Chapter 587: A Maze Of Tunnels
Having gathered enough information from the people, Lin Wu decided to head to the actual mines. They were located about ten kilometers to the south east of the town and the path there was well demarcated.
The road to the mine was rather broad and had the tracks of horses and carts on it. It was obvious that a lot of traffic went over it every day. But once reached the halfway point, they would find that the tracks ended there.
A large barricade was built here with logs and rocks, blocking the path of everyone that tried to pass. And a large board was also placed over here with a warning on it.
‘Do not enter! Dangerous Beast inhabits the mine!’
Of course to Lin Wu, all of these were not of concern and he easily passed ahead of it. After all, he was underground and not on the surface. He kept an eye on the map though, to ensure he could see everything that was in his path.
“This should be a good enough place to enter…” Lin Wu said as he found a relatively open path underground.
He quickly broke through the rocks and appeared in one of the mine shafts.
“Now then… let’s see where we exactly are.” Lin Wu said as he checked the map.
According to it, Lin Wu was currently in the third level of the Di Guan mines. About a hundred meters above him, the main entrance of the mine could be seen. It was blocked as well, though a large hole could be seen on its side.
“Something definitely came out through that…” Lin Wu took note.
The hole wasn’t that big, being only a meter wide. This made Lin Wu wonder about what kind of a beast it really was. The sketches Wang Xiong and the rest got could not show the beast accurately and thus Lin Wu did not assume from it.
‘The beast is rather small if it can pass through this… considering it is at the Nascent Soul realm, this is unusual.’ Lin Wu thought to himself.
Most beasts in the Nascent soul realm would grow rather big and it would be hard to miss them. A beast that was small and yet in the Nascent soul realm was rather rare. Such could be seen from the Thousand feather chickens, Silver Scale carps and the Grey beak ducks Yun Bai kept.
But those were somewhat of outliers and weren’t ‘true’ Nascent soul realm beasts as they didn’t have the same level of intelligence.
“System, scan the mines in detail and show me what it has.” Lin Wu ordered.
~DING~
——
SCANNER: Activated
DEEP SCAN: Initiated
NOTIFICATION: Please wait till the scan is complete
——
“Oh? It’s going to take time? Must be more things here than I thought then,” Lin Wu reckoned.
Usually, if the system took longer to scan, it meant that there was either something restricting it or that there were a lot of things to scan. While the system completed its scan, Lin Wu checked out the area using his spirit sense.
“There’s not much here other than rocks… even the ores have been mined out for the most part…” Lin Wu muttered as he observed the area.
Di Guan mines were originally silver mines and also had some other metal ores mixed in them. It was said to have been depleted for a few years now, but the locals still mined here for whatever remnants were left.
Even if there wasn’t much, whatever ore they mined was enough to at least feed them. Plus, they could still mine out the rocks, since they were also used in construction. This was also the reason why the Di Guan mines weren’t abandoned.
Its close proximity to the towns also made it easier for the people to have a good source of stones and rocks. Otherwise, the nearest stone quarry was located at least two hundred kilometers away.
Lin Wu continued making his way through the mines and saw the abandoned tools and equipment that were left by the miners. He was taking the main routes of the shafts, since they were the only ones that could accommodate his body even after he had shrunk it down.
While he could always expand the shafts, it might get problematic and just collapse in its entirety. Plus, it might be suspicious for the miners later on.
“Oh? What’s this?” Lin Wu noticed something.
All along the path, he found several small holes that went deep and turned into full blown tunnels. They were about a meter wide in size and were carved at the base of the shafts.
“Are these perhaps made by that beast?” Lin Wu wondered and used a spirit sense tendril to trace its path.
But that turned out to be useless as the paths intertwined and turned into a maze that had no end. It was so long that Lin Wu’s spirit sense ended up reaching its range limit, which was relatively long.
“Damn, it did a number here. Guess it used all the years to make a home for itself.” Lin Wu muttered.
He continued wandering around and eventually reached the next level of the mine. The Di Guan mines in total had five levels, with each subsequent level larger than the one before.
This was due to how the tunnels were made and branched, so as to ensure that they did not collapse directly. And just as Lin Wu reached the fourth level, the system sent him a notification.
~DING~
——
DEEP SCAN: Completed
MAP UPDATED: New markers added
INTERFERENCE FIELD: Detected
NOTIFICATION: Interference field is ineffective against the host
ANALYZING: Interference field
ANALYSIS COMPLETED: The interferer field is identified to be causing mental changes. The system’s estimation is that it is caused by the Agitation jades and the similarity is 98.6% with the previous sample.
——
“Oh? You found them already. That’s good. Highlight them on the map and we’ll head to them. And also point out the beast if you can now.” Lin Wu ordered.
In the next second, the map changed but made Lin Wu furrow his brows.
