From the fake emperor to the concubine

As spiritual energy flowed, the front end of the pickaxe in Old Chen's hand actually emitted a little light.

Then he swung the pickaxe high and dug hard at the stone next to him.

A small corner of the originally solid stone wall was suddenly dug open.

"Huh..." Old Chen breathed a sigh of relief: "Xiao Zheng, did you see that? This is the only way to dig out these stones."

However, after only digging two or three times, Mr. Chen had to put down his pickaxe and start meditating to restore his spiritual energy.

There are a large number of igneous rocks gathered in this mine, so the fire-type spiritual energy here is very abundant.

In just half a cup of tea, Old Chen's spiritual energy had almost recovered, and he picked up the pickaxe and started mining.

During this period, Zheng Yi also observed the situation of other people.

They were basically the same as Old Chen, using spiritual energy to make their pickaxes sharper. After digging a few times, when the spiritual energy was exhausted, they would start meditating and practicing Qigong to restore the spiritual energy.

Young people generally don't have that much spiritual energy, so they have to use their internal energy to recover after digging once or twice.

Although the older ones have more spiritual energy and can dig a few more times, their recovery speed is not as fast as that of the young people.

However, there are two people whose situations are completely different from the others.

One of them was Zhou Shitou, the village chief of Hewan Village. He was a capable person. Although he was only at the peak of Qi training, his spiritual energy was extremely abundant. Since he started mining, Zheng Yi had never seen this guy rest and replenish his spiritual energy.

At this time, there were already two pieces of excavated igneous rock next to him.

The igneous rock ore that had just been dug out looked pitch black and inconspicuous, no different from an ordinary coal mine.

However, the fire spiritual energy that fills it is extremely surging.

As for the other one, he was a young man who had been kicked by Zhao Qing before and was as thin as a bamboo pole.

His situation was rather miserable. He tried his best to lift the pickaxe above his head, and even when he swung it with all his strength, he could only leave a fist-sized gap in the stone.

And every time he swung the pickaxe, he needed to restore his spiritual energy.

Looking at his appearance, it’s unclear whether he can dig up any ore after a whole day.

After Old Chen continued mining, Zheng Yi also tried to use his spiritual energy to strengthen his pickaxe. It turned out that mining again was much easier than before.

After all, these pickaxes are made of refined gold stone, which is used to make spiritual energy, so the spiritual energy consumed to strengthen them is not particularly large.

With one hit of the pickaxe, a large piece of the stone in front of Zheng Yi was dug out. Among the fallen stone, a black mark the size of a football was revealed.

Elder Chen next to him was delighted when he saw this: "Xiao Zheng, you are really amazing. You managed to dig up igneous rock on your first try. Moreover, it's such a big piece. It can be counted as at least ten portions."

"If you do it yourself, you can stop working completely within three days."

Zheng Yi and Old Chen took some time to work together to dig the igneous rock out of the rock wall.

Villagers from several nearby Hewan villages, seeing such a large piece of igneous rock, also came over to watch the fun.

"Tsk tsk tsk, that's awesome, Old Chen."

"The last time I saw such a large piece of igneous rock was about two months ago, right?"

"The one from two months ago was much smaller than this one."

"With this, that fellow Qingmaogou will be quiet for a few days."

After looking at it in wonder for a while, everyone went back to their own work. After all, the tasks they had were not easy.

For this naturally formed spiritual stone vein, the larger the single piece of ore, the more energy it contains, and the higher its value is naturally.

Even if the weight of the scattered ore is twice that of the one dug out by Zheng Yi, the spiritual energy contained in it may not be comparable to that of this one.

However, although the value of this ore is high, it is still far less than the task assigned to the Chen family.

After being happy, Mr. Chen continued to work hard at mining.

Although Zheng Yi could sense the location of other ores, he did not dig them immediately.

Apart from him, no one else should be able to sense the exact location of the volcanic mine.

They can only rely on experience or luck and work hard.

After digging out two pieces of igneous rock, the village chief Zhou Shitou only found another piece in the whole morning.

At noon, Zhao Qing actually came over and distributed food to the villagers who were mining.

Just like what Zheng Yi had seen yesterday, there was rice porridge with wheat husks floating in it, and a steamed bun that looked similar to a steamed corn bread but was as hard as a lump of earth.

After lunch, Zhou Shitou came over with his pickaxe: "Uncle Chen, let me help you."

Zhou Shitou and Chen Lao spent a whole afternoon together and only dug out four pieces of igneous rock.

Including the one the old man dug up this morning, there are five pieces in total.

Not only Old Chen, but even the young man who was as thin as a bamboo pole had many people who had completed their tasks to help him.

The young man kept smiling and thanking, while he was also working hard at mining.

Unfortunately, his strength was too weak, and his luck was also bad, so he didn't dig up anything after a whole day.

If he hadn't had several people to help him, he might not have been able to complete his task today.

Ever since a large piece of volcanic rock was dug out in the morning, Zheng Yi has been paddling along. It seems that he has dug quite a few times, but in fact he is deliberately avoiding the location of the volcanic rock mine.

All his attention was focused on observing the villagers of Hewan Village.

At the end of the day, everyone carried their harvest and reported to Zhao Qing.

Each person has three tasks per day. Zhao Qing is responsible for statistics, and there is a special accountant next to him who is responsible for bookkeeping.

The others can basically pay enough.

But when it was Chen Lao's turn, Zhao Qing glanced at the football-sized igneous rock ore, and counted the five that Zhou Shitou had helped dig out: "Chen Mu, thirteen pieces!"

When Old Chen heard this, he became anxious: "Manager Qing, this is not right. Such a large volcanic rock mine should be counted as at least ten pieces. Why did you only count three pieces for me?"

Zhao Qing's face darkened: "I said eight dollars, so it's eight dollars. Do you have any objection, old man?"

"You... aren't you bullying me?" Old Chen said indignantly.

Zhao Qing looked sinister: "I bullied you, so what? Give me a plan, Chen Mu will hand over twelve dollars today!"

Seeing that Mr. Chen was about to argue, Zheng Yi secretly glanced at him.

He stepped forward and said to Zhao Qing with an apologetic smile: "Please forgive me, Steward Qing. There were a lot of things going on in my uncle's family and I lost my temper. Steward Qing, don't argue with him. Whatever you say is what we have no objection to."

Zhao Qing's expression eased a little, and he glanced at Chen Lao with disdain: "Your nephew is more reasonable than you."

It was not until they were almost home that Old Chen's anger gradually subsided. He smiled at Zheng Yi with self-blame: "I'm sorry, Xiao Zheng, I have to let you clean up the mess for an old man like me."

Zheng Yi waved his hand, his eyes flashing in the dark: "Those guys just wanted to take advantage of the situation, but it's not appropriate for us to clash with them now."

Old Chen didn't take Zheng Yi's words to heart. He pushed open the gate with a creak.

A small figure in the wooden house ran out quickly and threw himself into Old Chen's arms: "Grandpa, I miss you so much."

Old Chen touched Chen Xiaobao's head kindly and said, "Grandpa came back late. You must be hungry, right? We'll have dinner soon."

"I'm going hunting." Zheng Yi naturally didn't want to eat the rice porridge that was almost going bad, so he took the initiative to go hunting in the mountains.

Just like yesterday, Zheng Yi encountered countless accidents during the hunting process.

Fortunately, his cultivation was still there, and those accidents did not cause him any harm except for some effort.

After dinner, Zheng Yi picked up the pickaxe and started studying.

While mining during the day, he discovered that these people's mining methods were very unscientific.

Although it is a bit strange to talk about science in the world of immortal cultivation.

However, what these people did was like a strong man using a hammer and an electric drill to drill holes in the wall.

Read the error-free version at 69shuba! 6=9+shu_ba is the first to publish this novel.

There is no way to bring out the true function of the electric drill.

Zheng Yi didn't really know much about refining equipment, and had basically never come into contact with anything related to refining equipment.

But this is not a problem. To put it simply, refining equipment is the process of using external objects to enhance one's own spiritual energy.

This kind of thing is essentially the same as the nature of martial arts.

Do it as soon as you think of it. Zheng Yi recalled some of the spiritual weapons he had used before and began to make some modifications to the pickaxe.

If the pickaxe were to be made into a true spiritual weapon, Zheng Yi certainly wouldn't be able to do it.

However, it is not too difficult to just strengthen the pickaxe so that the user does not have to invest a lot of spiritual energy to keep the pickaxe sharp to a certain extent.

Zheng Yi used a small knife to carve some formation talismans on the wooden handle of the pickaxe.

These talismans can absorb the surrounding spiritual energy for their own use when the user uses spiritual energy to strengthen the pickaxe.

While absorbing spiritual energy to strengthen the Jingjin Stone, a portion is left to maintain its own operation.

Because it is just carving on the wooden handle without any material assistance, the effect does not last long.

Moreover, the enhancing effect of the Gold Essence Stone is not as good as imagined.

It was the first time for Zheng Yi to concentrate on studying things like formations.

While testing, he made minor adjustments. It was not until the crowing of a rooster that Zheng Yi was surprised to find that it was already daybreak.

Arriving at the mine in a horse-drawn carriage, Zheng Yi couldn't wait to begin experimenting with the pickaxe he had modified.

After a little spiritual energy was injected, the spiritual energy slowly flowed on the handle of the pickaxe, emitting a faint light.

Zheng Yi was well prepared for this and used some means to cover up the light on the pickaxe.

Zheng Yi did not use his spiritual energy, but swung his pickaxe and hit the rocks in the mine.

With a crack, the hard stone was actually split into two halves.

Zheng Yi's hands did not stop, and he dug up dozens of stones in succession. The spiritual energy on the wooden handle of the pickaxe gradually became insufficient and soon dissipated completely.

Even so, the pickaxe modified by Zheng Yi is much more efficient than before.

Because he himself had only injected a small amount of spiritual energy, and the rest was absorbed by the formations themselves during their operation.

Fortunately, there is abundant spiritual energy here, otherwise, with the absorption efficiency of Zheng Yi's crude formation, it would probably be difficult to even operate.

But for Zheng Yi, this is enough.

As long as it can be used normally in the volcanic mine and reduce a lot of burden, his goal will be achieved.

"Mr. Chen, I want to modify your pickaxe so that you can mine more easily." Zheng Yi said solemnly to Mr. Chen.

"However, please keep this matter confidential and don't mention it to anyone for the time being."

“This…” Elder Chen hesitated for a moment, then gritted his teeth and said, “Don’t worry, Xiao Zheng. I will never tell anyone even if I die. Otherwise, let the Great God Yan Huang burn me to ashes, and I will be despised by people for the rest of my life.”

Zheng Yi smiled when he heard this: "It's not that serious, just don't tell anyone for a while."

His plan was huge and would take some time to observe and plan. During this period, he could not reveal too much.

The reason why I made an exception to help Mr. Chen modify a mining pickaxe was not only to relieve the old man's pressure, but also to test the effect of this thing on other people.

This time, Zheng Yi put a lot of effort into modifying the pickaxe and hid all the formations, and had to sacrifice some performance for this.

At the beginning, Mr. Chen took the pickaxe modified by Zheng Yi too seriously.

As soon as he used it, he immediately noticed the difference.

Originally, he needed to use a lot of spiritual energy to increase the strength of the pickaxe to the level where he could dig through the stones.

But the current consumption is only one tenth of the original amount at most.

In the past, he could only dig a few times after each strengthening, but now he can dig more than ten times.

The difference between them can be seen with just a little thought.

In just less than an hour, Mr. Chen had dug out three pieces of igneous rock and completed today's task.

This is when your luck is not too good. If your luck is a little better, it is not impossible to dig more than ten pieces a day.

This speed filled Mr. Chen's whole body with strength, and he couldn't wait to continue mining.

After all, with the new pickaxe, he could pay off the debts owed by his two sons in three to five days at most.

Seeing this, Zheng Yi quickly stopped Mr. Chen and said, "Old man, we can't be too ostentatious."

An old man who had difficulty completing his assigned tasks suddenly dug up a large amount of igneous rock.

Even a loser like Zhao Qing who can only rely on the power of others to bully others would probably be able to find the problem.

"You're right, I was too excited." The old man looked disappointed.

"Don't worry too much. It won't be long before everyone can use it."

Three days later, Zhou Shitou came to help Chen Lao mine as usual, but was surprised to find that Chen Lao had already completed all his tasks for the day.

"Uncle Chen, you are still strong despite your old age." Zhou Shitou laughed and gave Chen Mu a thumbs up.

"How dare you tease your uncle, you little brat." Old Chen kicked him angrily.

Zheng Yi had a smile on his face: "The reason why the old man is mining fast is not just because of good luck."

Zheng Yi handed the modified pickaxe to Zhou Shitou: "Come... give it a try." OK (End of this chapter)