Chapter 354

Another brilliant gem of the industrial crown appeared, once again confirming Wu Chang's earlier suspicion.

In the Steam Phantom dungeon, the so-called "brilliant gem of the industrial crown" refers to various extraordinary steam engines.

Raventon looked at the coal essence in Wu Chang's hand and asked Thomas:

"Our previous promise still stands. Whatever you know, speak freely."

Thomas asked nervously: "Mr., from the very beginning, you knew, didn't you?"

Raventon shrugged and said:

"In detective work, intelligence and connections matter most—and luckily, my connections are decent."

"When I was learning detective skills, I met several thief gangs in Grimlan City; some of their young members had excellent techniques and had all worked in mines."

"At the time, I heard from them that some thief gangs disguise themselves as miners to enter precious metal mines and steal raw stones to sell."

Raventon, watching Thomas grow increasingly tense, continued:

"When you tried to take my wallet, I already noticed your technique was trained—but surprisingly, your practical experience was minimal."

"Thief gangs who survive in the city have sharp eyes; they can easily tell who not to mess with and wouldn't risk stealing my wallet."

"A thief with technique but little practice, who just happens to be a miner—it's hard not to suspect you."

After hearing this, Thomas's face lost all trace of hope; he admitted honestly:

"Mr., you're right. In Pine Tree Mine, there really is a thief gang as you described—I'm one of them."

Raventon glanced at Wu Chang and said with a hint of pride:

"See? As I said, the truth lies in the details."

Wu Chang shook his head slightly and said:

"Everyone has their own way of solving cases. For me, I don't need details."

Raventon asked curiously: "Then how do you find the truth?"

"Intuition—or inspiration," Wu Chang said, spreading his hands.

Raventon suddenly remembered something and warned sharply: "You're not praying to the Light of Purity for the gods to reveal the truth, are you? That's cheating."

Wu Chang denied: "Of course not. When your occult knowledge reaches my level, you'll understand the importance of inspiration."

Raventon remained noncommittal: "I hope one day I'll witness your inspiration-based method of solving cases."

"Now, let's hear what Thomas has to say."

Since his greatest secret had been exposed, Thomas no longer concealed anything—he revealed everything he knew about coal essence.

At first, as he said, because of his short stature, he was chosen by the mine's management to move through the tunnels, especially deep mining zones, to deliver orders.

About two years ago, a gang of mine thieves arrived at Pine Tree Mine and took notice of him.

They found Thomas at night and demanded he, while delivering management orders, scout the mine's conditions and relay messages among gang members.

In return, he could join the thief organization and learn theft skills.

Under the thieves' instructions, Thomas discovered that roughly once a month, a cart of special coal was produced in the deep mine shafts.

This cart of coal would not be mixed with regular coal; instead, mine management would separately pack it and deliver it directly to the mine owner's office.

Their task was to steal the special coal during its transport from the deep shafts to the shallower levels.

That is, coal essence.

Thomas's role was twofold: first, to use the orders to determine which deep shafts would send out the special coal each month.

Second, to identify the escort personnel, find those with low vigilance, and help the thieves relay messages so they could plan ahead based on the route.

Most importantly, after each success, he had to monitor the mine owner and management for signs they had discovered missing coal essence.

Thomas initially refused to get involved, but the payment was simply too tempting.

Each successful operation, the thief gang gave him twenty shillings as his share.

Thomas was only twelve years old; at the mine, he earned the lowest child labor wage—six days a week, fourteen hours a day, earning just fifteen shillings a month.

Helping the thief gang once a month earned him double his salary; for Thomas, who wanted to move his sister out of the slums, this temptation was impossible to refuse.

After hearing Thomas's account, Raventon asked:

"Once a month, how much coal essence is produced each time?"

Thomas recalled: "About eight carts."

"Eight carts? Standard ore carts of one-ton capacity?" Raventon was startled by the number.

Thomas nodded: "Yes."

Raventon, sensing the key issue, grew more excited:

"According to my knowledge, the entire Stilran produces less than eight carts of coal essence annually."

"Coal essence has less than half the density of coal, yet eight carts amount to nearly four tons. The unit price of coal essence exceeds silver, reaching six shillings per ounce—each ton is worth over ten thousand gold pounds."

"No wonder the deep mine's output value exceeds the shallow mine's. Now it's clear—they didn't just underreport; they even understated it."

Wu Chang, having already learned the problem's source from the king's emblem, added smoothly:

"In other words, hidden deep within Pine Tree Mine is some special secret causing the coal essence output to be abnormally high."

Raventon gave an approving look and said:

"Exactly. Next, we must enter the mine and see what's hidden inside."

"Fortunately, we have an excellent underground guide here."

To investigate the mine explosion, they must first examine the collapsed tunnel.

The Pine Tree Mine explosion was publicly blamed on excessive gas buildup deep underground, triggering a massive explosion from deep to shallow levels.

The collapsed tunnel had been temporarily cleared; according to Pine Tree Mine's own records, over four hundred miners died in the explosion.

But the explosion was so violent, and parts of the tunnel remain uncleared, so only two hundred corpses have been recovered so far.

The shallow mining area where the explosion occurred has been thoroughly processed—no danger remains, and no clues exist.

Rivenston held up his lantern, illuminating the mine wall stained with dark red bloodprints, and said:

"The excavation and cleanup of the Pine Tree Mine explosion were personally overseen by Prime Minister Ron. I was present during the excavation and observed closely."

"Professional, swift, clean, efficient—every detail was executed perfectly, a textbook-level mine disaster recovery."

"But unfortunately, precisely because it was so standard, I found no extra clues."

"I wonder what our Inspirationist detectives have discovered here."

As Rivenston said, the cleared sections of the mine were spotless, with no abnormalities at all; even with intuition, he could detect nothing unusual.

But Wu Chang never investigated truth solely through intuition.

A disaster claiming over four hundred lives—he refused to believe it left no trace of resentment.

He walked fifteen meters along the mine tunnel and indeed found a residue of resentment; its owner was merely an ordinary miner, so the resentment glowed faint red.

But that was enough.

He stared at the resentment—the faint red stains erupted, instantly engulfing him.

When he turned back, he had possessed the miner's body, experiencing everything from the first-person perspective of the explosion day.

The owner of the resentment had just finished work and was about to leave the mine for his shift change.

As he first entered the victim's viewpoint, Wu Chang faintly heard someone ask:

"Art, why are you switching shifts so early today? You usually stay two extra hours."

The resentment's owner, Art, replied:

"I can't today—my wife has malaria and is resting at home. I need to go back and cook for her."

A coworker asked, "Is she alright?"

Art said, "Just mild malaria. The priest next door examined her—he says she'll recover soon."

The coworker laughed, "Say hello to Peri for me. I'll pray for her—hope your dinner doesn't make her diarrhea worse."

As they laughed and joked, a sudden cry came from ahead in the tunnel:

"The mine cart is stuck—is there a problem with the tracks?"

"Damn it, fix it fast! Deep-mining coal is due up any minute!"

Art walked toward the sound and said, "I'll take a look."

Before he could get close, a miner trying to leave the mine to find a track repairman suddenly collapsed to the ground.

He sat up, clutching his face, cursing, "Which Bai Chi isn't looking where he's going?"

But when he lifted his head, he saw only empty air—no one was there.

The miner froze. He reached forward with his hand—and halfway through, it met resistance.

"By the Queen! It's not the cart—it's a transparent wall here!"

At that moment, Art arrived nearby. He approached skeptically, reached out, and truly felt the solid texture of a wall in midair.

A bad premonition rose in his chest. Before he could speak, his peripheral vision caught a blinding flash racing toward him from deep in the tunnel.

The air wall in his hands vanished the instant the light flared—but before he could react, only one sound remained in his ears.

Boom!

The next instant, a violent explosion swallowed the entire tunnel.

Wu Chang's vision went black—he broke free from the resentment.

Art didn't understand what happened, but Wu Chang, possessing him, saw clearly.

The air wall blocking the tunnel entrance was clearly a mystical ritual array.

The Pine Tree Mine explosion was pure human sabotage!

Rivenston's voice sounded behind him: "My lord, did your intuition yield any clues?"

Wu Chang took a deep breath, first using mental communication to instruct Aileen to continue forward with Thomas, then waved to Rivenston, signaling him to follow.

Rivenston's face remained calm, but his heart sank—he glanced at Wu Chang, wondering if the commander really had a lead.

In the Pine Tree Mine explosion, the blast and the mystical ritual were perfectly synchronized.

At the moment of the explosion, the air wall vanished, making the miners' deaths appear natural, with no trace of boundary.

Art was thrown far by the blast; the location of his resentment was some distance from the air wall.

Wu Chang led Rivenston fifteen meters to the spot where the air wall had stood in Art's resentment.

His palm glowed with complex mystical runes; he swept his hand across the tunnel wall—and a faint, nearly invisible trace appeared on its surface.

"Mr. Great Detective, can you tell what this means?"

Rivenston pulled out a folding magnifying glass, studied the trace for one or two minutes, then folded it shut and stared blankly:

"Prohibited Passage Ritual."

Wu Chang praised: "Your mystical knowledge isn't bad. If you could go further and reconstruct the ritual's traces, that would be even better."

Rivenston asked, "How did you find it?"

Leaving aside the fact that the Prohibited Passage Ritual on the wall had been meticulously erased—its cleaner was extraordinarily skilled, leaving almost no trace—

even if traces had remained, he was certain Wu Chang had never seen this mark before.

Wu Chang had merely stood fifteen meters away, staring at empty air in thought, and in the blink of an eye, as if granted divine revelation, uncovered the hidden clue.

Wu Chang, facing Rivenston's question, replied as if it were obvious: "I told you—I used intuition."

Rivenston immediately shook his head: "Intuition requires gathering enough clues, analyzing the scene, and logically eliminating most impossible options before that one flash of insight appears."

"What you just showed was clearly something beyond intuition—something far more cheating."

Wu Chang shook his head: "It's my talent. I don't fully understand how it works. Sorry—I lack the scholarly depth to explain it to people like you who don't have talent."

Rivenston laughed—laughed in fury.

"I don't believe your so-called intuition is this accurate every single time."

Wu Chang raised an eyebrow and asked:

"You mean you want to bet on who finds the truth behind the Pine Tree Coal Mine explosion first?"

Reventon straightened his chest and said solemnly:

"Of course."

Wu Chang asked: "What's the stake?"

Reventon opened his wallet and said: "Forty—no, subtract next month's rent—the stake is thirty-three gold pounds."

Wu Chang had expected Reventon to bet big, but it was only gold pounds.

He chuckled: "Fine, I accept your challenge."

Wu Chang and the others continued investigating the cleared mine tunnel.

The tunnel held much resentment, but the information within was not much different from At's resentment.

The deeper layers of the tunnel remained collapsed, making further descent impossible; to uncover the secrets of the deep tunnel, they could only ask Thomas to find an intact mine shaft and see if they could enter the deep layers.

Before entering the new mine shaft, Reventon took out a canary and walked at the very front of the group.

An intact mine tunnel differs from a collapsed one—no one has cleared it, and dangerous gases may still be present.

Carrying a canary was a common method among miners to test air quality; canaries are sensitive to air changes, and if they showed signs of lethargy or other abnormalities, it meant the air was dangerous and evacuation was needed.

They pressed forward until reaching the boundary between the deep and shallow layers of the mine, and the canary showed no reaction at all.

The deep layers of several tunnels were interconnected, yet the current situation suggested the leaked gas had concentrated into just a few tunnels.

This behavior further confirmed that the Pine Tree Coal Mine explosion was deliberately orchestrated.

The group continued deeper into the mine shaft; the tunnel grew narrower the farther they went.

Soon they reached a heavy wooden partition door; according to Thomas, this door lay two hundred meters underground, separating the shallow and deep mining zones.

Thomas knew how to open it and opened it smoothly, but his movements revealed he was extremely tense, visibly uneasy, and unconsciously edged closer to Elin.

Wu Chang asked: "What's in the deep mining zone that frightens you so much?"

Thomas spoke with a slight tremor:

"Mr., I've heard from fellow workers that a demon dwells in the deep mine shafts, appearing at night to abduct miners."

Wu Chang became interested and asked: "A demon in the deep mine shafts? Tell me more."

As they walked, they listened to Thomas speak.

In Stilane, mining is a dangerous job, especially coal mining—its death rate is higher than that of railroad workers, the universally acknowledged dangerous profession.

A small coal mine of a hundred workers loses three or four men annually to accidents; how much more so for Pine Tree Coal Mine, a super-large mine with over three thousand workers?

Yet according to the data, excluding the recent explosion, Pine Tree Coal Mine's death rate was far lower than that of ordinary coal mines.

This was due to its excellent ventilation and drainage systems, and strict management protocols.

These standardized controls greatly reduced accidental deaths, yet Pine Tree Coal Mine still maintained an annual casualty count of around twenty.

The reason? The deep mining zone.

Miners frequently vanished in the deep mine shafts—alive, no trace; dead, no body.

The deepest part of Pine Tree Coal Mine lies six hundred meters underground; miners often couldn't return to the surface in time and would rest overnight in temporary shelters deep below.

Many miners claimed that while sound asleep at night, they saw coworkers walking like sleepwalkers into the deep mine, never returning the next day.

Here, Thomas's voice grew dry.

"Compared to ordinary miners, members of the coal thief gangs—especially those who have touched coal essence—are more vulnerable to demon attacks."

"Before the explosion, five members of the coal thief gang had already vanished."

After hearing this, Reventon wore a thoughtful expression and asked:

"How much coal essence do you steal each time?"

Thomas said: "To avoid detection by mine management, we always take small pieces—about half the size of the coal essence on the mine owner's desk."

"We take eighty to a hundred pieces per trip, no more than fifteen per cart, never more; for every piece we take, we replace it with a similarly sized lump of coal."

Reventon fell silent for a moment, then said:

"According to you, each piece of coal essence weighs about an ounce; taking the midpoint of ninety pieces, that's five pounds."

"That weight spread across eight carts might seem insignificant, but have you considered that if the mine owner tracks the total weight of each batch, your five-pound theft becomes glaringly obvious?"

Thomas immediately replied: "Impossible—Kali said coal essence extraction is extremely difficult, and mixing it with ordinary coal is normal."

"Besides, the eight carts come from different tunnels—they wouldn't know the total."

Reventon seemed to have already deduced what was happening underground; he spoke in a flat tone:

"Did your Kali ever tell you that ordinary coal mines don't produce coal essence so regularly and in such precise quantities?"

Thomas fell silent, his eyes filled with terror.

If the mine owner had known about their theft from the start, why had the mine owner and management allowed it—pretending not to notice?

Wu Chang gently tapped Thomas on the head and said:

"Don't think too hard—some things, knowing too much won't benefit you."

(End of Chapter)