Chapter Ninety: A Hundred Quadrillion Tons of Iron and a Pair of Footprints, First Update

Three hundred kilometers was not far at all—indeed, it was close, close enough that Luo Zu’s spiritual sense could sweep across it. Naturally, it could not be called distant.

Luo Zu found this strange as well. He had even surveyed lands a thousand li away and selected eighteen locations, only to discover that their metallic essence had likewise been drained away. As for exactly how much had been taken, he could not say; after all, he had no way of knowing the original amount.

But in any normal stretch of land, metallic essence would never be so scarce.

This also meant that even within a thousand li, the range of that sorcery of “loss” still held sway.

So it was strange that within these three hundred kilometers, the mountains and rivers could still contain ore veins.

Still, when his divine sense attached itself to the soil, it confirmed the hunting party’s discovery.

“Why is the concentration still this high?”

Luo Zu felt it most peculiar.

It was actually far higher than Luo Village had been before its metallic essence was carried off.

Copper and iron, in particular, were concentrated to an astonishing degree.

With such a fine place before him, Luo Zu’s true body immediately hurried over.

Whether mankind could finally use iron pots for cooking depended on this one stroke.

He soon arrived by flight and met the two hunting party members on guard.

“You two start by cutting timber and putting up houses here. I’ve already sent the others to come as well,” Luo Zu instructed.

“Understood, Clan Chief.” The two answered happily.

They knew then that they had found the right place and had not reported false news.

After that, Luo Zu began smelting iron on the spot.

His method was simple enough: no blast furnace was needed. He merely scooped up a handful of earth and stone, then used his indestructible body and fire-controlling arts to draw out the metallic elements.

Very soon, a piece of pure iron ingot appeared before him.

The palm-sized ingot changed shape in Luo Zu’s grasp as if it were clay.

“From a ton of earth and stone, three jin of iron, two jin of copper, half a jin of gold, half a jin of silver, and another six hundred grams of assorted metals... this is truly heaven-defying,” Luo Zu mused.

Then his divine sense sank underground.

At once, the soil beneath his feet seemed to flow like water, like a black-and-yellow fountain. It gushed and churned of its own accord, turning the earth over as old mud from below rolled up and covered the fresh soil on top.

Once that was done, Luo Zu smelted the mud and stone from one hundred meters down, one thousand meters down, and three thousand meters down as well.

At one hundred meters, a ton of soil could yield five jin of iron, with even more of the other metallic elements.

At one thousand meters, it could yield ten jin of iron.

At three thousand meters, it could yield fifty jin.

Seeing such results, Luo Zu pressed onward and probed down to ten thousand meters and one hundred thousand meters.

His divine sense could now cover a thousand li, so he could explore to about five hundred thousand meters underground; even one hundred thousand meters was still not his limit.

At ten thousand meters, the metallic essence was even purer. Luo Zu did not even need to gather it for smelting; merely sensing it with divine awareness let him clearly perceive the rich concentrations of iron and metal within.

At one hundred thousand meters, it was even more extraordinary—one hundred times denser than at ten thousand meters.

But beyond that, the concentration of metallic essence abruptly stopped increasing.

It seemed that one hundred thousand meters was the limit.

Luo Zu could not yet determine why.

But one hundred thousand meters was a boundary. At that depth, the metallic essence consisted of iron alone; no other soil minerals existed at all. In other words, if one simply took the material from there, there would be no need to waste time smelting it—it was already pure iron to the extreme.

Luo Zu then began to examine its breadth.

This “iron bed” stretched for about three thousand li, amounting to roughly twenty-eight quintillion tons...

Hiss...

Having calculated such an astonishing figure, Luo Zu drew in a sharp breath.

And that did not even include the metallic essence contained in the earth and stone between one hundred thousand meters and the surface.

Of course, compared with this iron bed deep below, those metallic elements were only a drop in the ocean.

“Could there be some treasure down there?” Luo Zu considered another possibility.

It was absolutely possible; otherwise, why would such a strange phenomenon exist?

Yet after checking carefully, inch by inch and even to the finest degree, spending an entire afternoon probing the soil of the area without pause, he still found nothing unusual.

It was as though this metallic vein had been born here from the very beginning.

But then Luo Zu made another discovery.

This iron bed was not natural at all, but man-made—more precisely, shaman-made.

As for what “shaman-made” meant, he found a pair of enormous footprints on a nearby mountain peak.

Enormous, that is, only by human standards: each print was about three meters long and one meter wide, with eight toes on each foot, deeply embedded in the hard rock of the mountain.

Seeing those footprints, Luo Zu could not help but let his thoughts run wild.

“Did that Lost Shaman gather the metallic essence from within a thousand li around here and bring it all to this place?”

As this thought arose, all thirty-six of his mental calculations whirred at once, even simulating the rapid convergence of metallic essence from a thousand li around.

He even simulated the scene of the Lost Shaman drawing a bow and nocking an arrow.

With such imagination before him, Luo Zu felt even more certain.

Suddenly, he thought that these shamans were not so wasteful after all.

After all, they were fighting within heaven and earth; whatever was spent still came from heaven and earth. Fallen leaves still return to the soil—were they supposed to fight all the way into the chaos beyond the heavens?

No matter how the shaman and the demon race fought, it all remained within the world.

At most, they had only distinguished between the turbid and the pure, but what difference was there between turbid and pure as far as heaven and earth were concerned?

Both were still within its belly.

And though that Lost Shaman had gathered the metallic essence of a thousand li on that day, in the end he had only taken the purest of the pure to form that great divine power and shoot down his enemy, Qi Zhu. The remaining gathered metallic essence was left here.

This land had already been rich in iron, which was how such an iron bed came to exist.

As for why the Lost Shaman did not take away such strategic material...

No, that was not right. To Luo Zu, this thing was immensely precious, but in the eyes of the Lost Shaman, it was probably nothing more than something easily obtained. How could it be considered valuable?

So it was only natural that the Lost Shaman had not claimed it.

Still, developing this iron bed would not be easy. After all, it lay one hundred thousand meters underground, and Luo Zu’s divine sense was not yet powerful enough to haul such massive material.

Fortunately, the metallic essence in the surface soil and stone was already enough for the cave dwellers atop the mountain to use.

After Luo Zu had surveyed the iron bed, the hunting party arrived shortly afterward—one hundred and eighty-three people in all, from three hunting squads.

Luo Village now had six hunting squads, totaling four hundred people.

Tiger Head Village also had one hunting squad, with eighteen members.

Salt Spring Village had one hunting squad, with twenty.

The ones arriving here now were Luo Village’s hunting team, personally led by Iron Head Lad.

“Clan Chief.”

Iron Head Lad was dusty from travel, but brimming with spirit, every inch of him excited.

After all, with an iron mine discovered, their hunting party could finally trade in their worn tools for better ones. They would no longer need stone axes and stone spears, but could use iron weapons instead. For hunters like them, this was an enormous boon—how could they not be delighted?

“First build several houses, then set up some blast furnaces. We’ll found a village here on the spot,” Luo Zu said.

Luo Village’s population had already reached twelve hundred. It was time to split off another branch.