Evolving by devouring from a young dragon

Grimm stood outside the shed, watching this scene through the windowpane, said nothing, and simply walked away on his crutches.

He knew Fire Spirit wasn't around, but he could sense Alduin watching the mine.

The Great Dragon once said, "Just learn from the dumbest."

Press the button, record the number, and a green light indicates normal operation; a red light indicates a report. As for why the surveying instrument lights up green, you don't need to understand.

On the twentieth day of the training, Koren began to perform "routine calibration" on the equipment.

During the day, the workers in Grim learn how to operate the equipment, and at night, the equipment is left in the shed for inspection by technicians from the Deep Pulse Chamber of Commerce.

But what Grimm didn't know was that after each calibration, the technicians soldered an extra miniature return array into the data recording module.

That thing was smaller than a fingernail, embedded in the circuit board's interlayer, and covered by a standard rune sequence, making it completely invisible to the naked eye.

On the equipment manual that he handed over, Koren only wrote "Calibration Log: Normal" and made no mention of the extra rune.

The function of this feedback array is quite simple.

Regardless of who operates the equipment, all the raw data collected by the surveying instrument will be automatically copied and transmitted back to the headquarters of Golden City via the encrypted frequency band of the Deep Pulse Chamber of Commerce.

They will then discover that they also have another story to tell.

After all, the contract prohibits technicians from going deep into the mine, but it does not prohibit the equipment from automatically transmitting data.

Once the one-year exploration period ends, DeepPulse Chamber of Commerce will have a full year's worth of raw underground scanning data.

This is the real trump card that makes Vickers dare to sign contracts.

Grimm was completely unaware of all this, but it was impossible to keep it from Alduin's eyes and ears.

On the night the Deeppulse Merchant Guild was welding the teleportation array back in the workshop, Alduin lay deep within the dragon's lair, sensing the location of each new rune through the faint sound waves transmitted through the cracks in the rock.

The sound waves passed through the metal and crystal, peeling away the layers of the rune structure as he carefully deconstructed them.

Signal encryption, multi-band backhaul, automatic data synchronization, and automatic deletion of local backups in the cloud after transmission—a standard covert data theft scheme.

This is one way to use runes in magical technology.

Alduin, who possesses the ability to perceive sound waves, could clearly "see" those runic loops.

He could easily destroy them on the spot, burning each of the return arrays with sonic resonance.

But he didn't.

He merely caused an old seal deep within the rock to resonate very faintly, creating a small patch of continuous background noise on the surveyor's effective frequency band.

This interference made all the returned data appear to the DeepPulse Chamber of Commerce as a normal result of "complex geological conditions and severe signal attenuation".

Moreover, the existence of the seal was completely concealed.

The backhaul array is working properly and the data transmission is complete. However, once it is parsed, it will produce erroneous data, and the true geological conditions cannot be seen at all.

After a month-long training period, Koren and his assistant withdrew from the mine and retreated to the outer area stipulated in the contract.

He set up a long-term observation post on the outskirts, leaving two assistants to take turns receiving the transmitted data, while he led the rest of the team back to Golden City to give quarterly reports.

Over the next two months, the orc operators, following Alduin's private instructions, conducted a complete deep scan of the sinkhole basin using surveying instruments.

From the surface downwards, a scanning profile is taken every hundred feet, from the western boundary fault zone to the deepest network of fractures in the basin, leaving no inch unchecked.

Grimm, along with a few young orcs, carried equipment and ran back and forth across the basin for over sixty days, wearing out three pairs of shoes and accumulating a thick stack of data scrolls in the surveying instrument.

Three months later, all the exploration data was compiled. The result was as expected.

Two low-grade magic crystal veins, thirteen iron ore fragments, and several inert rock layers.

There was no dragon crystal, and not even a trace of abnormal magical fluctuations similar to those of dragon crystal could be found.

When Corren flew over from Goldscrab City to see the results, Grimm simply pushed a thick stack of raw data onto the table.

Koren flipped through the pages for an hour, his expression gradually shifting from businesslike to confused, and then from confused to helpless.

He wasn't pretending; he was genuinely confused.

The scan data was very complete, the operation method fully complied with the standards, and the exploration accuracy was sufficient to identify dragon crystal ore cores the size of a human head, but there was really nothing in the data.

He then spent another ten days re-inspecting the three key areas using the equipment provided by the Deep Pulse Chamber of Commerce, and the results were consistent.

The encrypted data transmitted synchronously back to Golden City also showed the same conclusion.

There are no dragon crystal veins in the subsidence basin.

His transmission array worked perfectly, and the data transmitted back was completely consistent with the data on site.

Auduin's acoustic resonance only blurred the scanning precision; it did not modify any data.

In other words, his own equipment, based on his own technical standards, led to a conclusion that he could not refute.

That's for sure; even if they increase their efforts, they won't be able to find any dragon crystals.

Because this thing doesn't exist in the material plane at all.

But Auduin would never say it out loud; why wouldn't he take advantage of a freebie?

Koren sat in the chair in the shed in silence for a long time. Finally, he slammed the re-inspection report on the table and said, "The report says 'nothing was found'."

His tone was filled with deep resentment, yet also with helplessness.

There was no problem with the returned runes, and the orcs did indeed explore the entire underground area, but the data they sent back was perfectly fine.

Unless, someone tampered with it...

But after glancing at the orcs, he shook his head.

How could someone who takes so long to learn how to use the equipment possibly tamper with it?

The information must be wrong. There was never an ancient dragon sealed here, or the ancient dragon is still alive.

When the idea came to him, he was startled by his own thoughts.

However, after considering the exploration results, no seals or similar objects were found, indicating that it should be the first scenario.

I must report this to headquarters upon returning...

Thinking this, he quickened his pace to leave.

In the following two months, the Deep Pulse Chamber of Commerce conducted an internal settlement for the subsidence basin exploration project.

The compensation of 20,000 magic crystals will be deposited into Grimm's merchant account at the Silver Vein Outpost on time after the contract expires, and will be paid in three installments, with each installment spaced two months apart, and the final installment will be settled in full before the end of the exploration period.

There was no default or delay, and the payment voucher bore the official seal of the Shenzhen Chamber of Commerce's finance department.

At the same time, Norlin from the Anvil Department sent someone to deliver a formal ore purchase contract.

The contract was very simple.

The Anvil Department purchases associated minerals of the magic crystal that have sunk into the basin at a price 10% higher than the average market price. A minimum purchase quantity is agreed upon each year, and the transportation cost is borne by the Anvil Department.

When Grimm brought the contract down from the platform for approval, Auduin glanced at it and nodded: "It can be signed."

Although he has no shortage of magic crystals, it is still a good thing to have a continuous supply of them.

Most importantly, by establishing connections with major chambers of commerce, one can purchase more equipment and resources to develop the territory.