Slept soundly and woke up at eight.
Two eggs remained, so I cracked them into the pan and fried them.
They smelled quite good.
Still not full, I fried a few more sausages in the pan. That was about right.
Jiang Ye wrapped his clothes tighter and went outside.
The weather was great today, sunny and clear.
On the horizon, some large quadrupedal animals were walking, their fur dark. They were too far away, appearing like small black dots.
Jiang Ye raised his Kai Xi assault rifle and looked through the scope, but still couldn't see clearly. They were indeed too far.
Live and let live, he couldn't be bothered with them.
Strapping on his skis, he packed thirty blood grenades into a sack and headed out of the perimeter.
Jiang Ye, carrying a shovel and a pickaxe, glided forward.
When he had flown around the area in his gyrocopter earlier, he had smelled many mineral veins.
These deposits were sure to be substantial, and it would be a waste not to mine them. He decided to dig and see what they were.
The wind picked up, and Jiang Ye was going with the wind.
His skis left clear tracks on the snow, and from high above, it looked like the point of a compass cutting across white paper.
One hundred meters!
Three hundred meters!
Five hundred meters!
Still no smell, only the cold air drilling into his nostrils. Jiang Ye kept sneezing.
Eight hundred meters!
One thousand meters!
Finally, he caught a faint scent!
Jiang Ye perked up, accelerating his glide. He shot across the snow like an arrow, his posture graceful.
The scent became clearer, a distinct, rich lemon aroma mixed with the smell of candy.
Before, when he smelled scents, they originated from a specific point, and minerals were clustered together, exposed on the surface or buried underground.
But this scent was vast, like a great tide!
Jiang Ye immediately judged that this was a true mineral vein, not a small deposit, but a continuous, large underground mine!
Finally, the scent clearly emanated from beneath the snow.
Jiang Ye backed up a distance, pulled a blood grenade from his sack, pulled the pin, and tossed it high!
He lay down in the snow.
*Boom!*
A huge explosion, the grenade detonating on the bright white snowfield, kicking up a towering cloud of snow powder and blood mist. The blood mist dispersed, quickly staining the surrounding snow red.
Jiang Ye remained prone and threw two more.
His accuracy was improving, and he could now accurately throw the grenades into a crater.
With two consecutive explosions, cracks appeared even in the flat snowfield.
Jiang Ye got up and slowly walked to the edge of the crater.
Looking down, his expression shifted slightly, and he let out an "Oh."
At the bottom of the blasted crater, small, translucent yellow crystals appeared. In the sunlight, the edges of the crystals reflected slightly, like glass.
He took off his skis and jumped into the crater.
Jiang Ye swung his shovel, digging up a scoop of the yellowish crystals and stuffing them into his sack.
Climbing out of the crater, he put on his skis and immediately returned to the base.
He needed to scan them first to identify the mineral. If it was valuable, he would start mining immediately; if not, he would look for something else.
The return trip was much faster than the journey out. He arrived in no time.
Jiang Ye returned to the base, took the mineral crystals out of the sack, and dropped them into the trading terminal.
[Item: Borax]
[Item Description: A sodium borate hydrate. Crystals are often large; there have been instances of borax crystals with a diameter of two meters. Boron extracted from borax can be used to manufacture boron carbide, which has a hardness close to that of diamond. Borax is also used as an abrasive, a military armor enhancer, to control the fission rate of nuclear reactors, and to improve the conductivity of semiconductors.]
[Estimated Value: 490 yuan]
Jiang Ye's eyes lit up!
The crystal he had put into the trading terminal was quite small, not even as big as his fist, yet it was valued at a high price of 490 yuan.
Judging by the item description, these minerals were generally large, often weighing tens or hundreds of pounds. The small piece he collected was likely a fragment of a larger ore that had been shattered by the grenades.
Therefore, borax was a very valuable mineral!
Jiang Ye left the base directly and skied to the mining area.
Relying on his sense of smell, he first determined the distribution of the borax ore.
It was a substantial vein, stretching for a full half-kilometer. If he mined it all, it would take quite some time.
Running back and forth with sacks wouldn't work; the snow was too deep, and his base vehicle couldn't reach it. Therefore, an airstrip was necessary!
Jiang Ye started working from the center of the mining area.
First, he used his shovel to clear the accumulated snow.
Then, he leveled the ground and constructed a straight runway.
This was not his first time building a runway; he had experience. Jiang Ye worked quickly, and by noon, the airstrip was completed.
It was the usual specifications: seventy meters long and fifteen meters wide, more than enough for a gyrocopter to take off and land.
He skied back to the base, fried some bear meat for lunch, bought two barrels of aviation fuel, and headed straight for the gyrocopter parked next to the base.
It hadn't flown for a couple of days, and there was frost on the wheels, but it was nothing serious.
He poured in one barrel of fuel, filling the gauge to the maximum. The other barrel was placed in the storage compartment for later use.
Getting into the pilot's seat, he engaged the throttle!
The propellers spun rapidly, the wind they generated blowing away the surrounding snow powder.
Taxiing, takeoff!
Jiang Ye skillfully maneuvered the gyrocopter forward, quickly spotting the runway he had built near the mining area and landing slowly.
There was no dolphin jump this time, only a slight jolt upon landing, and the landing was very smooth.
After stopping the gyrocopter in the center of the runway, Jiang Ye jumped out and grabbed his pickaxe, heading for the mine pit.
Taking a deep breath, he swung fiercely at the bottom of the pit!
The frozen earth was quickly unearthed, revealing the transparent borax beneath.
This piece of ore was enormous, as big as a car tire.
Jiang Ye tried to pry the entire ore out, but it was impossible; it was too heavy and deeply embedded in the ground.
He had no choice but to swing his pickaxe and smash the ore.
He broke it into small pieces the size of his fist, then loaded them all into sacks and dragged them away.
The large pieces of borax ore were quite hard, and each blow from the pickaxe sent a jarring vibration back.
After an hour of work, he had collected one sack of crushed ore.
Jiang Ye looked at his hands; the skin was starting to peel from the impact.
He placed the sack onto the gyrocopter and took off.
He quickly returned to the base, emptied the entire sack of ore into the trading terminal, and sold it.
[Sale successful! 57,018 yuan has been transferred to your personal account.]
Nearly sixty thousand yuan for a sack of ore was quite good.
Jiang Ye nodded, turned, and left the base to continue his work.
The miner's job was quite repetitive:
Smash ore, fly back, sell everything, smash ore, fly back.
Jiang Ye followed this routine all afternoon until the sun began to set.
He sold a total of 5 sacks of borax ore, earning 296,800 yuan!
His personal account balance also rose to 462,240 yuan.
It was six o'clock in the afternoon, and Jiang Ye returned to the base to make himself dinner.
After a day out in the cold, he craved something hot and steaming. So, he threw various vegetables and meats into the pot and made a hearty stew.
While the dinner was simmering, Jiang Ye stood in front of the base panel and checked his messages.
As expected, a message he had anticipated arrived half an hour ago.
Delivery person Isabel: The cargo ship has entered orbit around your planet and is expected to arrive punctually at seven o'clock. Please wait for delivery near your base.
Jiang Ye gave two thumbs-up in response.
Half an hour later, the stew was ready.
Jiang Ye washed his chopsticks, hunched over the pot, and began eating heartily.
"Refreshing!" he shouted with satisfaction after finishing everything.
Wiping the sweat from his brow, he checked the time; it was five minutes to seven.
The "dairy cow" would arrive soon!