Chapter 193 - 185: Artificially Cultivating a Spirit Stone Vein

After chatting for a bit about the lectures, their conversation soon shifted to another matter.

"How is the progress on modifying the Spirit Stones?" Anton asked.

Eleanor's spirits lifted, and her tone held a hint of unconcealable joy. "Following the modification plan you gave me, I had a team produce a trial batch of Spirit Stones. I gave them to the Forest Guard for testing, and the feedback has been excellent. Both their energy stability and their duration are a significant improvement over the old Sensing Spirit Stones."

"I've already arranged for the Clan's Alchemists to begin mass production. Once they get the hang of it, our output will ramp up quickly."

It was no wonder Eleanor was so delighted.

The significance of these modified Spirit Stones was simply immense.

The Clan's development was becoming increasingly dependent on Sensing Spirit Stones.

Whether it was for refining Rune Equipment, drawing and using Talismans, or even expanding the Gathering Spirit chambers, large quantities of Sensing Spirit Stones were required.

And yet, within the entire Clan, only she and Anton were capable of refining Sensing Spirit Stones.

And Anton was busy most of the time.

The heavy burden of refining Sensing Spirit Stones fell on her shoulders alone, causing production to consistently fall short.

In the recent war with Dragon City, the Clan could have suffered far fewer casualties if they'd had enough Sensing Spirit Stones.

Eleanor had often pondered how to solve this problem, but she had never been able to find a good solution.

Her only hope had been to wait for Laine and the others to mature and help share her burden.

Now that Anton had developed a better solution, no one was happier than she was.

Seeing the joyful expression on Eleanor's face, the corners of Anton's lips curved into a slight smile.

He had only recently developed this method of converting Magic Stones into Spirit Stones.

Unlike the previous method of refining Spirit Stones from Gemstones, converting Magic Stones was fundamentally about altering the nature and density of the energy within them, transforming it from Magic Power into Spiritual Qi.

This process didn't require injecting any Spiritual Qi. One only needed to inscribe specific Rune arrays on the surfaces of the Magic Stones and then activate them with a particular Array to perform the conversion in batches.

This meant that the Clan's Alchemists could also participate.

Although their skill with Runes was far inferior to Anton's and Eleanor's, resulting in a gap in both efficiency and quality, their advantage was that multiple people could work at once. The total output would therefore far exceed what Anton could produce alone.

More importantly, the Spirit Stones produced by this method had a higher potential.

When refining Spirit Stones from Gemstones, the material and energy capacity of the Gemstones themselves limited the final product to mid-grade Spirit Stones at best.

Magic Stones, however, were different. They were naturally formed Energy Crystals, their internal structures designed to hold vast amounts of energy. In theory, it was entirely possible to refine high-grade Spirit Stones from them.

The only issue was that the cost would be very high, making it not particularly cost-effective.

Under normal circumstances, mid- and Low-Grade Spirit Stones were sufficient.

"If only there were Spirit Stone Veins," Eleanor remarked wistfully. "Then we wouldn't have to go through all the trouble of refining them; we could just mine them directly."

Anton couldn't help but chuckle.

'It's a nice thought, but not very realistic.'

The conditions for the formation of Spirit Stone Veins were far more demanding than those for Magic Stone Veins.

Even in the Cultivation Realm, Spirit Stone Veins were extremely rare.

To alleviate the tight supply of Spirit Stones, the Cultivation Realm had even developed techniques for artificially cultivating Spirit Stone Veins.

However, the cultivation process for this method could take thousands, if not tens of thousands of years—an extraordinarily long time.

Unless, that is, one could find a natural vein of Energy Crystals.

For example, Spiritual Sand Ore, Frost Marrow Ore, nitre-gold sand ore, and so on.

These were also types of Energy Crystals, but they contained many impurities and were far from the purity of Spirit Stones. They could only be used for Alchemy or Artifact Refining.

But in essence, they were of the same fundamental type as Spirit Stones.

Cultivating a Spirit Stone Vein on the foundation of these Energy Crystal veins could greatly shorten the time required for the new vein to form...

Wait!

Anton suddenly had a realization.

'Come to think of it, isn't a Magic Stone Vein a type of Energy Crystal vein too?'

'And in terms of energy purity, they're far purer than Spiritual Sand Ore, Frost Marrow Ore, or nitre-gold sand ore.'

'In that case, could a Magic Stone Vein be used to cultivate a Spirit Stone Vein?'

Once the thought arose, it lingered in Anton's mind and refused to dissipate.

'If individual Magic Stones can be converted into Spirit Stones, then converting an entire Magic Stone Vein into a Spirit Stone Vein should also be feasible.'

'It would take a very long time, perhaps decades or even a century before seeing results, but if it succeeded, it would be a vein that continuously produces Spirit Stones. It's worth a try.'

The more Anton thought about it, the more plausible it seemed, and a sense of excitement washed over him.

"Oh, right. I have an idea, and I'd like to get your opinion on it."

Eleanor's voice pulled Anton back from his reverie about cultivating a Spirit Vein.

He turned to look at Eleanor. The young woman's expression held a new layer of seriousness.

"Go on."

Eleanor gathered her thoughts before speaking slowly. "It's about the mines."

"Before the war broke out, we had nearly twenty metal mines combined in the Dark Nether Realm and the Thousand Rock Hills. The output of various metals was more than enough to supply the Clan's needs for refining Rune Equipment, with a considerable amount to spare."

"Now, with the addition of over twenty more metal mines from Dragon City, our production far exceeds the Clan's demand. We'll definitely have to sell off the excess."

"But selling raw ore or ordinary metal ingots offers limited profits. Besides, the quality can't compare to the metals smelted by the Dwarves of Gray Rock Castle. We don't have an advantage there, so I want to try a different approach."

Hearing this, Anton had a sneaking suspicion of what she was getting at.

Sure enough, Eleanor continued, "I intend to use Spirit Fire to refine the metals before selling them."

Anton had discovered the Spirit Fire Refining Skill back when he was creating the Yellow Turban Warriors.

Metals refined with Spirit Fire far surpassed their conventional counterparts in toughness, hardness, and energy conductivity—a massive leap in quality.

It was a quality far beyond that of metals refined with magical flames by the Alchemists of the Dawn Continent.

And on the Dawn Continent, metal was always one of the most essential resources; there would be no trouble selling it.

Especially at this moment, with turmoil on the horizon, all the major powers were making preparations in earnest, causing metal prices to skyrocket and remain high.

If they could introduce metal with a quality far exceeding the market standard at a time like this, one could only imagine how popular it would be.

There were just two problems.

First, the Clan's Alchemists didn't have Spirit Fire, so they would have to use Spirit Fire Talismans as a substitute.

And both refining and activating Spirit Fire Talismans required Sensing Spirit Stones.

As a result, the demand for Spirit Stones would increase dramatically.

However, now that they could convert Magic Stones, the supply of Spirit Stones was no longer stretched thin. The Clan could easily bear the cost.

The second problem was Divine Sense.

The Clan's Alchemists didn't possess Divine Sense like Anton. They couldn't perceive the distribution of impurities within the metal and force them out from the inside, inch by inch, without damaging the metal's inherent toughness and Spiritual nature.

The quality of metal refined this way would certainly be inferior to what he could produce himself.

But on second thought, that didn't seem to be a problem either.

Even if they could only passively heat the ore with Spirit Fire Talismans, the maximum temperature and energy density of Spirit Fire itself far surpassed that of magical flames. The quality of the refined metal would still be leagues ahead of the common metals on the market.

Besides, selling metal of *too* high a quality to other factions wasn't necessarily a good thing.

The truly good stuff should be kept for themselves.

Intentionally lowering the quality of the metal for sale was, in fact, the more prudent course of action.

Having come to this conclusion, Anton made his decision. He nodded and said, "That's an excellent idea. Go ahead with it. If you need any support, just come to me."

"Okay." A smile touched Eleanor's lips as she nodded solemnly.

Just then, both of their expressions flickered, and they looked forward in unison.

A Paper Crane flew from the end of the tree-lined promenade, its wings beating gently as it carved an elegant arc through the air.

Its body was folded from light-green talisman paper, and the edges of its wings were lined with silver Runes that shimmered faintly in the sunlight.

It was a type of Low-Tier puppet, also used as a tool by the Clan Leader's assistant team for passing messages within the Clan.

Eleanor held out her hand, and the Paper Crane landed steadily in her palm, where it automatically unfolded into a flat sheet of paper.

She glanced down at the message, her expression tightening slightly. She then looked up at Anton.

"One of the Dragon Cities has been wiped out."