Lu Yu returned to Windmill Town at the fastest speed, feeling a bit upset. How come he keeps running into Yang Xiu everywhere?
It was after he saw Yang Xiu at the mining area that he hastily bid farewell to Zhang Lun, just to avoid Yang Xiu.
He never expected, of all the times and places, to encounter Yang Xiu now. Lu Yu was worried that Zhang Lun might have casually mentioned the excuse he came up with to Yang Xiu.
If things go awry, he’d be done for.
Returning to the little courtyard behind Jimin Hall, Little Tail was sitting on the stone chair in the yard, with her hands covering her face and her eyes unfocused, pondering something.
Probably because Lu Yu had restricted her personal freedom, which was hard to adapt to for someone who was used to being free.
Lu Yu drank a few sips of tea to calm his nerves, feeling that cultivation was still the priority now. Yet after checking his backpack, his mood became sour again, with only one Qi Blood Pill left.
"Sigh~ Money, cultivation really burns through money!" Lu Yu put the teapot on the table and started pacing, thinking of ways to make money.
Little Tail walked in and took the teapot to refill it.
Lu Yu had already increased his Qi Blood to 70 points, reaching the limit of the third level of Body Refinement realm, equivalent to the entry-level of the fifth level.
During these days of taking Qi Blood Pills to speed up training, he had accumulated quite a bit of experience for level upgrading. But once the Qi Blood Pills were used up, the cultivation speed would slow down significantly.
Having tasted the joy of accelerated cultivation, Lu Yu couldn’t bear the thought of slow advancement.
After a long time, Lu Yu made a decision, wearing a solemn expression akin to one heading to a final mission with no return, as he walked out of the small courtyard.
He had made up his mind—to sacrifice himself for money.
Back at the place where he encountered the rock monsters, Lu Yu discerned the direction and walked away from the mining area.
After passing through a dense forest, the sparse trees around made Lu Yu alert, as he gingerly proceeded forward.
After traveling some distance, he saw a gigantic stone cave; in front of the cave was a flat ground covered with gravel, as if compressed repeatedly by a steamroller, creating an exceedingly smooth surface.
On the flat ground, many rock monsters were sunbathing, resembling rocks lying on the earth, but each rock had a conspicuous stone horn (unicorne).
Lu Yu hid at the border between the forest and the gravel ground, quietly observing the habits of the rock monsters.
From time to time, rock monsters would carry a rock out from the dark cave, lying on the gravel ground, nibbling and eating stones.
Suddenly, the rear of a rock monster lifted slightly, followed by a loud noise as a sand cloud sprayed from the monster’s back.
Among the sand, there were tiny black particles flashing under the sunlight.
Lu Yu was momentarily stunned, but then realized the tiny black particles in the sand were none other than the iron essence he sought.
Realizing this, he felt much relieved; originally, he had resolved to sacrifice himself and was prepared to become a dung collector.
But now it seemed the situation was different than he imagined; the rock monster’s dung was more like sand rather than the wet, sticky, oddly shaped thing he had envisaged.
Knowing this, Lu Yu felt much better.
After careful observation, Lu Yu found the ground scattered with the yellow sand excretions of the rock monsters, and the tiny black iron essence was mixed into the sand, requiring meticulous inspection to find.
Taking out a cloth bag from his backpack, Lu Yu quietly crawled towards a mountain of accumulated sand, even resorting to crawling on the ground.
Though aware that the area was full of rock monster excretions, thinking that they ate stones and excreted sand made him less repulsed.
After changing positions several times, he finally got close to the sand pile, summoned a cloth bag full of Gold Coins with his right hand, and hurriedly stuffed yellow sand into the bag, but unfortunately, the bag was too small to hold much.
Thump thump thump~ The rock monsters were alerted, rising one after another, some spotted Lu Yu and charged at him, while others were also alerted, soon forming a group charging towards Lu Yu.
Seeing this, Lu Yu dared not linger for a moment, quickly got up to escape, extending his hand to attempt to stash the sand directly into his backpack but failed.
Without a word, he instantly performed the Eight Steps of Catching Cicada multiple times, disappearing from the gravel ground, leaving the rock monsters charging towards him bewildered. Where did the human go? How did that human suddenly disappear?
After a bout of chaos, the rock monsters reverted to their rock-like state and laid basking in the sun.
"Whew whew~ That was intense!"
The Qi Blood surged within Lu Yu’s body, refusing to calm down for a long time. He glanced at the attribute panel, showing only 21 points of Qi Blood left; even he didn’t know how many times he used the Eight Steps of Catching Cicada.
His legs were a bit wobbly now, an aftermath of short-term exertion of a large amount of Qi Blood, especially due to the repeated use of the Eight Steps of Catching Cicada skill.
Continuous skill usage increases Qi Blood consumption and imposes significant stress on the body.
Lu Yu first rested for a while at the spot, calming his boiling Qi Blood, then broke off a tree branch to use as a cane to prevent himself from falling due to weakened legs.
After walking for a while, Lu Yu heard the sound of flowing water, discarded the makeshift cane, and hurried to the stream.
A clear stream, two meters wide, crossed the forest, with small fish swimming back and forth in it.
Lu Yu scooped up a few handfuls of water to drink, then took out a cloth bag filled with yellow sand and gently shook it in the water.
Fine sand was carried away by the current, turning a section of the stream yellow, but the sandy water only clouded for a few meters before becoming clear again.
Watching the stream alternately becoming turbid and clear, Lu Yu had a feeling of gold panning.
The bag grew lighter, and its contents dwindled until no obvious yellow sand flowed out. Lu Yu lifted the cloth bag.
Opening the cloth bag, inside lay some small sand grains, surrounded by even finer iron essence.
The fist-sized cloth bag, after washing, had only about the size of a finger left, with the iron essence comprising a very small portion, possibly not even one-fifth.
Lu Yu didn’t want to pick out the sand grain by grain, so he decided to take it back for the little girl, Xiao Weiba, to pick through. After all, she was idle anyway, and giving her something to do might prevent her from causing trouble.
Looking at the sun, Lu Yu determined the direction and walked opposite the sun’s direction. When he had traveled towards Fengyan’s lair from Windmill Town, the sun was directly ahead; heading away from the sun led back towards Windmill Town.
Halfway, Lu Yu went to Fengyan’s lair again and found the chaos he had caused earlier still hadn’t settled, so he headed back to Windmill Town. He needed to verify a few things.
Returning to the small house in the backyard of Jimin Hall, he tossed the cloth bag to Xiao Weiba, instructing her to pick out the iron essence, while he looked for some things, attempting to understand the criteria the system used to store items in the backpack.
While escaping, he suddenly thought of whether he could just store yellow sand into the backpack, but the result was negative; not even a grain could be stored.
After experimenting with many items under various conditions, Lu Yu discovered the system’s rough criteria for what could be stored in the backpack.
The reason it’s only rough criteria is some experiments he couldn’t conduct, such as attempting during a battle to touch the opponent’s weapon and see if it could be directly stored in the backpack.
Firstly, the system determines whether the item belongs to the player. If it belongs to the player, it has the highest storage priority and can be stored within a certain range in the backpack. Lu Yu preliminarily judged the range to be one meter.
If it doesn’t belong to the player, the player needs to touch the object without external force interfering. So, even if the item is unowned, any interference, no matter how weak, prevents it from being stored in the backpack.
This conclusion was derived from an experiment with a rabbit, whereby he fed a carrot to the rabbit and attempted to store the carrot while it was eating, which failed.
Later, he completed the verification of his hypothesis without Xiao Weiba knowing.
Next, he considered whether an object is whole or discrete. A whole object meeting the first requirement can be stored in the backpack. Discrete objects cannot be stored, but turning a discrete object into a whole allows storage.
For example, a handful of earth cannot be stored, but wrapping the earth in paper enables storage in the backpack.
Lastly, whether the object is alive or not? Living entities cannot be stored in the backpack, whereas deceased ones can. Complete plants can be stored, and animals can be stored once dead.
So far, these are the usage skills Lu Yu has figured out.
Lu Yu hasn’t tested the spatial limit of the backpack, but when it holds too many items, he can feel an invisible pressure weighing on him, making movement difficult.
He suspects the capacity of the backpack might be related to one’s strength.
"I’ve picked all the black stones out; none were overlooked," Xiao Weiba said, holding the cloth bag as she approached Lu Yu.
Lu Yu opened the bag for a glance, finding no excess sand particles; all were black iron essence. Weighing it, he felt no weight at all, estimating it to be only a few grams.
If intending to sell, at least one liang should be calculated, which equals 50 grams — this is far from enough.
Following his thoughts, he felt incapable of completion alone, so Lu Yu glanced at Xiao Weiba, standing before him, curious eyes fixed on the cloth bag in his hand.
Isn’t she the perfect choice? Lu Yu’s eyes gleamed.
Xiao Weiba’s strength was weak; taking her along would ensure he could easily handle her if she tried to escape or caused problems, eliminating a worry, preventing any soft-hearted hesitation.
With this thought, Lu Yu asked, "While I was away, you didn’t talk to anyone about the mysterious figure, did you?"
Xiao Weiba shook her head like a rattle, quickly saying, "No, besides asking for food, I didn’t say a single word to anyone."
"Li... like it." Xiao Weiba quietly responded, "Money can buy lots and lots of food. Having money means I won’t go hungry."
"In a bit, come out with me for a while. Listen to what I say and do as I instruct. When we return, I’ll give you money, and I’ll take you out to buy whatever you want."
After speaking, Lu Yu felt a twinge of guilt. Wasn’t he essentially employing child labor?