Chapter 439

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Protagonist:

Chen Yi

Liu Xinyu was also standing at the foot of the mountain watching the blasting, her head tilted back in a posture that made her figure all the more striking, leaving the surrounding students restless.

The Magical Mountain, stripped of its vegetation, was like a hairless pig hung on a butcher's stall — a picture of being at others' mercy. The side facing the ore dressing plant had long since been blasted away; now they were blasting the other bald side, where the red and yellow ore clung to half the bare scalp like dried blood, occasionally weathering and falling off in chunks, possessing a distinctly bleak late-heavy-industry atmosphere.

Six students hung from nylon ropes at the summit, scaling the rock barehanded to drill blast holes; their movements weren't necessarily practiced, but their speed surpassed that of professionals.

They were all students from the West Continent's Outer Hall, Body Technique Level 9 — having broken the body's limits. Whether strength, agility, or muscle resilience, all were outstanding; even professionally trained athletes fell slightly short.

The Martial Arts Hall already had over twenty Body Technique Level 9 students, but including Cao Zheng, none had successfully advanced to Combat Skill Level; otherwise they could have dispensed with the ropes at their waists.

The Yin Sen Family's two Divine Art Knights stood at the foot of the mountain, both worried and curious. Yin Senchen was one thing, but Yin Senjin fixed his gaze on Liu Xinyu, unable to resist looking her up and down.

"Careful." Yin Senchen punched him, a hollow "bang" sounding. Divine Art Knights playing at fighting was terrifying.

Yin Senjin sighed, saying: "Staying on Earth for a while, sigh, women with skin so fair and smooth — truly wonderful."

"The city-states have such women too."

"Not this good." Yin Senjin suddenly smiled, lowering his voice: "The Divine Temple's nuns are indeed fair and tender."

Yin Senchen's eyes went wide.

Yin Senjin knew what he was thinking, waved a hand and laughed: "What are you afraid of? We don't have the 'Loyalty to the Divine Temple' oath — what does it matter if we just talk about the Divine Temple's nuns?"

"Not used to it. The Lord summoned us." As Yin Senchen spoke, his gaze naturally turned toward the command platform on the steel frame — the Bare Bear was indeed there waving.

Communication between Knights is actually very convenient: just concentrate your gaze on them and it triggers their alertness; their sixth sense is stronger than a transvestite's. The West Continent's city-states and families all highly favor this summoning mode — at the very least it keeps Knights in a state of alert.

Yin Senjin and Yin Senchen ran to the steel frame, skipping the stairs, and jumped straight up onto the 10-meter-high command platform.

The "fair and tender" Liu Xinyu turned around this time, scrutinizing them carefully for a moment, then returned her attention to the mine.

The freshness of first arriving on the West Continent wasn't necessarily more intense than the freshness of first arriving in the Amazon Forest.

Liu Xinyu's psychology destined her to consider "career" first; the West Continent was a territory awaiting development. When Chen Yi, like a colonist, tried to extract resources to supply Earth, Liu Xinyu instead had the idea of putting down roots on the West Continent.

On this land, she might be able to exert a greater effect than on Earth!

Once a person's notion arises, it's not easy to extinguish. Although Liu Xinyu liked Earth's prosperity, she didn't always like it that much. Otherwise, the Liu Xinyu who could have stayed in the New York or London departments wouldn't have ended up in Jiangning.

"Awake?" Chen Yi first nodded to Yin Senchen and Yin Senjin, saying: "Wait a moment — when the mountain is blasted, pay attention to protecting yourselves and others."

The two Divine Art Knights nodded repeatedly, their attitudes as good as Knight Attendants'.

Liu Xinyu, meanwhile, shaded her eyes with her hand and continued asking: "Is the West Continent's explosives also self-produced?"

She wanted to understand everything about the West Continent as quickly as possible.

Chen Yi smiled faintly, saying: "Mainly still transported from Jiangning. The newly built explosives factory can be self-sufficient, but it wastes too much manpower — not worth it. Especially now, our procurement of supplies is very convenient, so we only need to guarantee the West Continent can produce explosives; supply is still provided by Earth."

Explosives production is actually very simple; even if the government tries every method to choke off the source, workers with a bit of process knowledge can still produce substitutes. The Republic of China emerged amid rumbling explosions; the West Continent's early explosives factories reached monthly outputs of up to a hundred tons.

However, that hundred-ton output was exchanged for the workload of fifty students, and the raw materials all came from Jiangning. For Chen Yi, rather than expending energy and time on those raw materials, it was better to directly obtain high-grade explosives produced by regular military factories.

On the other hand, hundreds or thousands of tons of explosives would still pose a considerable threat to Divine Art Knights. Although the West Continent's power structure is very balanced, in the absence of necessity Chen Yi still hoped to control the West Continent's explosives production, lest he one day fall into some scheme or trap.

Liu Xinyu didn't know what she thought of, resting her chin in thought — quiet and cute; only Chen Yi knew clearly that quiet and cute had absolutely nothing to do with her work and thinking.

The two Divine Art Knights were blankly unaware of what they were saying; Yin Senjin, bored, grabbed the Bare Bear and asked: "You're mining so fast — why send only these few people up?"

Last time they came, the Magical Mountain was still a bald head; now it's become half a head. In a Divine Temple-controlled mine, wouldn't that require dispatching tens of thousands to labor?

The Bare Bear had never been this cultured, explaining quite carefully: "They're drilling blast holes — blast holes are where explosives go. When the time comes, everything explodes at once, the mountain collapses and the earth splits, excavators go up to collect the stones, send them to the ore dressing machines, and the job's basically done."

"I know — it's blasting from the inside, right? Impressive. Do you need us to channel divine power?" Yin Senjin volunteered automatically.

Excess divine power can trigger explosions, because it is itself a form of energy.

However, although divine power possesses "divine" strength, faith ultimately cannot be used as a bomb. Divine Art Knights might have the power to blast down a city wall, but extremely few can destroy a mountain — half a mountain won't do either.

Yin Senjin's expression was resentful, but his tone was decisive.

Using divine power to blast a mountain — ordinary lords definitely wouldn't do it.

Too disrespectful of the Divine Art Knights' value!

But in Yin Senjin and Yin Senchen's view, since Chen Yi could make them porters, blasting mountains was naturally part of their manual labor duties... The two poor Divine Art Knights had already positioned themselves at the blue-collar worker level.

The Bare Bear held back a laugh, saying: "Explosives are for blasting — no need for your divine power."

The Divine Art Knights had no time to be glad before Chen Yi followed up: "I called you two here to continue helping transport ore. The Magical Mountain only has one 210-ton large-angle electric wheel dump truck; the rest are all small things with capacities under 40 tons. They transport frequently, but the intermediate connection isn't smooth — jobs like dumping sometimes need a helping hand."

Open-pit mining is relatively simple technology — iron picks and wheelbarrows work — but for large-scale excavation to improve efficiency, you need large machinery. China has defunct mining enterprises everywhere; recruiting some technicians isn't hard — the hard part is recruiting all of them. Sometimes missing a few categories of masters means they can't be found, or are too few in number. In such cases, the mine's overall excavation progress slows down, so Chen Yi could only trouble the Divine Art Knights.

Divine power comes easily; he really hadn't planned to support Divine Art Knights in idleness.

Yin Senjin agreed with a bitter face; Yin Senchen also nodded. Although they disliked doing coolie work, "Oath Keeping" was an education engraved in their bones — it was true "Faith".

"Hope Yin Senyong and them come back soon." The two prayed silently.

Liu Xinyu at this moment said prettily: "I had the chef make good food — the hauling work is hard; you can eat anytime, there's always some."

"Thanks." This time it was Yin Senchen who answered.

In terms of social graces, Liu Xinyu, who had done subversion work, was obviously more skilled.

"Ready to detonate." Qin Yueming ran over to report to Chen Yi, his voice loud and clear — precisely the good voice cultivated in prison.

"Detonate." Chen Yi plugged his ears with divine power.

Yin Senjin copied him, divine power blocking his eardrums, isolating all sound.

The ground shuddered violently like a ship collision; half the bald mountain collapsed at once, sliding toward the screening field like a blood sacrifice.

After waiting several minutes, all the various machines parked on the perimeter started up.

Chen Yi let out a slight breath of relief, saying to Qin Yueming: "Before I set out, you must have 50,000 tons of ore ready — this is a hard condition."

"Yes." Qin Yueming nearly let slip a "Government".

The prison's education level is quite good; true to the saying, strict discipline produces filial sons.

Yin Senchen and Yin Senjin automatically went to help, while Liu Xinyu walked over and asked, "With so much ore, you want to send it to Jiangning for smelting?"

Chen Yi, however, shook his head lightly and said, "Not preparing to smelt it."

"Ah?"

"Mortgage it directly to the bank for a loan." Chen Yi looked at Liu Xinyu's surprised expression and smiled, "The bank is the commercial center; borrowing the bank's money means dealing with them, and the more you borrow, the better it is to deal with them."

"Then how to solve the problem of insufficient precious metals?"

"I'll put 50,000 tons of ore at the port; I estimate those institutions won't be interested in buying our gold anymore, and the meaning is about the same as smelting it into metal."

Actually there is still some gap, but it's not urgent.

Moreover, at the most critical moment, Chen Yi can still purchase gold. That merely delays the speed of currency maturation.

Liu Xinyu nodded thoughtfully, then said, "Let me be responsible for prospecting."

Prospecting is absolutely hard work. Chen Yi hesitated and said, "Jiangning people's activity radius is only 160 kilometers..."

"80,000 square kilometers, not few." Liu Xinyu immediately calculated it out.

"Alright, you find the personnel yourself, but cannot exceed one Inspection Team."

"I don't want students; local natives will do." Liu Xinyu's answer was even more unexpected, but seeing her confident appearance, Chen Yi agreed.

Although the West Continent's civilization is backward, its population is not small at all; natives are available in whatever quantity you want.

Liu Xinyu looked into the distance with shining eyes, fantasizing about countless natives prostrating themselves in worship before her.

……(Unfinished. If you like this work, welcome to Qidian (qidian. com) to cast Recommendation Tickets and Monthly Tickets; your support is my greatest motivation.)