Chapter 247: Storage Room of the Spirit Ruins - Smashing the Metal Shelves and Leaving

These shelves extended vertically along the walls toward the center of the room. They had three levels in total, each using what looked like very thin metal rods as horizontal supports for placing items. The vertical support pillars of these shelves were also very thin, appearing as if they could not support much weight, but in fact, before Zhao Ji cleared this place, these shelves had held quite a few things that had already turned to dust, as well as still-intact Spirit items.

Therefore, these thin metal rods were not as fragile as they appeared on the surface. Not to mention, they had remained standing and supporting for who knows how long; time itself could not destroy or erode them.

Zhao Ji measured the height of the shelves and discovered that the highest point of the shelves was actually taller than the stone door of this stone chamber. It seemed the Spirits had assembled and installed these metal shelves inside the room.

Zhao Ji tried to pick up a metal shelf closest to him; it was very light, and he lifted the entire shelf with one hand.

He was careful not to let the shelf move and make too much noise, so as not to startle the bats sleeping on the ceiling.

Zhao Ji first carried the entire shelf to the doorway, then tried to tilt it to see if it could be moved out of the stone door.

After trying, he found that it did not seem possible from any angle.

Since the whole thing wouldn't work, Zhao Ji tried to look closely to see if there was a way to take this metal shelf apart.

Picking up the torch to observe carefully, Zhao Ji was disappointed. The entire shelf seemed to have been smelted together by fire; there were no buckles or metal structural joints. A single shelf, several meters long and over two meters high, was actually a single piece.

Scratching his head, Zhao Ji had no other choice but to try using force to dismantle it. He tried with his bare hands, seeing that the thin metal rods did not deform in the slightest.

Long-term training had given Zhao Ji's current body considerable muscle strength, yet he still could not make the shelf deform at all with his bare hands.

After thinking it over, since bare hands wouldn't work, it seemed he had to do it the hard way.

Zhao Ji did not extinguish the Oil Lamp in the room; he picked up the Torch and went out of the room and the passage. At the top of the Petrified Tree Stump outside, on the wooden board of the Crane, he retrieved his heavy Two-handed Axe.

The back of this thing was exactly a rectangular metal surface, which was perfect for smashing the metal shelves.

The shelves could not be moved as a whole, but after being smashed into sections, they should be easier to transport.

Returning to the storage room, this time Zhao Ji had to disturb the bats. To avoid being attacked by suddenly startled bats, Zhao Ji shouted loudly in the room. Hearing the Human's shouts, the bats, unwillingly rubbing against their companions, began to flutter and fly about with chirps and squeaks.

It was still too cold outside the passage, so the bats disturbed in the room flew along the passage, unwillingly heading deeper into the ruins.

Many bats were unwilling to move their bodies in this winter, so Zhao Ji had to stop shouting and instead drew his Long Sword, using the Long Sword and the axe to strike against each other.

The sharp sound of metal clashing echoed through this semi-enclosed room, and those stubborn bats could not stand it and were forced away by Zhao Ji.

When only a few bats remained in the entire storage room, Zhao Ji closed the stone door of the storage room, then reached out to tip over a light but bulky metal shelf. Aiming at the protruding support legs of the shelf, Zhao Ji held the Two-handed Axe in reverse and struck the joints of the metal shelf hard with the blunt side of the axe.

Bang!

Hummmmmmmmm!

Sparks of no small size erupted from the point of impact, and at the same time, the entire shelf was made to vibrate by this strike.

The humming sound echoed in the enclosed room; fortunately, the room was not particularly large, so the reflected sound was not especially loud.

Zhao Ji saw some small bats that could not stand it fall directly from the ceiling, chirping helplessly on the ground as they crawled.

"I told you earlier to leave." Zhao Ji picked up the last few bats, opened a crack in the stone door, and threw them out.

Closing the stone door, he found two small wads of cloth and stuffed them into his ears.

Only then did he check the effect of that previous strike.

The metal shelf had bent at the point of impact. Seeing that it was working, Zhao Ji began to swing the axe to smash and dismantle the metal shelf.

The metal used for the metal shelves had high hardness and also very strong toughness. Zhao Ji needed to strike the same spot multiple times to break the various metal joints.

He collected the broken metal rods and stacked them to one side. He tried his best to keep the shelf structures he had broken neat, and he stacked the parts that weren't in another pile.

As Zhao Ji struck with abandon, the flames in the room flickered from the echoes of each strike. The air inside the entire room seemed to vibrate in unison with the tremors caused by the impacts.

Zhao Ji's own body felt a wave of discomfort, and he had to stop. He had just finished smashing one entire metal shelf, and while his body felt stifled, he also felt a shortness of breath.

Only then did he open the stone door to let the fresh, icy air from the passage pour in.

In the passage outside, the air was icy and refreshing, and it also happened to relieve the heat and sweat all over Zhao Ji's body.

Feeling much better, Zhao Ji tipped over another metal shelf, closed the stone door, and began to work.

With the experience of striking the previous shelf, this time every time Zhao Ji swung the axe, he only used the blunt corner of the axe to strike the joints of the various metal rods of the metal shelf; these places were exactly where the shelf was easiest to break.

Other parts would deform or stretch when struck, but if these joints were struck, there was a greater possibility of them being smashed and broken.

By the time Zhao Ji was exhausted, he had spent a long time smashing three shelves. There were five shelves in the room in total; having taken care of three at once, Zhao Ji felt it was enough. He could do some more tomorrow and finish it off.

Transporting these metal shelves was easy because they were too light. Zhao Ji only needed to stack the thin rods one by one, tie a Rope around the outside, and pull it tight to make a knot.

Carrying it on his back with the Rope, Zhao Ji even felt that the weight of the large pile of metal rods was about the same as the axe in his hand.

Leaving the axe here, Zhao Ji carried the large pile of metal rods, walked out of the passage, and climbed up the Petrified Tree Stump along the rope. While climbing the rope, he didn't even feel any weight impact from the large pile of metal rods on his back.

Returning to the Yingdi, Zhao Ji stacked the large pile of metal rods next to some sundries in the Yingdi.

Thinking it wasn't safe, after lighting the campfire, Zhao Ji took a shovel and dug a pit, stacked all the metal rods into the pit, and piled the excavated hard soil randomly around the Yingdi.

The next day, the first thing Zhao Ji did after waking up was to touch his face to see if any pictures had been drawn on it.

Looking at his fingers, they were clean; it seemed nothing had come to prank him while he slept. In that case, yesterday's attack seemed to have been quite effective.

After waking up, Zhao Ji ate and exercised, feeling that his condition was particularly good. Therefore, after checking that there were no small things out to prank him, he quickly put on his wolf-fur Cloak and went to work in the Petrified Tree Stump.

He was not attacked all day, and Zhao Ji felt that yesterday's attack was very effective; he estimated it had scared that little thing away. Just as well, although he felt that having a magical partner who could perform Magic would be great, he would rather do without that kind of small thing that liked to prank him and had a nasty personality.

Speaking of Magic, it would be great if he could learn Magic in the future. The way the little thing used Magic to move the silver plates yesterday made Zhao Ji very envious and amazed.

If he learned it, he wouldn't have to work so hard to move heavy silver plates one by one. Although moving and possessing these precious metals actually made him feel very satisfied mentally.

When it got dark, Zhao Ji first took out a piece of dried meat he had roasted at noon from his clothes, ate it casually to replenish his strength, and chewed a few ice cubes to replenish his water. Only then did he come to the storage room again, preparing to finish off all the metal shelves here in one go today.

After not coming here for a day, many bats had returned to the ceiling. It was estimated that the number of bats here was quite large; the top of that space deep in the ruins seemed unable to satisfy the habitat of this entire bat population.

Zhao Ji thought that he could open the stone doors of some empty rooms inside the ruins to let more bats live in them, so the outside could be cleared. He hadn't forgotten that in the stone chamber opposite, there were still many large, heavy charger bases.

Although those things didn't look as useful as these ultra-light metal shelves, Zhao Ji estimated they weren't made of ordinary metal materials either. Although he had no way to move them out now—after all, it was too strenuous—in the future, after becoming a powerful Warrior of the Knight Rank, he estimated he would be able to move them out easily.

And by then, with his own strength, he would naturally possess these extraordinary metals, and no one would say anything.

As for this type of lightweight metal shelf, Zhao Ji planned to find a blacksmith in Doraerlin Village later to test them. He had a good reputation in that village, and people loved him, so it could naturally serve as a safe place to test this metal of unknown origin. Once he had the preliminary conditions, he would attribute the origin of these metals to having been obtained from bandits.

The bandits he had wiped out couldn't possibly come to refute him, so he could say whatever he wanted by then.

After making a noise to drive away a large number of bats, Zhao Ji raised his axe again, then pulled back his strength, letting the blunt corner of the axe fall with gravity, colliding all at once with the joints of several metal rods.

Ignoring the noise, after repeating it a few times, this section of several metal rods broke and fell to the ground just like that. Also falling to the ground were some stubborn bats that didn't want to leave.

He picked up those dazed bats, threw them out of the stone chamber, closed the stone door, and Zhao Ji began to work again.

Clang, clang, clang! Bang, bang, bang!

After some tinkering, Zhao Ji finally knocked all these metal frames apart.

Tucking his axe behind his back, Zhao Ji then tied the large quantity of metal rods neatly together, carried them on his back, and transported them out of the ruins and the Petrified Tree Stump.

Still throwing them into the pit he had dug, Zhao Ji, taking advantage of the fact that he still had energy, put down his heavy axe and returned to the ruins' passageway once more; he went back and forth three times, bringing out all the neat, thin metal rods and the irregular frame debris.

Because the weight was too light, Zhao Ji didn't even feel like he was moving metal while carrying these pieces.

In front of the campfire, Zhao Ji examined the large pile of dismantled metal frames stacked together; after considering for a while, he decided not to use these neat, thin metal rods just yet.

These metals were very strong and might come in very handy later. For now, he would deal with the irregular metal frame debris first. Those irregular frames were all the corners and edges of the various frames that had become deformed because he hadn't knocked them apart properly; the quantity wasn't large, but because their shapes were irregular, they took up a lot of space.

Zhao Ji looked them over; their volume seemed just right for crafting a larger metal shield face.

He didn't know yet if these metals could be used by Humans; Zhao Ji had no idea, so he could only try it out at Doraerlin Village first.

Over the next few days, that little thing that had been pranking him appeared occasionally, but Zhao Ji was always alert and discovered it first, causing its plans to cast spells to prank him to fail; because of this, the little thing actually flew angrily into the air where Jier couldn't reach it, mocking him from high up and occasionally throwing all sorts of messy things down.

Sometimes it was small pebbles, which forced Jier to wear his Helmet and shoulder armor to guard against the small pebbles falling from the sky and injuring him.

Sometimes it was a branch broken off from the Shulin behind; facing this, Jier didn't bother to block it, letting the branches fall around him. Although dangerous, these things falling from the sky still made one jumpy; every time Jier looked up to curse at the little thing flying in the air because of this, it made the other party incredibly happy.

Jier had figured it out: that little thing probably had some purpose when it started pranking him, but as the number of times increased, it had completely turned this into something it could use for amusement.

After all, in this wilderness, there really wasn't any interesting place. Jier was able to endure it entirely because the satisfaction brought by that large amount of silver was sustaining him.

Otherwise, he would have run away long ago.

It was likely that the little thing also felt bored, which was why it had recently been trying all sorts of ways to throw things from the sky to prank him.

After several days of work, Zhao Ji had moved all the silver from inside the Petrified Tree Stump to the outside using the Crane, and he had also moved the heavy Handcart out using his old method.

He also took the time to open some stone doors inside the ruins that were completely empty to lure some bats to fly in and hibernate. He thought that as the number of bats increased in the future, perhaps he could make those who wanted to explore the ruins return empty-handed or something similar.

He hoped even more that those who discovered this place would mistake the entrance of the ruins for a natural bat cave, dispelling some people's desire and curiosity to enter.

Zhao Ji was currently placing the large quantity of Silver Plates flat onto the Handcart, then using Rope to tie the silver on top tightly, carefully pushing the heavy Handcart along a not-too-steep gentle slope in a zigzag pattern to climb out of the hills.

Then he slowly pushed it outside a small Shulin with a non-potable water source not far from the ruins.

Following his digging, this sunken pit soon revealed a large area of neatly arranged Silver Plates. Zhao Ji placed the Silver Plates from the cart onto it one by one, only then returning, going back and forth between the Yingdi and this burial site trip after trip.

That annoying little thing seemed to only like to be active around the hills where the ruins were located and was not interested in the place where Zhao Ji buried the silver.

Just one day later, after Zhao Ji had transported all the Silver Plates to the burial site, covered them with a large amount of soil, and returned.

That mischievous little thing started another 'attack'; this time it was a bit different—what fell from the sky was no longer the messy things it found nearby, but a large field mouse falling from the air.

With an animal shriek of "Squeak!!!!" that went from far to near, Zhao Ji reacted and hurriedly dodged to the side.

And that large field mouse that fell from the sky went "splat" and smashed into pieces on the ground.

Viscera and such, mixed with blood, splattered all over the ground nearby; Zhao Ji pulled a long face, cursing the little thing above for becoming increasingly excessive, while kicking the dead animal into the campfire to be burned.

The little thing above was choked by the foul smoke produced by the burning field mouse fur and kept sneezing, while Jier looked at the little thing above and waved his hand to say goodbye.

He was leaving; the task for this trip was already completed, so naturally, he had to leave this place where he could be attacked at any time.

He had never dared to try to use the Spirit's ring again, so he placed this item, along with the Gems hidden in the birdcage from before, into a box he made of wood and placed it underground in the area of the Yingdi's dugout where he slept.

He also buried a large number of metal rods in the ground around the Yingdi.

Hiding some extra, durable things in the dugout, Zhao Ji only took his weapons, armor, a small amount of supplies for surviving in the wild, and all the irregular metal frame debris, and set off for Doraerlin Village.

The little fairy in the sky watched the Human on the ground wave at it, then pack up his things and leave.

It lay on the Snail Shell and watched, and after pondering for a while, it felt that since the place where the Spirits worked had already been ruined by this Human, there was no need for it to keep guarding it.

It might as well follow this Human; wherever that Human went, it could prank that Human all the way. This was righteous revenge; that Human had stolen the metal plates that decorated the places where the Spirits walked back and forth, although he hadn't stolen them very far, and it was still within the area under the direct jurisdiction of the Spirit outpost from a long time ago.

But this Human had destroyed the frames of the room where the Spirits stored things; this was a grave sin and must be severely punished!

It must be severely punished!

The little fairy stroked its snow-white beard, its eyes rolling around, pondering how it should prank—no, how it should take revenge for the sin of this Human who destroyed Spirit property.

Thinking of a happy thought, the little fairy giggled and raised the height of the Snail Shell so that the Human on the ground couldn't see it.

It knew that once it left this place where there was nothing, it would have many interesting things to give this Human a 'great bombardment'!