Chapter 139: Mining Underway

Having been kicked twice, the two groggy Mariners finally came to their senses.

"How did we suddenly fall asleep?" one of them muttered, leaning on the handle of his weapon as he scrambled up from the ground.

The other recalled slowly, "I remember... it seemed like we saw a man with purple hair..."

At this, both men felt a jolt of alarm and immediately began searching their surroundings frantically, only to find that the figure had completely vanished.

"Tell me, are you two still half-asleep?" The Mariner who had come to wake them frowned deeply at their jittery behavior.

"This is bad! Intruders have broken in!" one of them said anxiously.

"Intruders? What intruders?" The newcomer looked utterly baffled.

The other chimed in, "We spotted an outsider earlier, breaking in from beyond the barrier of the protective field! But before we could raise the alarm, we were hypnotized by his telekinesis and fell fast asleep!"

Hearing this, the newcomer turned grave.

"This must be reported immediately! Follow me!"

With that, he led the two men toward his own patrol squad.

Meanwhile, guided by Mu, Yin Shiqi and Shun skirted the edge of the continent of Mu in a wide arc, quietly arriving near a pile of jagged rocks.

However, aside from the three of them, there were dozens of Mariners wielding pickaxes, toiling away at the earth.

"Could it be that they are also mining Orichalcum?" Shun asked in astonishment, hiding in the shadows.

Mu explained earnestly, "Whether it is the Scale of a Mariner or the Surplice of a Spectre, the primary materials are essentially the same. It is only because they incorporate additional substances during the manufacturing process that their battle robes bear distinct differences from ours."

"It is hardly surprising that they are mining Orichalcum."

With that, Mu gathered the power of his Cosmo into his right hand and swept it forward gently, instantly unleashing dozens of golden arcs of light.

At that very instant, the Mariners, who had been engrossed in their mining, detected the abnormal fluctuation.

Alas, facing Mu's light-speed fists, these Mariners—treated as mere laborers—stood no chance of resistance. Struck one after another by the golden arcs of Cosmo, they collapsed to the ground without even having the time to let out a groan.

Seeing this, Yin Shiqi dashed out decisively and began looting the Orichalcum already mined by the group of Mariners.

As for the fallen Mariners, he had no need to worry.

With Mu, a Gold Saint, right here, there was zero chance any of these cannon fodder were still alive.

"This..."

Shun was somewhat startled, not yet recovered from the sudden surprise attack launched by Mu.

"What are you standing there daydreaming for? Hurry up and mine!" Mu urged with a stern expression.

The Mariners would undoubtedly transport the mined Orichalcum out, and once those responsible for receiving it failed to find their shipment here, someone would surely come to investigate.

It was only a matter of time before the three of them were exposed.

Now was the time to race against the clock and mine!

"Ah? Oh! Oh!"

Hearing this, Shun snapped back to his senses, grabbed his pickaxe, and hurried into the mining site.

Mu released his perception, keeping a constant watch on the movements across the entire North Pacific undersea realm to fend off any potential attacks from the Mariners.

Inside the mine, seeing the handsome youth raise his pickaxe as if ready to hack at the ground, Yin Shiqi shouted a reminder: "Shun, pack up the Orichalcum they've already mined first! It will save us a lot of time!"

"Thank you for the reminder, Senior!"

Shun immediately lowered his pickaxe and began collecting the ore already excavated by the Mariners.

In less than a minute, the two of them had stripped the area clean of the Orichalcum the Mariners had harvested.

"Shun, how much ore is in your basket?" Yin Shiqi asked, holding his pickaxe as he approached a mining spot previously worked by a Mariner and began chipping away.

"Only about one-fifth full!" Shun replied, wielding his own pickaxe as he targeted a fresh spot and went to work.

"Only a fifth?"

Yin Shiqi frowned slightly, then instructed, "We must hurry and dig out as much as we can!"

Having started earlier than Shun, he had collected most of the ore already lying on the ground, yet it had only filled a third of his basket.

Combined, the two of them hadn't even filled half a basket—it was simply far too little.

"Understood, Senior!"

Shun acknowledged the order, channeling his Cosmo into his pickaxe and digging with greater fervor and speed.

For a time, the only sound echoing through the mine was the clanging of their pickaxes striking rock.

After nearly a minute of excavation, a pile of ore two meters high had accumulated beside Yin Shiqi, while over at Shun's spot, the pile was barely half a person high.

Neither of them was achieving particularly high efficiency.

It was not because they were slacking off, but rather because the Orichalcum was exceptionally hard and fused tightly together without the slightest gap, forming a completely solid mass. They were essentially performing splitting operations on a single, continuous block of Orichalcum, making the extraction work naturally arduous.

Fortunately, they possessed Cosmo and the specialized pickaxes of the Jamirian clan, otherwise, trying to do this bare-handed would simply be...

"Wait, bare-handed?"

A thought seemed to strike Yin Shiqi. He immediately ceased mining, shifted the pickaxe to his left hand, and held out his right hand with the fingers straightened into the shape of a blade.

Not far away, Shun looked on in bewilderment but refrained from speaking out, continuing to mine with one hand while keeping a watchful eye.

"Excalibur Slice!"

Yin Shiqi concentrated his Cosmo into his right-hand blade and slashed fiercely downward toward the ground.

In an instant, his Cosmo transformed into a silver blade of energy that cleaved into the earth.

Boom!

A trench dozens of meters long appeared on the surface, but the result left Yin Shiqi disappointed.

The uppermost layer of rock and soil covering the Orichalcum ore was easily sliced away, but the Orichalcum beneath bore a mark barely an inch deep, its hardness feeling a cut above even a Silver Cloth.

If they relied on blade energy to mine, it would likely prove far more exhausting and time-consuming than using pickaxes.

Not far away, Mu, who was standing guard, had also been startled by the sudden strike.

After a brief moment of reflection, he instantly grasped Yin Shiqi's intent.

"Don't waste your energy! If Orichalcum were truly that easy to mine, my Jamirian clan wouldn't bother crafting such special pickaxes that rival Gold Cloths!" Mu warned promptly.

It was only because Star Silver softened that they were able to shape and forge Orichalcum; in a sense, battle robes forged from pure Orichalcum would be even harder than Cloths containing Star Silver.

Yet, pure Orichalcum alone could never produce such miraculous, self-evolving battle robes.

All three materials were indispensable.

Hearing this, Yin Shiqi promptly dismissed the idea of further experimentation. With a helpless glance at the pickaxe in his left hand, he resigned himself and resumed his grueling mining labor.

Meanwhile, Byian of Hippocampus, protector of the North Pacific Pillar, had also learned of an intruder infiltrating the sea realm through the reports of the lower-ranking Mariners.

Based on the witness descriptions of those distinctive dotted eyebrows, he recognized Mu's identity.

"Hear my command, all Mariners: search thoroughly and make sure to find the intruder who has sneaked into the sea realm!" Standing within the undersea temple of the North Pacific, he projected his voice far and wide using telekinesis.