Chapter 361: Exploration

Chapter 361: Exploration

First, he decided to explore the surroundings. He crushed the Mana Source, and the small amount of pure Dark Element sealed inside leaked out completely. This power was highly corrosive, but Zheng Yichen had a layer of Mana protecting his body surface, so the power drifted past him like a gentle breeze and merged into the walls.

Zheng Yichen returned to the main digging area of the Mine Cave and picked up a piece of ore that had fallen on the ground. Sure enough, for things native to this place, the unknown power that had erupted earlier didn’t bring any negative effects. Instead, it directly changed the quality of the materials.

The ore he was holding was originally just an ordinary ‘Cold Iron’ ore, but now it had turned into a black, shiny Elemental Ore. After refinement, it could be used as a good Enchanted Material or Spellcaster Material. Even though its quality was low, this thing had already left the range of ordinary minerals.

He went to check other places. All the ores in the entire Mine Cave had transformed into Elemental Ores due to the unknown influence… Could it really be an Element Heart?

Various signs indicated that the thing born in this bottomless Canyon was closely related to the Element Heart. Artificial influence? That wouldn’t cause beneficial changes in the local environment. Only if the local environment had characteristics similar to the Element Heart would it gain such benefits, instead of being completely destroyed.

No doubt, if the Dark Element was too strong, it could easily turn all the minerals in an ordinary Ore Vein into dust. How to find the Element Heart? Zheng Yichen temporarily placed the Alchemical Puppet to the side and shifted his attention back to his main body, flipping through materials. The Element Heart… Hmm, it was simple.

If he could confirm that an Element Heart existed in a certain place, there was no need for overly complicated surveys. He could find it using the simplest method: follow the direction where the Ore Vein’s quality changes. He was sure to find the Element Heart!

The thing’s power continuously radiated outward, so following it would naturally lead to its location.

“Hmm, detectors are useless, gotta rely on myself,” Zheng Yichen muttered. He controlled the Alchemical Puppet to spread out its palm, and thin threads of Mana spread out. He used his Mana-enhanced perception to search for nearby areas with higher power concentrations. After finding one spot, he compared it with others, and where it didn’t connect, he simply smashed through. Zheng Yichen wasn’t worried about a cave-in; it wouldn’t crush him anyway.

As he dug, his foot suddenly stepped into emptiness. Zheng Yichen stared at the deep hole that had appeared by his foot. The hole was slanted, and he estimated that jumping down from here would be like sliding down a slide, directly falling into the depths of the Canyon. Oh well, jump!

“I’m taking this stuff,” Annie said in Zheng Yichen’s Laboratory. She glanced at Zheng Yichen, who was squinting his eyes and zoning out, and immediately realized he was probably remotely controlling an Alchemical Avatar. Without saying more, she picked up a few bottles of specially marked Magic Potion that Zheng Yichen had left on the experimental table nearby.

“Mmm…” Zheng Yi, who was squinting his eyes, nodded after a few seconds and gently waved his claw. He had reached a key location. After sliding down the hole, he arrived deep in the Canyon, even falling a bit further before landing. The Dark Element power in this environment was extremely dense. In Zheng Yichen’s perception, other types of Elemental Power were squeezed to a very low proportion. High-Rank Fire Magic in this place might only produce a small flame.

Of course, it wasn’t completely impossible to cast Magic. As long as he was willing to burn his own Mana and not rely on external Elemental Power. But Mana was like a lever; it could easily move several times or even dozens of times the Elemental Power. Using his own Mana to release Magic was indeed a wasteful extravagance. Zheng Yichen guessed that probably only Irene could play like this without batting an eye.

As for him… the Mana in the Magic Weapon Summoning Book was for important uses in the future, so he wouldn’t waste it so easily.

Because the Fire Element was too thin and other Elemental Power was insufficient, the temperature in this place stayed at a stable 0 degrees. It was similar to the temperature in the space of a Spatial Ring, but this 0-degree temperature was absolute as long as Fire and Ice Element power weren’t interfered with, maintaining the current state. Anything in this environment would quickly have its temperature pulled to this value.

Even using Mana to maintain body temperature would cause a great additional consumption of Mana.

Well, he was using an Alchemical Puppet. As long as its surface was protected by Mana, the temperature, like 0 degrees, was fine. This thing wouldn’t freeze even at minus tens of degrees. The real big threat was the dense Dark Element that squeezed out all other Elemental Power. Strangely, he could ignore such an environment, making exploration too easy, except… there was no light.

Hmm… Bulbs were completely unusable in this place. Even when Zheng Yichen switched to several strong flashlights, the light they emitted was stuck a few centimeters away. It was completely useless.

Zheng Yichen had tried other ways to drain the Dark Element here. He had just used containers capable of holding Elemental Power to store a huge amount of it, but the Dark Element filling this place showed no change. The Mana Crystal wasn’t finished yet; if he waited for half a month more, it might be done. Perhaps then he could drain all the Dark Element here?

“Oh right… I remember reading a note about Mana compression from Irene before… Should be usable here, right?” The Mana compression recorded in the note was a step in making Mana Crystals. Mana Crystals and Element Crystals looked very similar.

In fact, they were completely different. Element Crystals were just Elemental Ores that had advanced due to being influenced by overly abundant Elemental Power, while Mana Crystals were created by piling up vast amounts of Mana. Their qualities weren’t on the same level.

“Hmm… It shortened by another half centimeter,” Zheng Yichen stared at the strong light in his hand. Initially after descending, the strong light could reach over ten centimeters. As he moved towards areas with denser Elemental Power, the light range had shrunk to half of the original and was still continuously shrinking. A strong light that could shine hundreds of meters away was almost being suffocated.

If Zheng Yi hadn’t been relying on his special abilities to cheat in the search here, he would have been completely gone twenty minutes ago. Under the influence of such dense Dark Element, nothing would be left after death, perhaps a bit of bone powder. True, in this world, dying in a place with dense Dark Element could possibly turn one into a Necromantic Creature.

But the density of Dark Element here was too high for Necromantic Creatures to bear, let alone anyone dying here to be transformed. Not only that, some Dark Vision Magic was also useless here. Zheng Yichen was using an Alchemical Puppet, not his main body. With no usable light, he could only feel his way around slowly!

While he was searching, a woman with white hair and gray eyes also arrived at this Canyon. Looking at the Black Mist slightly overflowing from the Canyon, she waved her hand, grabbed a strand, and bound it in her palm. After sensing for a moment, she flicked it away, letting the Black Mist dissipate in the air. She went to the edge of the Canyon and stared into the dark depths. The scene revealed by the Canyon now was like the entrance to the Abyss.

Frowning slightly, her body slowly floated downward. The swirling Black Mist coiled around her, slipping to the side when it touched her body. But as she approached the bottom of the Canyon, the Black Mist changed from sliding to squeezing, yet still couldn’t touch her. The white-haired, gray-eyed woman stepped onto the Canyon floor and walked in one direction without a word. As she advanced, the Black Mist gradually got closer to her body, slowly but steadily.

“Are these Dark Elements going to liquefy?” Zheng Yichen, who continued exploring, felt that the pressure around him was quite high. The Alchemical Puppet he controlled moved with a stiff, rusty feeling when active. This reminded him of the ‘Elemental Converter’ in the Underground Base, which gathered various Elemental Powers and transformed them into crystal-like forms. The untransformed parts appeared as liquid, gathered in what Zheng Yichen called an Elemental Pool.

Once that thing left the Elemental Pool, it would evaporate quickly, like opened liquid nitrogen. So, liquefaction was just something Zheng Yichen thought about. The so-called Elemental liquefaction was a product of forced compression under a Magic force field. In a natural environment, encountering liquefied elements… might be slightly less difficult than finding an Element Heart. Such an environment was too harsh.

A bit lower, and liquefaction wouldn’t occur; a bit higher, and it would directly change into an Element Heart. What’s with the water? Hitting the perfect range was indeed a natural technical feat.

Although it wouldn’t liquefy, when Elemental Power was too dense, it could produce a ‘substantialized’ effect. Moving in it was like being buried in sand, extremely uncomfortable.

The situation here wasn’t as severe as Zheng Yichen said, but continuing further would be similar. If he really encountered that situation, he would have to abandon this Alchemical Avatar and use a Projection instead. Using a Projection felt a bit unsafe… When controlling the Alchemical Avatar, the Projection was only at minimum output. Using a Projection directly for tasks would require much more power.