Astral Ants

Chapter 264
The second rough quarry.

Longbai and Heiti each brought 60 large worker ants, medium worker ants, and medium soldier ants. They rested during the day and worked at night, drilling holes from hill to hill.

Hard, exhausting, and monotonous work.

Long Bai persisted for less than ten days before he had the idea of ​​running away.

For another two days,

At dawn, on the way back to the nest after work,

Long Bai made up his mind to leave today, and began to think about how to say goodbye to Heiti, how to appease Heiti's emotions...

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty!"

Suddenly, Hei Ti, who was working on another hill, rushed down the hill like crazy and ran towards this side.

"My lord! I found it!"

"Finally found it!"

"Raw stone!"

Hei Ti desperately shook the tentacles to release the message.

--found it? !
Long Bai was dumbfounded, and then couldn't help being ecstatic.

I found it!
Behind Heiti, a troop of soldier ants ran up, and one of the soldier ants held a rough stone in its jaws. Surrounded by the ants, it came to Long Bai and carefully placed the rough stone at Long Bai's feet.

"it is good!"

Long Bai was overjoyed, he twisted the rough stone to check it, waved his paw, and gave the command: "Look and see!"

An inconspicuous hill with a height of [-] meters, dark brown rocks.

There are large and small rocks all over the place.

"My lord, here."

Hei Ti ran ahead and led the way.

At the foot of the mountain, there is a tunnel with a diameter of about 30 cm, which is just for two large worker ants to pass through side by side. It moves forward horizontally and leads directly to the mountainside.

"...Okay." Long Bai mentally scanned the cave, and at a depth of 40 meters, the worker ants were busy digging rocks and widening the cave.

Heiti waved his tentacles, and the soldier ants got into the cave to help carry the stones out.

Soon, another digging worker ants waved their tentacles, releasing cheering pheromones, and the surrounding worker ants rushed to help.

The eight original stones are concentrated and embedded in the rock.

"My lord! Look! We have dug it!" Heiti cheered, commanding the worker ants to dig out a few rough stones and send them to Long Bai.

"Don't be too happy yet!"

Long Bai buried his head in his eyes, his excited mood quickly cooled down, and explained:
"Raw ore deposits are divided into rich ore, medium ore, and lean ore according to their abundance. The difference is huge. If the rough ore accounts for more than 10%, it can be called a rich ore; if the rough ore accounts for 1% to 10%, it is considered a medium ore, and it is also mined. the value of."

"The proportion of rough stones is less than 1%, and all the excavated stones are stones. If you find rough stones in the pile of stones, the value will not be high..."

Heiti raised his paw, interrupted, and asked: "My lord, the proportion means..."

Long Bai: "A 1% ratio means digging out 100 bags of stones and yielding 1 bag of rough stones."

Hei Ti: "Ah..."

Heiti: "My lord, this rock is very hard!"

Long Bai: "The rocks in the rough quarry are very hard, and most of them are black."

Long Bai waved his tentacles and said, "Heiti, don't rush to dig. You direct the worker ants to dig tunnels deep in the mountainside, up, down, left, and right. I will direct the ant colony to do some exploration around the foot of the mountain. Let's explore first. It shows the distribution range, depth and abundance of mineral deposits here."

"Understood, Your Majesty." Hei Ti replied forcefully.

Long Bai and Hei Ti each led a team of worker ants, they split up and did not stop working until noon.

Take a half day off.

After sunset, continue.

After two days of drilling and exploration, it was initially confirmed that there is no rough stone on the mountain.

Multiple points, dig down.

It took another two days to lock the distribution range of the mineral deposits, which are located below the mountain.

Digging deeper, the proportion of rough stones has increased.

Long Bai and Hei Ti split up and dug caves in many underground places for testing purposes.

About 1 meters deep into the ground, the proportion of rough stones has gradually increased from less than 10% to more than [-]%, and further deeper, the proportion of rough stones has begun to shrink.

It took another three days to basically prove that the entire deposit is roughly spherical with a radius of about 100 meters, and the center has the highest proportion of rough stones.About 30 meters away from the center, the proportion of rough stones dropped rapidly to less than 1%.About 50 meters away from the center, it takes 1000 bags of stones to dig out 1 bag of rough stones.

By size, this is a miniature rough deposit.

……

In the second rough quarry, in the temporary ant nest, Long Bai greeted Hei to propose something.

Scratching the stone wall with the forefoot, a smooth surface is formed, the toe tip is carved with a mountain pattern, and the characters are marked.

"Heiti, this is the mountain where the rough stone deposit is located. It is more than 400 meters long and 200 meters wide. This is where the rough stone was discovered by drilling."

Cypress tentacles pointing.

"Yes!" Heiti stood upright, and moved his tentacles to show that he could understand.

Long Bai raised his claws, and drew a circle under the mountain peak pattern, saying: "This is the overall distribution of rough stone deposits, with a radius of about 100 meters."

Long Bai drew a small circle inside the big circle, saying: "This is the central mining area worth mining, with a radius of 50 meters."

Heiti nodded his tentacles to agree, and after thinking about it, he asked: "My lord, don't you dig in poor mining areas?"

Long Bai: "Don't dig. It's a waste of time. If you have this time, it's better to plant more fruit trees in Heilian Lake. It's much more cost-effective than this."

Long Bai: "Only dig this area."

Hei Ti: "...Okay!"

Long Bai raised his claws, and from the bottom of the mountain, he drew a vertical line that went straight to the bottom of the circle, saying:
"On the whole, the content of rough stones is not high, the rock is hard, and there is no risk of collapse. A vertical passage is directly drilled and dug upwards from the bottom. When excavating, the rocks are backfilled on the spot, and the rough stones are screened and transported out, and piled up in a centralized manner."

Hei Ti: "Understood!"

Longbai's tentacles pointed to the center of the circle, and said: "The rough stone content in the center area has reached about 10%, and the rock formation may not be strong enough. When excavating close, be careful and hollow out the center first."

Hei Ti: "Remember!"

Hei Ti: "My lord, how many rough stones are there in this mine, can you figure it out?"

Long Bai: "More than 1000 million, less than 1500 million. You can get 10 to 15 rough stones."

"it is good!"

Heiti was so excited that his tentacles danced wildly, "My lord, are you digging tonight?"

Long Bai tapped his tentacles, and said: "Follow the plan first, and try digging overnight. If there is no problem, you can stay and take charge of the mining. It's almost the end of winter, and I have to rush back to Xianglan Mountain to take charge of winter fishing."

"Is the ant nest food enough for the entire ant colony to survive for two months? Next spring, I will come in time. The scale of the mine is very small. With the number of worker ants and soldier ants here, mining can be completed in at most 4 months."

Hei Ti: "Got it—"

Heiti: "My lord, my share..."

Long Bai: "After mining, in the bookkeeping, you won't miss a single rough stone."

With a rare kindness, Longbai spread his membranous wings, patted Heiti's back armor lightly, and said, "Heiti, look, you are following the king, right? You are only an intermediate king, and you already have a wealth of over 10. , the resources of the advanced evolutionary mountain master level are available."

"Do it well! Your Majesty will not treat you badly."

"Oh--"

Heiti hesitated, and asked anxiously: "My lord, can you help me buy a kettle made of ice and fire?"

Long Bai: "???"

Long Bai: "What do you buy this thing for? After the work here is done, you will go back to Heilian Lake to cultivate and manage the orchard. The lake is full of water, can you be thirsty?"

Hei Ti: "Ah..."

Hei Ti: "I think the 'ice making' function is very good."

Hei Ti: "My lord, you can buy me a cheap one. It doesn't matter what it looks like, as long as it can make ice cubes. Hei Lian Lake is also quite hot in summer..."

Long Bai reminded: "After I evolve to the mountain master level, I will awaken a new water system ability, no accident, it should be 'ice making'. Correspondingly, the specialized blue soldiers I cultivate can also master this ability."

Heiti thought for a while, and insisted: "My lord, Bai Liu doesn't know how to command blue soldiers, so I'll buy one for him."

Long Bai: "..."

Long Bai: "Okay. I'll ask the flame spider traveler later. If you don't ask for the appearance, the price will definitely not be too expensive."

(End of this chapter)