Chapter 56: Today is also a Day for Diligent Mining!
As doc.u.mented in literature, this type of natural sulfur ore had already been known as ‘sulfur’ from as early as biblical times after its discovery. In ancient Egyptian and Grecian records, sulfur was used in medicine and fumigation.
Sulfur mining activities during that era were mainly conducted in volcanic areas like Sicily. Up until the 20th century, sulfur deposits could also be found above salt domes. These two areas were the primary sources of sulfur ore.
“Regardless of how one looks at it, this terrain doesn’t look like a place where sulfur ore can be found. Is it true that the resource points had been placed at random locations or were there volcanic activities here before the launch?”
Su Mo found bits of the gravel-like sulfur ore after carefully excavating the soil.
For this kind of thing, if one did not have a careful eye or have prior knowledge that there was an ore mine here, one would be hard-pressed to identify that it was sulfur at all and may have only taken them to be colored stones.
Su Mo circled around the location once and used his footsteps to measure the distribution area of the crushed sulfur ore along the terrain. There were traces of its presence within a radius of nearly 100 meters.
After circling the location, he found a small elevated hill devoid of trees. Su Mo took out the good-quality shovel and started digging.
“Good heavens, can this good-quality shovel actually be that much stronger than a normal quality one?”
A stream of light flashed across the iron shovel. It turned out that he had scored a critical hit with that first action. Within 20 seconds, the soil resistance had been greatly reduced.
It was like shoveling tofu, with Su Mo tossing out shovels of dirt effortlessly.
Su Mo examined the soil that he had just dug out. After confirming that it contained crushed sulfur ore inside, he began digging with peace of mind.
Digging was also a form of technical work. If one simply dug downward, there would be a risk of the surrounding structure becoming unstable and collapsing, crus.h.i.+ng one to death underneath it.
Su Mo had witnessed someone digging a cellar in his countryside hometown as a kid. Long story short, the surrounding soil structure collapsed even before the hole reached a two-meter depth.
By the time the neighbors realized, this person had been completely buried under the soil; suffocating and dying in that shallow pit.
That was why Su Mo chose the most reliable method of digging out a staircase. It was much safer and sacrificed only a little in terms of efficiency.
Under the bright hot sun, a large pile of dirt emerged, evidence of Su Mo’s hard work.
Although building the iron shovel had taken half a day, at this moment, Su Mo felt that it had been well worth it.
The increase in the efficiency of the iron shovel was extremely terrifying. The critical hits, in particular, were unbelievable and their effects could even be stacked on top of each other indefinitely.
This meant that as long as one kept digging, one could keep on triggering this effect.
If there were no other mechanical tools present for excavation work, this iron shovel could easily replace the work of a small excavator.
“There’s no sulfide gas spewing out of the ground either, so just how did this sulfur ore mine form?”
After digging to about a meter’s depth, the shovel started to meet resistance. Clanging sounds echoed as the shovelhead made contact with the hard ground.
Crouching down, Su Mo brushed the surface of the soil with his hand. He immediately found some earth-yellow sulfur ores.
The surface of sulfur ores was slightly porous, which meant that sulfide gas was being released.
After returning the shovel to the storage s.p.a.ce, Su Mo took out the good-quality iron pickaxe.
[Iron pickaxe (Good)]
Description: An iron shovel made by a conscientious craftsman “Su Mo”. It was produced with rough workmans.h.i.+p and st.u.r.dy materials, but was upgraded to good quality for inexplicable reasons.
Special effect:
- Sharpness +1
- There is a small probability of critical hits when mining ores. (For ore disintegration with hardness levels below 5)
Comment: It is a shame that it is not the enviable golden pickaxe.
After taking out the mineral water bottle containing psychic energy water and gulping down two mouthfuls to regain his physical strength, Su Mo then picked up the iron pickaxe and struck it against the yellow ore on the surface of the ground.
A soothing, crisp sound reverberated.
The relatively hard yellow sulfur ore suddenly disintegrated into small, scattered pieces of ore.
Su Mo lowered his head and quietly focused to absorb them into the storage s.p.a.ce. All the ore slag on the ground was immediately collected into the storage s.p.a.ce.
“Oh ho, that’s pretty efficient. It seems that I’ll be able to get enough with just an hour of mining!”
After eyeballing the amount of sulfur debris he had collected, Su Mo then worked out a draft in his mind.
He triggered the special disintegration effect and was able to harvest about 20kg of sulfur ore with just one critical strike.
In the absence of a large demand for thermal weapon ammunition or gunpowder, having dug a ton of ore was practically more than enough.
The rattling and clanking continued. Time continued to pa.s.s, and the sun that had risen from the east slowly began to descend in the west.
As the sun set in the distance, Su Mo had to pause digging and climb out of the pit to look around for signs of mutant beasts every five minutes.
Gradually, the sun reached the end of the horizon.
A flash of the evening sun shone across the vast land, almost as if reflecting a tinge of the sulfur’s color.
“Alright, that’s enough digging. I’ve run out of s.p.a.ce anyway. I’ll just dig for more next time when I run out.”
Lifting his head, Su Mo looked at the sky and put a stop to his work.
At this moment, the extra s.p.a.ce he had in the two cubic meters of storage s.p.a.ce had almost been filled with sulfur ore. Based on the efficiency of the purification process, he would have no shortage of sulfur for a long time.
Su Mo climbed out of the pit and dusted off the dirt from his raincoat. He began refilling the pit with the excavated soil.
Given that sulfur without a root source would dissipate, burying it with soil could also increase the retention duration of the sulfur ore.
The small hill, originally piled up from the excavation, turned into a piece of flat land after the refilling process.
After marking the location, Su Mo turned around and headed back to the shelter.
Compared to the heat outside, the shelter looked more like a shady cellar after being submerged.
Most of the heat was isolated as soon as he entered the tunnel and the temperature rose again after entering the shelter.
“When will the days when I can’t take a shower end!”
Su Mo stood in the weapon armament storage and took off his raincoat. He looked at the yellowed tank top with a sad expression etched on his face.
He could not bring himself to do the laundry with psychic energy water; such a wasteful thing, at least for the time being.
The talent of h.o.a.rding was something that was buried within the genes of the Huaxia people.
Even if there was currently about 20 liters of psychic energy water stored, Su Mo only dared to wipe his face with a rag that had been sparingly dipped in a little water when was.h.i.+ng his face in the morning.
“h.e.l.l, billions of Earthlings have been transferred to this world at once, but not a single person was placed near a water source.”
“I’ll have to wait for the blizzard to come before I can h.o.a.rd a large amount of plain water.”
After smacking his lips and downing the remaining psychic energy water in the mineral water bottle, the burning sensation in his throat subsided greatly.
What a strange survival world.
This was a fact that everyone had discovered lately.
It was as if these mutant creatures had fallen from the sky just like humans and, because there was no water source, a large amount of these creatures had begun to die of thirst in the wilderness.
Excluding the few animals that could drink the acid rain to survive, most mutant creatures could only kill each other and rely on fresh blood to get by.
There was no freshwater source to be found anywhere.
It was as if the setting for water sources in this world were removed, or to put it bluntly, there was no option to include water sources.
Other than opening treasure chests, humans could only resort to scientific methods if they wanted to obtain water. For example: by encasing a plastic bag over a section of leafy shoots so that the foliar transpiration on the leaves would produce condensed water.
Or digging a small pit on relatively wet ground and placing a water collection device in the center of the bottom of the pit, then hanging a plastic film drawn into an arc on the surface of the pit.
Light energy would raise the temperature of the wet soil and air in the pit. The evaporation would then produce water vapor. The water vapor will condense into water droplets when coming into contact with the plastic film and then slide down into the collection device.
Using both of these methods, they could muddle through to obtain enough water to sustain life.
The collection method had also been shared by most people and had gradually become widespread.
However, due to the courier fee, people could not trade away the excess water even if they had it on hand.
“I don’t know why, but even if I did make a second water well, the system still cannot upgrade it.”
Just like how the raincoat could not be upgraded without putting it into the wardrobe, the same was true for the water well.
After shaking his head and tossing these strange thoughts to the back of his mind, Su Mo began to inspect the rewards he obtained from this trip.