The earth pillar shot straight into the sky — reaching a thousand meters high!
Jiang Kai froze for a moment. With such a terrifying impact, trying to find spirit ores inside it, then seizing them, definitely wouldn't be easy!
"Jiang Kai, over here!" Xia Hua shouted. "There's a big pit here!"
Jiang Kai immediately withdrew his spiritual sense and rushed toward Xia Hua and the others.
Before them, the earthen pillar was roaring upward violently — under such conditions, it was hard to distinguish any ores within.
"How do we find the spirit ores?" Jiang Kai asked.
Dong Xue said, "Cut off the pillar!"
But then she added, "Why is this eruption so intense this time? It's even more violent than the strongest eruption in history that the instructors at the War God Hall mentioned!"
Just then, near another pit, a War God bellowed, "Inverse Light Palm!"
He thrust both palms forward, and two palm imprints grew larger as they shot forth, slamming straight into the pillar.
The two palm imprints blasted apart a massive amount of rock and soil, scattering them to the other side of the pit.
His teammates immediately began searching through the scattered rubble.
After a short while, one War God excitedly picked up a thumb-sized, smooth stone and shouted to his comrades, "White Moon Stone!"
Several nearby teams turned to look with envy.
"White Moon Stone, huh? That's good stuff — premium material for making War God Armor!"
"And the one they found looks like top-quality material."
Jiang Kai turned to Ruan Yu. "Ruan Ghost, how much is that little piece of White Moon Stone worth?"
"That thing isn't sold by the military. But if you use it to craft War God Armor… if you had to sell it, I'd say at least twenty million."
"Twenty million? Star Coins or Huaxia Coins?"
"Star Coins."
Jiang Kai's eyes widened even further!
At the same time, the surrounding teams were all getting to work.
At this stage, most martial disciples already had true energy attacks, so they used those to cut through the earthen pillars and sift out the ores.
As for the other classes of War Gods — regardless of their combat ability — their main job was to help their teammates search through the broken rocks for ores.
"True energy attacks really are strong. Almost every squad has handed the pillar-cutting job to disciples who can use them," Jiang Kai muttered.
But to slice through a violently erupting pillar like that — the required attack power was extremely high.
Jiang Kai watched some disciples attack, only to blast out a small bit of rock. With so little material, it was nearly impossible to find any ores in it.
"Captain Kai, what do we do?" Hu Yan asked. "You don't have any true energy attacks, and only Ruan Yu does — but Ruan Yu's true energy isn't very strong."
Xia Hua said, "We definitely can't get more than those War Gods. Dong Xue and I can both use true energy attacks too. How about the three of us attack, while Brother Hu and Jiang Kai look for gems?"
Jiang Kai shook his head. "Me? Looking for gems? I don't even recognize most of them."
"Besides," he added dryly, "Ruan Ghost may have no shame, but even if he gets dead drunk, I doubt he'd be interested in a dirt pillar."
Everyone turned to look at Ruan Yu.
Seeing their stares, Ruan Yu quickly waved his hands. "Don't—don't look at me like that. I should only be interested in living things… I think." He didn't sound entirely sure by the end.
Hu Yan thought for a moment and said, "Captain Kai, it's still best if you attack."
Jiang Kai nodded. "Actually, I think the reason they're using true energy attacks isn't because of how much destructive power they have against defenses — it's because true energy attacks are ranged and barely lose strength over distance."
Hu Yan added, "And they hit a wide area, too!"
Jiang Kai nodded again. When it came to ranged attacks, he was confident he wasn't worse than anyone else — the problem was, at best he could pierce the pillar, not cut off a section of it like the others.
White mist was constantly being swept skyward by the erupting pillars all around them, yet the mist here was strangely thick — no one could tell where it came from, and visibility was poor.
They could only see four or five pits around them, and those teams had already found some results.
"Jiang Kai, Dong Xue and I will give it a try first. We can't just go home empty-handed," Xia Xue said, drawing her longsword.
She and Dong Xue swung their swords at the same time, sending out sword auras that blasted out some earth and rock — but they cut too little of the pillar to expose any ores.
After releasing their true energy attacks, both had to rest for a while.
"This won't do…" Jiang Kai frowned tightly. At this rate, they weren't going to get much at all.
Watching Xia Xue and Dong Xue helping, Jiang Kai fell into thought.
Dong Xue noticed Jiang Kai staring dazedly at them, blinked, and whispered to Xia Xue, "Jiang Kai's staring at us."
"I know. He's got a crush, so of course he's sneaking glances whenever he can," Xia Xue said coolly. "But to think he's crushing on both of us at once — disgusting."
Just then, Jiang Kai suddenly remembered something!
During the gambling tournament last time, he'd won an artifact from Xia Hua — the Devouring Jewel.
That artifact was extraordinary, yet somehow Xia Hua had been able to use it...
"Xia Hua, why were you able to use the Devouring Jewel?" Jiang Kai rushed over and asked.
Back then, Xia Hua was only level four max, yet she managed to use a level five transcendent artifact!
Xia Hua frowned, thought for a moment, then decided to answer honestly. "I… I had this." She pulled out another artifact.
It was a jade-green stone, like a piece of top-quality emerald — soothing to the eyes.
"This is the Illusory Light Jewel. It lets other equipment treat the jewel's owner as if they were qualified to use it — without lowering the item's level, you can temporarily use higher-tier artifacts."
"Of course, transcendent artifacts are very different from mortal ones. Even with the Illusory Light Jewel, their effectiveness drops significantly."
"Give me the Illusory Light Jewel first. I'll return it later," Jiang Kai said immediately.
"You—"
"I will return it to you!" Jiang Kai emphasized.
Seeing how anxious he looked — and still feeling guilty toward him — Xia Hua gritted her teeth and handed it over. "I'm lending this to you!"
Dong Xue also pulled out an Illusory Light Jewel and passed it to Jiang Kai. "I have one too. Two of them together will work even better… but what exactly are you planning to do?"
Jiang Kai took both jewels and smiled slightly. "Heh, with these… picking up gems will be a piece of cake!"
Then he took out the Devouring Jewel, along with the Yama Card and the Light God Card.
"Transform!"
Both deity cards had transformation abilities — and after transforming, they could retain the properties of whatever they mimicked.
Next, Jiang Kai handed the Devouring Jewel back to Xia Hua. "As payment, here — take this back."
At this point, Jiang Kai let the two deity cards take on the form of the Devouring Jewel, but only inherited its devouring ability.
"Let's test it out." Jiang Kai flung the Light God Card forward.
The card shot straight into the earthen pillar, then emerged from the other side moments later.
Jiang Kai controlled it with his mind, sending it back through again.
Over and over — the Light God Card darted back and forth through the pillar dozens of times before returning to his hand.
"Alright, spit it out!"
A huge pile of soil and rocks poured out from the Light God Card.
"Whoa!" Hu Yan, Ruan Yu, Xia Hua, and Dong Xue were all stunned, rushing over in disbelief. "That actually worked!?"
They immediately began rummaging through the pile.
Before long, Ruan Yu picked up a stone, excitedly wiping off the mud covering it to reveal a faintly red gem inside.
"It's a Dragon Gallstone! Captain Kai, a Dragon Gallstone!"
Jiang Kai frowned. "Is that worth anything?"
Then he noticed the four of them staring at him like he was some kind of monster — and instantly understood.
He didn't even need to ask. The Dragon Gallstone was definitely worth a fortune.
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