Chapter 591 - 587 – THE HUNT FOR PURE MITHRIL ON THE PEAK OF STONE MOUNTAIN AND THE COMPLAINTS OF THE GOLDEN DRAGON

The morning air on the border of the Southern Star Province gradually warmed as the tall shadows of Falling Star City’s walls began to fall behind. After walking far enough on foot to pass the outermost surveillance zone and ensuring that no spies from the palace factions or ordinary civilians were watching their movements, Sylvia decided that the time had come to release the physical disguises that limited their mobility.

"All right, Sol. We’re far enough from the city’s crowds," Sylvia said while stopping her steps atop a rocky hill surrounded by dense wild trees. She turned toward the golden-furred cat walking gracefully at her right side. "Return to your true form. It’s time we fly through the sky."

Hearing that command, Sol halted its steps, snorted softly as if complaining about the fate of often being used as a mount by its master, yet it did not refuse. In an instant, the tiny body of the golden cat was enveloped by a pillar of sacred light that dazzled the eyes. The light spun, condensed, and elongated rapidly, transforming its form into a majestic, pure Golden Dragon reaching fifty meters in length. Its golden scales glittered like thousands of diamonds under the sunlight, radiating a pure divine aura that made the air around them tremble powerfully.

Meanwhile, Noir who had been walking with lazy steps behind them, continued to maintain its form as a pitch-black cat with ruby-red eyes. Without needing to be ordered twice, Noir leapt lightly with the elegance of a night predator, landing smoothly on Sol’s broad back, right beside the place where Sylvia would sit.

Sylvia stepped lightly, climbing onto the back of her golden dragon with elegant movements like a queen mounting her flying throne. She seated herself comfortably atop Sol’s warm and sturdy back scales, while her silver cloak fluttered in the high-altitude wind.

"Good. Now, let’s search for that mithril vein," Sylvia said while gently patting Sol’s muscular neck. "Since you possess an extraordinary aura of luck and a god’s sense of smell, I’m certain we won’t need much time."

Sol released a heavy snort from its nostrils, puffing out a wisp of warm vapor into the air. In its mind, the great dragon scowled in irritation. ’Luck? Give me a break... I am a descendant of the sacred dragons that rule the skies, not some imperial treasure-hunting hound! Why must I be bothered just because of a hard piece of metal called mithril?’ Sol grumbled inwardly through the mental bond, even though it knew the protest would not change its master’s stance in the slightest.

Because there were no other passengers or heavy cargo weighing it down, Sol decided to unleash its maximum flying ability. It flapped its gigantic wings once, and in a fraction of a second the fifty-meter-long colossal body shot through the cloud layers at a supersonic speed that surpassed the limits of ordinary human comprehension.

Sylvia herself did not know exactly how fast Sol flew at the peak of its ability, for there was no speed-measuring instrument in this post-apocalyptic world capable of recording the sacred-spatial movement of a pure dragon. To anyone who happened to look up at the sky from the ground below, they would not see the figure of a gigantic dragon flying past. What appeared to human eyes on the earth was merely a faint golden flash of light streaking as fast as a falling star, splitting the blue sky in the blink of an eye without leaving even the slightest sonic boom thanks to the air-manipulation shield controlled by Sol.

Atop the back of the dragon, racing like lightning, Sylvia enjoyed the strong wind that caressed her black hair. Her eyes gazed far ahead, thinking once more about the spatial matrix formula she was developing together with Stacia. The need for pure mithril conductors was the main key so that the intercontinental teleportation-wave anchors spanning more than 500,000 kilometers could stand stable without the risk of dimensional tears. Without that noble metal, their great experiment could suffer a fatal failure.

Meanwhile, under the embrace of that high speed, Sol’s extremely sharp sense of smell began working actively. As a Golden Dragon, its sense of smell did not merely detect physical aromas, but also the resonance of pure magical energy radiating from deep within the earth. Among the millions of scents of soil, moss, and ordinary rocks across the vast Tianhua mainland, Sol’s nose finally caught one distinctive aroma. It knew very well the cold, sharp, and glittering scent of pure mithril mineral veins buried far inside the earth’s layers.

The moment it smelled that scent, Sol’s spirit suddenly multiplied. In its mind, it thought: ’Ah, finally! That annoying metal smell is already nearby. If I finish this quickly, I can immediately return home, stretch out on the silk pillows of the penthouse, and sleep as much as I want without being disturbed by city-construction affairs!’

Without wasting time, Sol raised its flying speed drastically yet smoothly, making the momentum shift completely unnoticeable to Sylvia and Noir sitting on its back.

Two hours later, after covering a distance of tens of thousands of kilometers across rugged mountains, misty valleys, and ancient forests at the southern tip of the Tianhua mainland far beyond the outermost boundaries mapped by humans, Sol finally hovered silently in the air, right above a cluster of gigantic stone mountains that appeared barren and isolated from civilization.

Sol lowered its head slightly, then sent a telepathic wave directly into Sylvia’s consciousness. ’Master... We have arrived. Beneath this stone mountain is buried an extremely massive reserve of pure mithril. Its quality is extremely high, far surpassing ordinary ore standards,’ Sol said through telepathy in a tone that sounded a little proud yet hopeful of finishing this task soon.

Sylvia, who sat gracefully on the dragon’s back, looked down at the cluster of stone mountains below them that appeared solid and silent. A thin smile curved on her lips. She slowly raised her right hand, then gave a brief yet absolute instruction.

"Excellent work, Sol. In that case... take everything."

Hearing that command, Sol once again let out a long breath and a sigh from a great dragon that, if heard by high-rank mages in the Tianhua capital, would certainly make them faint from fear. Once again it was being treated merely as a mining digger or rock-demolition tool by the Queen of Death. Yet what could it do? In the face of Sylvia’s absolute authority, protest would only lead to longer inner suffering.

"Fine, fine... whatever you say," Sol muttered inwardly.

Sol opened its wide mouth. In an instant, an extremely dazzling golden light began gathering inside its oral cavity, radiating fluctuations of sacred energy so powerful that the air around the peak of the stone mountain cracked and curved from the tremendous heat pressure.

BOOOOOOM!

A pure Dragon Breath blast shot forth and struck the peak of that stone mountain with extraordinarily perfect precision. A tremendous explosion occurred instantly, shattering millions of tons of coral rock, earth, andesite, and ancient magma within a radius of hundreds of meters into fragments of dust and molten stone. The shockwave of the explosion spread in every direction, creating powerful tremors resembling a local-scale earthquake, yet because the location was in the middle of uninhabited wilderness, no other living beings were threatened except the wild monsters that immediately fled in panic.

When the thick smoke and explosion dust gradually began to thin under the wind, the view below was displayed with perfect clarity. The mountain cliff that had previously been intact had now transformed into a gigantic crater that was extremely deep and wide open. On the crater walls directly exposed to the heat of the dragon’s breath, dozens of mineral veins radiating a mysterious and captivating bright purple glow were clearly visible; those were unmistakably high-quality pure mithril veins that had long been tightly hidden inside the earth’s belly. Besides pure mithril, various other rare supporting mineral crystals were also exposed.

Yet Sol did not stop there. As a dragon efficient in its work so it could return home to laze about as soon as possible, it immediately chanted an advanced earth-element magic spell. Its golden eyes glowed brightly.

"Rise," Sol spoke in the ancient dragon tongue.

In that same instant, the ground surrounding the crater rumbled powerfully. All the minerals exposed inside the crater, whether the purple-hued pure mithril boulders, noble metal ores, or pure energy crystals, were lifted simultaneously into the air thanks to gravity manipulation and earth magic controlled with god-level precision. Thousands of tons of precious minerals floated above the crater, forming a gigantic glittering mass under the clear daytime sky.

Without wasting a single second, Sylvia immediately rose to her feet on Sol’s back. She stretched her right hand forward, activating her System Inventory, the unlimited virtual spatial storage space with an absolute time-stasis effect.

Swish!

In the blink of an eye, the entire gigantic mass containing thousands of tons of pure mithril and rare minerals floating in the air was sucked into the spatial rift of Sylvia’s System Inventory without leaving a single speck of dust at the scene. The virtual storage space swallowed everything smoothly, ensuring that not a single gram of valuable material was scattered or wasted.

Noir, still in black-cat form beside Sylvia, meowed softly while flicking its tail, as if giving a sign that this dirty work had been completed perfectly.

Sylvia lowered her hand, then smiled in satisfaction while patting the neck of Sol, who was still in golden-dragon form. "Excellent work, Sol! Your work was extremely fast and clean. You truly are my greatest golden pet cat."

Hearing that praise mixed with teasing, Sol could only snort in resignation. In its heart, it muttered bitterly: ’Pet... good grief, I am a sacred Demigod dragon, yet I’m being praised like a diligent mouse-catching cat...’

Yet behind its multi-layered complaints, Sol felt relieved because this search mission had gone far faster than expected. Without wasting any more time, Sol flapped its gigantic wings, turned its majestic body in the air, and shot back into the sky at full speed.

Accompanied by Noir, who sat calmly on its back, and Sylvia, who enjoyed the tranquility in the air, the Golden Dragon flew, splitting the southern sky, streaking home toward Falling Star City to deliver the pure mithril mining results to the Queen of Death, so that the secret intercontinental teleportation gate project connecting Nocture and the Tianhua mainland could be completed in the near future.