Why is my territory in a 2D anime art style?

Chapter 123 Yinghua Stone Ore

Wang Zhen shifted his gaze from the shield, and the three of them stopped strolling and instead jogged up the underground passage.

Suddenly, the view in front of him brightened, and Sui An saw an extremely exaggerated scene: countless shadow lizards guarded the surroundings, while on one side of the cave entrance, a giant creature lay prostrate in front of the cave, already on guard.

Before the three could react, Lu Ling had already disappeared. She appeared in the open space in front of the cave entrance, her right hand holding a gun and pointing it at the dark energy sphere the size of a human head. She actually froze it in mid-air, causing it to fall to the ground and shatter into pieces.

The spirit stood still, holding a talisman in its left hand and waving it in the air. The talisman transformed into countless icy lights and dissipated.

"Act according to the law!"

Countless frosts suddenly spread out from the spirit, reaching all around the cave entrance, as if a snowy world had descended. The shadow lizards that couldn't dodge in time had quietly turned into lifelike ice sculptures.

In the distance, the giant Shadow Lizard King seemed to sense the terror of the frost. Dense dark energy surged around it as it attempted to resist the frost's erosion.

Even a level 6 ice demon couldn't break free immediately, but this level 5 mutant actually managed to fight it off.

Its dark energy and the frost power corroded each other, preventing it from being frozen into an ice sculpture, while it itself tried to rush towards the spirit despite the power.

Lu Ling's figure flashed, transforming into a phantom as she charged forward. Just before the collision, she appeared above the behemoth. Hanging upside down in mid-air, Lu Ling suddenly thrust down her spear. The spear, imbued with frost power, shone brilliantly, forcefully breaking through the dense dark energy. Even the incredibly hard scales were pierced by this spear, pinning them firmly to the ground.

"roar!"

The intense pain caused it to struggle incessantly, and sand and stones flew everywhere. Even the three people hiding in the cave entrance were hit by the shooting stones, but fortunately, these were not considered any real attack on Wang Zhen and Zhao Feng.

Layer upon layer of frost power gathered from all sides, forming a vortex that flowed down the gun barrel, freezing the eight- or nine-meter-long mutated shadow lizard into a giant ice sculpture in just a few breaths.

Lu Ling drew her spear and landed gracefully to the side, attempting to shatter the ice sculpture with her spear, but was stopped by Sui An.

"Keep it, you can sell it for money!"

This level 5 mutated shadow lizard is intact and weighs at least two or three tons. If sold at the price of level 5 meat, it would fetch several hundred Originium, enough to recoup my investment.

It's a pity that there didn't seem to be any loot.

The three of them walked out of the cave. After the big guy froze to death, the shadow lizards in the distance scattered and were nowhere to be seen.

The massive frost domain that Lu Ling just unleashed likely froze a hundred or two shadow lizards of all sizes to death in the surrounding area.

Zhao Feng's eyes shone as she looked at the illusory figure of the goddess before her, her eyes almost overflowing with envy.

"She's too strong. Even a level six combat professional can't match her in terms of lethality."

Wang Zhen shook his head, his gaze filled with astonishment.

"I've seen Captain Zheng take action. If we're only talking about the speed at which he killed this level 5 mutated Shadow Lizard, they're probably about the same. But he doesn't have this kind of wide-range damage characteristic. His fire-attribute source energy skills can only hit a range of five or six meters in diameter at most, which is already quite impressive."

"Stop admiring her. Do you have any other targets besides this one? She only lasts for fifteen minutes."

Sui An looked at the compass in his hand. Some residual light spots remained at the edge of the compass's detection range, but he couldn't distinguish their levels.

Wang Zhen looked around: "There was one, but we couldn't find any trace of it. There was a giant gecko, and we fought it back and forth, but then we ran away. We don't know how it went."

"Also, there was a tall figure that appeared on the distant grassland, but it was too far away."

Sui An turned his gaze to the hillside behind the cave entrance: "Let's walk up the mountain a few steps and take a look. I'm quite curious about the many shadow lizards on this mountain."

This mountain actually has very little tree vegetation, and in many places the rocks are exposed, making it look like a barren mountain.

The three people and one spirit started walking up the slope beside them. Before they had gone far, Wang Zhen asked in a low voice.

"Why does the energy concentration on this mountain seem higher than down below?"

Zhao Feng agreed, saying, "You feel the same way? Could there be some kind of treasure in these mountains that can gather energy?"

However, Lu Ling, who had been following them, suddenly stretched out his spear and tapped the protruding rock cliff next to him, the sound cold and clear.

"There is a spirit-gathering object at the foot of this mountain!"

The sudden sound stunned Sui An: "Do you know what it is?"

"I don't know, but I can sense it~"

Lu Ling shook her head slightly, but suddenly the spear in her hand shone brightly and slammed into the protruding rock cliff.

"boom!"

The deafening roar nearly startled Sui An. The rock was pried open by the spirit, and a cloud of dust billowed out. With a casual wave of the spirit's hand, the dust was swept away by an invisible force.

She pointed her spear downwards: "This is it!"

Sui An and Wang Zhen leaned over to look, and were immediately dumbfounded, even somewhat amused and exasperated.

"Isn't this raw Yinghua ore?"

"Yinghua Stone?" Upon hearing this, Zhao Feng curiously leaned over to look. At this moment, the exposed part of the mountain wall was a patch of gray and white interwoven crystals.

"This thing can gather source energy?"

Wang Zhen smiled and explained to Zhao Feng, "That's right! It's the core building material that Sui An needs. I searched all over Jiangcheng these past two days and only found about ten samples, but this whole area is full of it. This stuff is 80% more expensive than Dark Crystal Iron."

"Shen He, are there any other places with this besides this area?" Sui An asked impatiently.

Lu Ling, holding a long spear, pointed to many spots around the area: "Here, there, there are many around here, all hidden under the rocks."

Sui An was overjoyed. The area pointed to by the spirit was fifty or sixty meters in total. Could it be that there was a large Yinghua stone mine below?

Isn't this heaven helping me?

Suppressing his inner elation, Sui An asked curiously, "How did you find out?"

The spirit remained aloof: "I have spiritual awareness and can observe my surroundings."

"Spiritual awareness~" Sui An immediately understood that this was not an ability possessed only by those who cultivated in their previous lives.

Almost no combat professionals in this world possess this ability. Although they can sense more things, most of them are vague and merely subconscious.

"Then could you please take a look around the area? Is this the whole area?"

Lu Ling moved with graceful ease, gliding more than ten meters away with a light touch on the hillside. She surveyed the surrounding area within a hundred meters, and the shadow lizards all retreated wherever she went.

"It's all within a hundred meters!"

Sui An could no longer hide his smile at the good news brought by the spirit.

He found this result reasonable. So many Shadow Lizards grew in this small mountain. If it weren't for the Yinghua Stones gathering source energy and accelerating the growth of various source energy life forms, the resources in this small area would not have been enough for these Shadow Lizards to grow.

At this moment, Sui An's desire to develop this secret realm became even more apparent. He had only casually flipped through the quartz and discovered Yinghua Stone ore and Dark Crystal Iron Ore in the underground cave.

Just how many treasures are hidden in this vast secret realm?

However, this secret realm is extremely vast, and they themselves have not fully explored this mountain. Even if they could recruit people to develop it, they probably wouldn't be able to get it started.

"Expedition Fortress!"

"Only by establishing our expeditionary fortress here can we be confident in dealing with the crisis posed by the native source beasts within!"

"I absolutely must develop this secret realm properly!"

Sui An left the secret realm.

Before leaving, he did not allow the spirit to continue its killing spree, to prevent the excessive bloodshed from causing unpredictable changes.

The group of people worked together to move the slowly thawing Shadow Lizards down, and also dug up a few pieces of Yinghua Stone ore to bring back. This bag of ore alone was worth at least several dozen Originium Stones, since Wang Zhen spent 88 Originium Stones on the price of the ore.

As for safety, Sui An still had a talisman on him, so he wasn't too worried at the moment.

They called Tiger to drive the car, dismembered the big guy, and carried him out of the secret realm, along with nearly a hundred small lizards, and brought them back together.

Erhu went back to the secret realm to mine. Fang Si and Hu Zi carried the big guy down, silently checked the situation, and then looked at the other shadow lizards that didn't seem quite right.

"What is this level five source beast? Is it a mutant?"

"This is probably at the elite level of risk of being killed. What kind of mine could be so dangerous?"

The longer he spent in Sui An's territory, the more curious he became about it.

An endless supply of high-quality blueprints, seemingly inexhaustible high-quality materials, and this mysterious energy vein.

Sui An was currently considering whether to explain the secret realm to Fang Si, so that the three of them, all at level four, could have more company.

During this ice fog disaster, Fang Si truly risked his life for the territory. If I hadn't saved him, he would be rotting away by now.

Whether it was for his sister or for something else, at least he wasn't afraid of death and dared to go for it.

She had told Wang Zhen and the others about her performance in the ice fog tide, but Zhao Feng and Wang Zhen both told her to make the decision herself.

Wang Zhen also made it clear that relying on just the three of them, it might take three to five years before they could finish exploring the secret realm.

While having more people join will mean taking a share of the spoils, it will also speed up the exploration of the secret realm and reduce its dangers.

Moreover, now that these ores have been discovered, more people will naturally need to cultivate them. This is not something that can be done by a few people in a small, secluded place.

But Sui An ultimately chose not to speak.

"Let's wait and see. I'll announce it on a larger scale once I have a firm grasp on the secret realm."

At this moment, Fang Nian ran over from the back of the yard, holding a round ball in her hand.

"Boss, I used 90 jin of the Yinghua Stone you gave me and spent about ten minutes refining it into a Yinghua Stone crystal. It consumed less than 10% of my source energy."

"Did you use the workshop?"

Sui An took the sphere and summoned his construction module, which was indeed a complete set.

Fang Nian nodded: "Of course I used it, but I only used the normal mode."

"If not, it would probably take about 100 kilograms of raw ore to refine one part of the source energy."

Sui An recalled the prices Wang Zhen had given him: 88 Origin Stones for 100 jin of raw ore, and 90 Origin Stones for the stone core. However, the price of this material was highly volatile and unstable due to demand and supply of raw materials.

"Alright, then you can refine all this ordinary Shadow Lizard meat and the remaining Yinghua Stone when you have time. The price will be calculated based on your source energy consumption, similar to the energy bar."

"Don't touch those mid-level source beasts. It's a waste to refine them into energy bars."

"Okay!"

Fang Nian beamed with joy and quickly pulled Fang Si to the back to find a cart: "Brother, brother, hurry up and help me move the goods~"

Sui An then looked at his construction module and brought up the blueprint for the [Small Town Transportation Module]. This composite blueprint contains fifteen adaptive templates.

The so-called adaptive template is one that provides you with various combinations in advance, and can also adjust the size according to the area.

There are a total of 2 sets of large composite templates, 4 sets of medium composite templates, 4 sets of small composite templates, and 5 sets of basic templates.

For the vast majority of templates, Sui An wouldn't even need to use this much space.

However, Sui An could use those five sets of basic formwork: two types of basic carriageway formwork, two types of basic bridge formwork, and...

A basic pedestrian walkway template.

Basic pedestrian walkway formwork is simply paving with plain bricks, without any roads or bridges.

The advantage of templates over basic components is that they allow you to build your own ground. If Sui An were to use walkway modules to lay the ground himself, he would need to design the dimensions and adjust the shape of each module, just like he did with the previous wall construction.

However, templates are different. They are like images that can be intelligently extended or cropped. You just need to adjust them to the size you want and then modify the parts you don't need one by one.

One approach involves adjusting each section from scratch, while the other involves laying the entire structure and then removing the unwanted parts. The advantages of this approach are self-evident.

However, if you want to combine various road and bridge structures, this type of template won't work. You can check if there are any suitable templates among the various large, medium, and small templates, or use several basic templates and add some components to create the large template you want.

After opening the basic pedestrian walkway template, adjust it to the size inside the wall, and then cut out the locations of special buildings such as stone houses, workshops, kitchens, wells, and cellar entrances.

These things either need to be left blank, or they are large and heavy, and may be crushed when laid as paving stones.

As for those statues, forts, and other structures, they often need to be moved, so it's not good to leave them blank. I'll try it out myself to see if they'll be crushed first.

Sui An quickly obtained the blueprints he wanted. He tried to start construction and immediately obtained the amount of materials he needed, a total of 43 sets of materials.

"Including Originium and basic Originium materials, one batch is about 106 Originium, which is more than 4,000 Originium. But I don't need the majority of the raw material cost. I only need to spend about 700 or 800 Originium myself, but I will have to pay some labor costs."

Sui An took stock of the accounts: "Not bad~ Acceptable!"

However, instead of making one, he made a single circular paving tile with a diameter of 5 meters, which was the largest area that could be made from a single set of materials.

He tested the material by placing it on the elemental statues, which were structures that needed to be moved frequently, and found that the material's load-bearing capacity was much better than he had imagined.

After all, besides floor tiles, it can also be used to make roads for carriages and bridges, and its load-bearing capacity is definitely stronger than I thought. I can even choose to pave it under the stone house, so that the effect of gathering energy will be even stronger.

"Okay, that's the setup. Now all we have to do is mine the cryptocurrency."