pertwk Chapter 1088: There’s a Chicken Under the Money Tree? (5)
Chapter 1088: There’s a Chicken Under the Money Tree? (5)
★Branch Mission 2: Repair the Golden River on the Road to Destruction of Wealth
After bidding farewell to the snoring (and bare) Steel-Tooth Copper-Coin Weasel Canyon, Tong Acai's "money-picking team" followed the increasingly strong "Golden Ke La" smell of copper and came to a heartbreaking place.
The scene before us could be described as "a beggar losing his golden rice bowl - it was a horrible sight."
An extremely wide ancient riverbed that should have been flowing with liquid golden sand and sparkling with a dreamy luster is now broken in half as if it had been slashed by a giant god!
Deep in the riverbed, it is pitch black and gloomy, emitting heart-pounding spatial fluctuations - those are densely packed, jagged cracks in space and time.
Like a greedy giant mouth, it emits an unstable suction force, tearing and swallowing all matter (even light) that approaches, leaving only distorted and blurred afterimages at the edges.
Occasionally, small pieces of stone would roll down and disappear silently into the cracks without even creating a ripple.
On both sides of the fault zone, solidified, lifeless golden sand covered the wide riverbed like dried blood scabs, reflecting a dead glow in the dim light.
"My Jinsha River!"
Ah Cai stamped her feet in agony, her face wrinkled into a pout. "This is simply 'digging up the roots of a money tree—cutting off someone's financial resources'! The system even says physical treasure-digging efficiency +100%? How can we dig treasure like that? 'A blind man lighting a lamp—a waste of wax'?"
She activated [Identification], her eyes flashed with golden light, and the riverbed information emerged:
> Name: Broken Ancient Jinsha Riverbed
Status: Core spiritual veins are exhausted, the spatial structure is torn and twisted by the power of the "Money Eye", and is riddled with high-risk space-time cracks ([Digging Through the Dimension Wall] Risk Zone! Forcibly crossing/digging has a 99.9% chance of being randomly teleported to an unknown dangerous place or torn to pieces!)
> Key to Repair: [Flowing Beeswax], deposited deep in the riverbed! This wax is brewed by ancient spirit bees that feed on special mineral crystals at the edge of the space-time rift. It contains weak space-time adhesion and energy channeling properties, making it the only natural material to repair this fracture zone!
"[Flowing Beeswax]?"
Emperor Ming Emperor Zhu Di stroked his chin, gazing at the abyssal fault zone with a frown. "This thing sounds like 'a flower in the mirror, a moon in the water—beautiful but difficult to grasp.' This crack... is incredibly dangerous, like 'pulling a tooth from a tiger's mouth.'"
"No, no, no!"
Ming minister Xie Jin (the cabinet's chief minister) waved his folding fan (despite the lack of wind) and spoke elegantly, "Your Majesty, please see! The system says 'Physical treasure hunting efficiency +100%'. This is the right time! Your Majesty possesses the magical skill [Gathering Technique], which is also the right people! As for the right location..."
He pointed his folding fan at the silent golden sand riverbed. "It may seem like a dead end, but it actually hides life. Beneath the solidified golden sand, between the cracks, there must be deposits of beeswax, just like 'gold hidden in the sand'; it takes 'a discerning eye' to spot the pearl!"
Qin general Meng Tian (commander of the Great Wall) stepped forward, squatted down, grabbed a handful of solidified gold sand, and squeezed it hard. The gold sand did not move at all and was as hard as iron.
"The riverbed is extremely solid, and ordinary excavation would be difficult to penetrate deeply. Moreover, the suction force of the cracks is strange, and one needs to have the ability of a magic needle to stabilize the space before being able to take things out with ease." He looked at the slow-moving figure in the team.
……
The Dinghai Shenzhen, the Xuanming Turtle, appears!
"Sigh... I've been holding a grudge for a long time." Xuantian, the Xuanming Turtle, slowly moved to the edge of the fault zone, with its huge head poking into the abyss. The ancient and complex runes on its shell flickered like breathing.
"These spatial wounds are like a stubborn disease. Attacking them forcefully will injure you; leaving them alone will fester. Only with the strength of a heavy load can we slowly and steadily overcome them."
It took a deep breath, and a thick, ochre-colored halo visible to the naked eye spread out from its body, like a huge rock thrown into the water, rippling out steadily in circles.
"【Xuanming Zhenyue·Tingfengbo】!"
hum!
An indescribable powerful force enveloped the riverbed area with a radius of hundreds of feet centered on Xuantian!
Those space-time cracks that were originally wriggling like poisonous snakes and emitting dangerous suction were suppressed by this force as steady as the ancient mountains. Like poisonous snakes pressed by huge rocks, their struggles were significantly weakened, and the suction became intermittent and weak.
The energy fluctuations in the entire area became much more viscous and stable.
"It can only be suppressed, not eliminated. Just like 'pressing down the gourd to make it pop up', your actions need to be 'fast, accurate and steady'. Don't be greedy and reckless, and trigger the spatial turbulence that I haven't suppressed yet." Xuantian's voice was low, like rolling thunder.
……
Civilian Think Tank·Precision Surveying and Mapping!
"The Mysterious Divine Turtle stabilizes the universe, this is the foundation!" Tang Chen Fang Xuanling immediately unfolded a huge energy sand table (constructed by real-time scanning of the Mohist mechanical bee colony) with Tang Chen Du Ruhui (Fang Mou Du Duan).
On the sand table, the area suppressed by Xuantian's power appeared a stable khaki color, while the unsuppressed area on the edge was a dangerous blood red, and the cracks were like ugly scars.
"Target: Deep in the riverbed, in the sedimentary zone at the edge of the crack!" Du Ruhui's fingers slid rapidly across the sand table. "Based on geological echo and energy residue analysis, there are three areas where [Flowing Beeswax] is most abundant: below the Eagle's Beak Rock on the east side of the main fault zone, behind the Hanging Golden Terrace on the west side, and at the edge of the Eye of the Abyss, the deepest point in the central fault canyon! Collection priority: Eye of the Abyss > Hanging Golden Terrace > Eagle's Beak Rock!"
"Brilliant!" Ming minister Yang Shiqi (leader of the Three Yangs of the Ming Dynasty) clapped his hands. "This is the 'strategy within the tent, victory from a thousand miles away'! However, the collection path must avoid areas with dense cracks and the Xuantian Divine Turtle's weak points."
He looked at Qing Heng and Lu Ban, "Mojia mechanism, do you have any tricks?"
……
Mohist mechanism, ingenious!
Mohist Qingheng (female engineer) and Lu Ban (Gongshu Ban) had already been busy working around the riverbed fault zone.
"You can't blow or hit anything here!" Qingheng spoke rapidly. "Ordinary ropes and flying claws will be swallowed or twisted if they get close to the cracks. We need spatial anchoring ropes!"
There was a flash of light in her hand, and several strange chains with silver-white space ripples and powerful suction claws at the end appeared.
Lu Ban directed Zhao Qiao and a group of mechanical craftsmen: "Quickly assemble the 'Suspended Honey Collection Platform'! Use 'Floating Stone' (a specialty of our homeland) as the core, and cover it with 'Energy-Absorbing Alloy Plates' to resist spatial ripples. Use 'Thousand-Modular Hands' for the operating arms, and apply 'Weakening Force Fields' to the joints to reduce spatial disturbances!"
Parts were seen flying around, and several strangely shaped devices, like a combination of a giant metal spider and a floating platform, quickly took shape.
Mozhe Yanshi (Puppet Master) wasn't idle either. He walked up to the three nanny robots, Tong Shishan, Tong Jiaqi, and Tong Jiawu, and with his hands flying, he injected runes into their bodies. "Three 'skillful ladies,' this time you need to practice your unique skill of 'threading a needle!' I will grant you [Weak Presence Field], [Spatial Affinity Coating], and [Precision Micro-Manipulation Amplification]! Remember, 'Dragonfly skimming the water', 'touching' it and leaving immediately, don't linger!"