ten thousand jin in the Douluo World.
Magic power, meanwhile, was a force wielded only by the immortal cultivators of Dragon Kingdom legends on Emperor Earth.
It stood two whole tiers above the Douluo World.
No wonder something as low-grade as soul power was completely suppressed on the Deserted Island.
"It's starlight sapphire."
Ah Yin recognized the starlight sapphire at a glance as well. Her eyes lit up. "This is valuable stuff. It can be used to make spatial soul tools."
"Unfortunately..."
Her tone shifted, and she sighed. "We can't use soul power here. Even if we had a soul tool, we couldn't use it. Besides, starlight sapphire is only a material, so it's even less useful."
"Not necessarily."
Chu Xiu chuckled and pressed the starlight sapphire into Ah Yin's hand. "Keep this safe. It might come in handy someday."
Ah Yin accepted the starlight sapphire.
Even if it was unusable, it would look quite pretty as an ornament.
Back at the cave, Chu Xiu poured the ore out of the bundles and crushed it into small fragments with the hammer made from Luo Sanpao's long bone.
Then he handed it over to the girls to wash and dry.
Several more days passed.
After several failures, Chu Xiu finally forged his first satisfactory iron ingot.
"It worked."
Looking at the iron ingot he had forged with his own hands, Chu Xiu was filled with excitement.
Although it was only an ordinary iron ingot, it was unquestionably a huge step toward his future goal of forging soul tools, or even magical artifacts.
"Haha, it really worked! Chu Xiu, you're amazing!" Ning Rongrong cried happily.
"Yes! I never imagined that just the few of us could forge an iron ingot."
Shui Bing'er also gazed at Chu Xiu with admiration written all over her face.
At the same time.
A notification Chu Xiu had not heard in a long while sounded in his mind.
[Shui Bing'er feels intense admiration toward you. Bond value +5] [Current bond value: 100 points.] [You have obtained: martial soul-mutated ice phoenix, soul power level 42, soul skills... and more.] [Your second spirit ring has formed!]
"Inhale... exhale..."
Chu Xiu was beside himself with excitement.
After nearly two months of struggling to survive, he had finally obtained his second spirit ring.
Chu Xiu could hardly wait to go out and test the power of his ice phoenix martial soul, but now was not the time.
"It's getting late. Let's stop forging for today."
Chu Xiu laughed. "To celebrate our official entry into the Iron Age, how about we drink until we're all drunk tonight?"
"Yay! I'm in!"
Ning Rongrong was the first to agree, jumping up cheerfully. "We get another feast!"
Even Qian Renxue revealed a rare hint of a smile.
Now that they had entered the Iron Age, their safety would be better assured.
More importantly, the progress of civilization was a joy in itself.
Although they had been forcibly dragged onto the Deserted Island from an advanced civilization, seeing something crafted by human hands like the things in their old world was still deeply comforting.
Ah Yin, meanwhile, seemed to anticipate something. A blush rose to her cheeks, and she said softly:
"Then I'll go prepare dinner and the fruit wine."
Before you continue