Chapter 115: The Living Silver Mine
Chapter 115: The Living Silver Mine
Translator: Alsey Editor: Chrissy
How could this be? An abandoned silver mine giving off a sensation of great vitality caused one to be greatly baffled.
There were few trees nearby, so it appeared that they had been felled during the time this mine was operational. There were several piles of reddish brown rocks on the nearby ground, forming small mountains.
"Miping Silver Mines"
Chu Feng saw these carved words nearby and discovered the name of this abandoned silver mine.
He walked a large circle around this silver mine, wandering in its vicinity and observing it from different angles. Only, his gaze was fixed on that ancient tree.
The tree was extraordinary. It was 3.2 meters tall and emitting a hazy yet fiery light, and its light violet leaves were lustrous. The tree as a whole felt as if it were burning—burning with life and vitality.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to recognize what tree it was before mutation.
Its roots penetrated deeply into the ground adjacent to the silver mine. Its trunk was almost one foot, and compared to the small pine tree back at the Taihang Mountains, it should be several times wider.
One had to know that the four elites such as the Vajra, Silver Wing and the Fire Spirit had found a tree only 3 feet tall and that allowed them to look down on the whole generation.
It wasn’t too hard to imagine how extraordinary this tree was.
Compared to those gigantic trees, this one wasn’t as thick, but it possessed an aura of vigor. The trunk was littered with palm-sized scars, giving it the appearance of a dragon with its scales torn open.
"What a mysterious tree!" exclaimed Chu Feng.
However, he did not approach the tree. Even if the tree was extremely attractive, he did not make his move immediately because he felt the whole place to be rather odd.
"Even from so far away, the fragrance invades the nostrils, no doubt the tree has bore fruit."
He finally found a vantage point, from where he could see the the two fruits hidden within the dense leaves. They were as big as bowls and completely silver, overflowing with prismatic light.
The two fruits looked like pears, and their fragrance was extremely alluring.
"If one ate this kind of fruit, would he be able to go against a beast king?" Chu Feng guessed it should be sufficient.
But for some reason, he felt a sense of insecurity, even some palpitations. This place caused him to feel completely uneasy.
"It’s too quiet, no vicious birds close by, and no ferocious beasts passing through. This was too strange."
It was so much that there were not even ants or bugs in the vicinity, only plantlife.
Occasionally, the silver mine would produce "breathing" sounds. It was truly like the sound of respiration. During "breathing in", there would be darkness, and during "breathing out", some silvery mist would flow forth.
This ignited a certain urge in him—the urge to run towards the mine at full speed.
Finally, Chu Feng soundlessly retreated. He ran far out and caught a foot long mountain rat. Arriving back, he raised it by the tail and, with a swoosh, tossed it towards the silver mine.
After it landed, the mountain rat was several tens of meters away from the silver mine’s entrance. Its pair of shifty eyes observed the surroundings and landed on the odd tree as an expression of greed appearing on its rodent face.
In just a moment, it was screaming as it was ensnared by a silvery light and dragged into the mine. Soon, no sign of its life could be felt.
Chu Feng revealed an astonished expression. This place was just too weird.
Following that, he ran out again and caught several other mutant beasts to experiment—without exception, all were devoured in a similar fashion.
After trial and error, he came to the conclusion that the hundred meters around the silver mine was a danger zone. Any living thing that landed in that area would be dragged into the mine without fail.
Outside of that perimeter, it was completely safe.
Beasts of all sizes, ranging from small rats to huge mutant dogs that were 5 feet long, were all devoured in the same fashion. As long as they stepped into the 100-meter circle, their fate was sealed.
Finally, Chu Feng caught a poisonous python with colorful patterns, which was seven or eight meters long. He placed the unfortunate animal’s head within the 100 meter area and observed.
He had a firm grasp on the python’s tail end, wanting to test the strength of the silver mine.
The poisonous python was hissing incessantly, wanting to break free, however, that chance never came. The silver mine had caught it by the head and was soon about swallow it.
Chu Feng was shaken. Tugging on the snake’s tail end, he felt an enormous force sweep over him, attempting to pull him in along with the python.
He pulled back with all his strength, resulting in the python to almost snapp in half, so its body was now stained with bloody marks.
He swiftly let go after realizing that he was no match for the silver force. He was shocked to find that the force was now extending towards him and fast, which was simply too terrifying.
Sou!
The poisonous python had now disappeared into the silver mine and the area was silent once more.
Chu Feng frowned. He felt a chill run down his back. It was rather fortunate that he decided to take great caution against the mine, otherwise, it was highly probable that he would have lost his life.
The hundred meters around the mine was an absolute territory, a land of no return for any living being.
At least, with his current strength, he was unable to approach it.
"I’ll wait here for that flower to bloom—once it does, I’ll produce a whirlwind and see if I can obtain some pollen."
Chu Feng was very prudent, he didn’t want to rush into the area so he just waited outside with great patience.
The sky gradually grew dark. He ate some of the rations that he had brought along and drank some water then sat down nearby, waiting patiently.
The flower bud had opened a little bit, and a small crack was visible on its surface—it would completely blossom at any time. At the latest, it should bloom in two days, and Chu Feng could afford to wait that long.
Actually, the flower bloomed sooner than he had expected. While the silver moon hung high in the night sky, the budding flower blossomed with a pop.
Suddenly, Chu Feng felt his hair stand on end. Without a second thought, he retreated with all haste.
Reflexively, he utilized his subsonic speeds to retreat the moment he sensed a life threatening danger.
Chu Feng kicked up a wild whirlwind to the point that even the air was compressed and crackling. He almost instantly arrived on a peak ten miles away from the silver mine.
The area around the silver mine was no longer peaceful, and there was a great disturbance within the mountains.
Originally, there were no living things in its vicinity, but once the flower blossomed and its fragrance propagated several miles outwards, many frightening existences were attracted towards the area.
Not long afterwards, many vicious birds of prey and savage beasts appeared as they marched towards the silver mine.
Even the beasts within the great desolate mountains were roaring in agitation. Unfortunately, they were unable to leave as they were obstructed by a certain restrictive force.
Suddenly, his eyes went wide with incomparable shock. He observed as the gathered army of beasts: hogs, dogs, wolves, and leopards all mysteriously collapsed.
Chu Feng’s vision was extremely sharp, comparable to the clairvoyant Du Huaijin. He was clearly able to see that the pollen from the odd flower bud permeated the air.
Those beasts died after just breathing in the pollen!
"What kind of situation was this?!" Chu Feng was shocked and puzzled.
After that, he witnessed something even more shocking. Within the silver mines appeared a white glow—an organism was slowly being formed from the convergence of silver and light. It slowly took form and was continuously breathing in the dangerous pollen.
"This metal was alive?" Chu Feng was overwhelmed.
In the night sky was an eight meter long bat, emitting waves of terrifying energy as it swooped down towards the land of death. It was no doubt an extremely strong mutant beast that even Chu Feng would have to put in quite a lot of effort to defeat.
While flying, the bat emitted black ripples from its mouth. The powerful ripples caused the mountains and earth to crack and rocks to shatter.
Unfortunately, after breathing the pollen, it too fell to its inevitable doom.
The fragrant pollen indiscriminately killed every living being that rushed into its embrace.
Chu Feng felt his hair stand on end. He realized why his survival instincts had taken over just then, reflexively exiting the area and thus closely escaping his demise. That pollen was no fortuitous encounter, but instead a symbol of death itself.
At this time, everything around the silver mine had died, except perhaps the mercurial organism within it. After coming into contact with the pollen, it was slowly taking form, and soon, it might gain a biological body.
Additionally, many clusters of silvery metal appeared on the surrounding ground, and after coming into contact with the pollen, they too seem to be on the verge of becoming lifeforms.
Finally, they formed silver entities in the shape of dogs and leopards, imitating the form of the beasts lying dead on the ground. Afterwards, they swiftly began to move the carcasses, either into the silver mine or burying them around the odd tree.
"They're using the corpses as fertilizers!" Chu Feng realized.
The flower bloomed for quite a long time before the fragrance finally grew faint.
White light surged out of the silver mine and after coming into contact with it, all the silver wolves, leopards, hogs and bats dashed into the mine, melting into one mercurial liquid entity before disappearing within the depths of the ancient mine.
Within the mine, the metallic entity had no fixed shape as it transformed continuously.
Finally, the ancient mine and its vicinity regained its calm and silence as the entity had also disappeared into the mine.
"Too terrifying, was this tree specifically able to encourage the evolution of metals?" Chu Feng mumbled. He felt that it was a serious development.
This world was still undergoing great changes, and new mysteries were still appearing.
Only after a long time had passed did he once again approach the silver mine, standing beyond the 100 meter mark.
Eh?
He found a lump of silvery metal on the ground, shining resplendently with a metallic luster. It had failed to mutate into a life-form but had no doubt come into contact with the pollen.
He carefully wrapped up the metal with a beast skin. Carrying it, he turned around and left.
With neither rest nor sleep, he ran through the night towards Shuntian. He felt it was imperative that he find relevant experts to appraise this lump of metal.
Running 800 miles through the night, by the time Chu Feng arrived at Shuntian, it was already deep into the night. However, Shuntian was still just as lively with no shortage of pedestrians walking by.
Chu Feng was like a gust of wind as he rushed past. His sense of hearing registered some familiar words like Angel Ox, Chu Feng, White Snake, etc. most probably from the people who had just come out of the theater.
Right now, he didn’t have the time to care about these things. He directly entered the Hollow Jade Temple and asked someone to go and find Lu Tong, waking him from his dreams.
"Brat, has the joy gotten to your head? I know you're the Angel Ox whose fame rings across the whole of China, but we really don’t need to celebrate this late at night do we?"
Lu Tong’s eyes looked drowsy as he complained.
"Old man, I discovered something big! I found a living silver mine…" Chu Feng rapidly narrated the whole story and took out the white lump of metal.
Lu Tong was shocked out of his drowsy state. "What? Even the metal had started to evolve? And that tree was able to catalyze its evolution?"
He knew this finding was a serious matter. He received the lump of metal and contacted the relevant departments swiftly. Before the night was through, the metal had been transported out of Shuntian towards the labs.
Chu Feng did not linger at the Hollow Jade Temple. He decided to come back later to learn of the results.
Even at such a late hour, when he arrived home, he found his parents in the living room, wide awake. Especially excited was Wang Jing, almost shouting at Chu Feng, "Son! Your acting skills are truly not bad!"
Chu Feng felt a headache coming his way. He had long since switched off his communicator, so he didn’t know what was going on outside.
" received great reviews, many people had contacted you while you were away. Some even went so far as to contact us when they couldn’t reach you," said Wang Jing with an elated expression.
"Who could it be?" Chu Feng asked, feeling a bit guilty.
"Oh, a lot of different people, for instance, the girl with whom you went on a blind date called several times, asking if you were back. She’s actively seeking you, I see good prospects!" Wang Jing replied.
Chu Feng immediately realized that it was more animosity than prospect, and it was more probable that she was seeking him on behalf of Jiang Luoshen—to drag him out and give him a good beating.
Not surprisingly, Wang Jing added, "There was also another lady by the surname of Jiang—boy was she excited, even her voice was trembling. She said to tell you that she called and that you would know."
Chu Feng knew who that was without even thinking.
She was more likely agitated than excited, and she was definitely going to fight it out with him! It was likely that after started screening, her search rankings have reached the top.
It was also most certainly related with him!
She was probably grinding her teeth in anger, infuriated to the extreme.
"What could have happened. Don't tell me there’s another explosive rumor?" Chu Feng mused.
"Just check out the news tomorrow morning," Chu Zhiyuan advised, "you should rest for now."
Wang Jing also notified Chu Feng, "There were really too many excited people looking for you, but somehow, I just feel that something was off about all this."
Chu Feng rose, mumbling, "Ah we live in such beautiful times, yet people are so violent!"
He decided to let it be for now. It was more important, at the moment, to shower and get a good night’s sleep.
He ran back to Shuntian continuously at top speed, covering 800 miles. He was totally worn out and naturally wanted nothing more than to go to dreamland.
That night, Chu Feng slept incredibly well. However, the same could not be said for several other people.
Including many acquaintances, from Jiang Luoshen, Xia Qianyu to Vajra and Silver Wing, even Xu Wanyi and the whole of the Mu household.
These people wanted nothing more than to charge towards Chu Feng’s place and confront him.
So much so that there were also those among the beast race that were losing sleep. For instance, the great Black Yak. Within the depths of the Kunlun mountains, a certain beast’s fury was akin to an erupting volcano. He wanted to contact Chu Feng and ask him to capture someone, but the little brat had his communicator switched off, ignoring him completely.
Of course, there were also others of the beast race who were losing sleep over this. These two movies were as if a whole new world had opened up for them.