"Alas, the image of standing upside down, swinging fists, and stomping to carve out tunnels is pretty ludicrous if you think about it even for a bit. So, relying entirely on fists to create a passage really isn’t a wise decision, which means I probably should look for some other method of tunneling."
As soon as he thought about other methods of tunneling, Zhang Yanhang immediately thought of the versatile Alchemy, which was indeed quite professional for solving the situation here.
"Previously, I estimated that using Alchemy to penetrate the hundreds of meters thick walls in the Crimson Iron Ant Nest would take at least several minutes or even more than ten minutes, but now it seems I might have underestimated Alchemy, or perhaps my method of application wasn’t quite right."
Previously, Zhang Yanhang had always thought of melting the walls entirely and shaping a tunnel large enough for him to pass through normally, but now, he felt that method was too strenuous, and he could actually utilize his Waist Bag to achieve more convenient tunneling methods.
For example, Zhang Yanhang could just melt the edges and the base of the pillar he needed to tunnel through, so that as long as he could simply separate the pillar from the overall wall surface, he could then directly load the entire pillar into his Waist Bag.
If this method was indeed feasible, then melting just the edges would definitely be more convenient and faster than melting the entire pillar.
Compared to the method Zhang Yanhang originally envisioned, which involved completely melting and reshaping, this new method he now envisioned lacked the reshaping step, which would drastically reduce the time needed for Zhang Yanhang to tunnel a passage.
Moreover, aside from saving a significant amount of time on shaping, the pillars created using the new method would be smaller in volume.
Rather than tunneling a passage large enough for Zhang Yanhang to walk through normally, the pillars tunneled using this new method would only need a diameter of one meter at most, just enough for Zhang Yanhang to pass through and turn around if needed.
Reducing the diameter of the tunnel meant that Zhang Yanhang could use the same amount of time and Energy Value to tunnel a further distance, which would definitely save a lot of time when finally completing the tunnel.
After briefly thinking through the initial tunneling plan, Zhang Yanhang began to implement it practically. Although this new method he envisioned seemed very reliable, he still needed to verify if it could actually succeed.
Moreover, besides verifying the feasibility, Zhang Yanhang also needed to test how much Energy was consumed by this method of tunneling.
If it consumed a lot, then even if the tunneling was successful, it would overall be considered a failure since Energy Value, unlike Physical Value, recovers very slowly.
Once Zhang Yanhang depleted his Energy Value, it would take at least four hours to fully recover, whereas using fists to tunnel was different; without using the Death Wave Skill or Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil Skill, Zhang Yanhang could manage to swing his fists all day before needing to rest.
After all, in Zhang Yanhang’s process of hunting monsters, skill consumption was always the largest component, so removing skill consumption meant it wouldn’t be hard for him with his robust Physical Strength to keep swinging fists continuously for a day and a night.
Zhang Yanhang simply brushed aside the debris piled up beside him, then directly activated the Alchemy.
As Energy Value flowed into the Alchemy Array, it rapidly penetrated layer by layer, spreading out dozens of meters away quickly. When the Alchemy Array reached the designated location, the dozens of Alchemy Arrays along the way began to function simultaneously, swiftly melting the edges and the cross-sectional base of the pillar.
In less than a minute, Zhang Yanhang had already completed the overall cutting of the pillar, successfully separating the contact surface between the pillar and the Crimson Iron Ore Wall, or the Crimson Iron Ore Vein.
After successfully separating the pillar, Zhang Yanhang gently touched the surface of the pillar, and a whole Crimson Iron Ore Pillar, tens of meters long, instantly vanished without a trace, successfully stored inside his Waist Bag.
"Could it really work? Since that’s the case, it’s time to consider the formal tunneling plan."
Zhang Yanhang said this as he crawled into the mini cave he had just carved out, which had a diameter of about one meter and a length of about fifty meters, meaning that, using the formula for the volume of a cylinder, he had just tunneled forty cubic meters of Crimson Iron Ore Pillar in one go.
This also meant that just one Crimson Iron Ore Pillar already occupied forty slots in Zhang Yanhang’s Waist Bag.
"If every Crimson Iron Ore Pillar maintains this volume, then after continuous tunneling for half an hour, my slots will be filled up. Therefore, I should probably try to reduce the overall volume of the Crimson Iron Ore Pillars..."
As for reducing volume, it definitely couldn’t be achieved by adjusting the length, so what Zhang Yanhang could reduce was only the diameter of the Crimson Iron Ore Pillar. He moved around briefly in the mini cave, and indeed, just as he previously estimated, he could turn around by hugging his knees and curling his body.
"But anyway, there are no monsters along the way, so whether I can turn around or not doesn’t seem very important. Moreover, when I start tunneling downwards later, I won’t even need to turn around at all, so let’s reduce the diameter of the Crimson Iron Ore Pillar a bit more."
While saying this, Zhang Yanhang started using Alchemy for relevant scene simulation. He used the surrounding Crimson Iron Ore to form a vertical wall around his body and began gradually decreasing the narrow space’s diameter, ultimately determining that the minimal diameter was sixty-seven centimeters. For more chapters visit novel-fire.net
At that size, Zhang Yanhang could barely sit on the ground, but speaking of comfort, eighty centimeters was more suitable as he could at least stretch his legs without having to maintain the same position the whole time.
"Since that’s the case, let’s go with eighty centimeters. Although it only shortens the diameter by twenty centimeters, in terms of volume, it actually reduces quite a significant portion."
Zhang Yanhang did a simple calculation based on the cylindrical volume formula: originally, a Crimson Iron Ore Pillar with a diameter of one meter and a length of fifty meters had a total volume of about forty cubic meters, but a Crimson Iron Ore Pillar with the same fifty meters in length and a diameter of eighty centimeters had a total volume of only twenty-five cubic meters, meaning the total volume had reduced by more than a third.