Astral Ant Tribe

The second rough stone mine.

Longbai and Heiti each have 60 large worker ants, medium worker ants, and medium soldier ants. They rest during the day and work at night, digging holes and drilling on hilltops.

It's hard, tiring, and boring work.

Long Bai persisted for less than ten days before he came up with the idea of ​​running away.

I persisted for two more days,

At dawn, on the way back to the nest after work,

Long Bai made up his mind to leave today and began to think about how to say goodbye to Hei Ti and how to appease Hei Ti's mood...

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty!"

Suddenly, Heiti, another man working on the hilltop, rushed down the hillside like crazy and ran towards this side.

"Your Majesty! Found it!"

"Finally found it!"

"Rough stone!"

Heiti shook his tentacles desperately, releasing information.

--found it? !

Long Bai was stunned, and then he couldn't help being ecstatic.

Found it!

Behind Heiti, a team of soldier ants ran after him. One of the soldier ants held a rough stone in his jaws. Surrounded by the ants, he came to Long Bai and carefully placed the rough stone at Long Bai's feet.

"good!"

Long Bai was overjoyed. He picked up the original stone and inspected it. He waved his paw and gave the order: "Take a look!"

An inconspicuous hilltop with a height of a hundred meters and dark brown rocks.

The ground below the mountain is full of large and small rugged rocks.

"Your Majesty, here."

Heiti ran ahead to lead the way.

At the foot of the mountain, there is a tunnel with a diameter of about 30 centimeters, which is just enough for two large worker ants to pass through side by side. It goes forward horizontally and leads directly to the belly of the mountain.

"...Okay." Long Bai mentally scanned the area. Forty meters deep inside, worker ants were busy digging rocks and widening the cave.

Heiti waved his tentacles, and the soldier ants got into the cave and helped carry the stones out.

Soon, another digging worker ant waved its tentacles and released cheering pheromones, and the surrounding worker ants rushed to help.

Eight rough stones are concentrated and embedded in the rock.

"King! Look! We've found it!" Heiti cheered and directed the worker ants to quickly dig out a few rough stones and send them to Long Bai.

"Don't be too happy yet!"

Long Bai buried his head and looked at it, his excitement quickly cooled down, and he explained:

"Raw stone deposits are divided into rich ore, medium ore and poor ore according to their abundance. The differences are huge. If the rough stone accounts for more than 10%, it can be called a rich ore; if the rough stone accounts for 1% to 10%, it is considered a medium ore, and there are also mining the value of."

"The proportion of rough stones is less than 1%, and all the stones are dug out. If you find rough stones in a pile of stones, the value will not be high..."

Heiti raised his paw, interrupted, and asked: "Your Majesty, what Zhanbi means..."

Long Bai: “Accounting for 1%, it means digging 100 bags of stones and producing 1 bag of rough stones.”

Heiti: "Uh..."

Heiti: "Your Majesty, this kind of rock is very hard!"

Long Bai: “The rocks in the raw quarry are very hard and mostly black.”

Long Bai waved his tentacles and said: "Heiti, don't rush to dig now. You command the worker ants to dig deep into the mountain, up, down, left and right. I will command the ant colony to explore around the foot of the mountain. Let's explore first. Explain the distribution range, depth and abundance of mineral deposits here.”

"Understood, Your Majesty." Heiti replied, sonorously and forcefully.

Long Bai and Heiti each led a team of worker ants and worked separately until noon.

Take half a day off.

After sunset, continue.

After two days of drilling and exploration, it was initially confirmed that there were no rough stones on the mountain.

Click in multiple places and dig down.

It took another two days to locate the distribution range of the mineral deposits, located under the mountain.

Digging deeper, the proportion of rough stones increases.

Long Bai and Heiti worked separately, digging caves in many places underground and conducting test excavations.

About a hundred meters deep underground, the proportion of rough stones gradually increases from less than 1% to more than 10%. Going deeper, the proportion of rough stones begins to shrink.

It took another three days to basically prove that the entire mineral deposit is roughly spherical, with a radius of about 100 meters, and the center has the highest proportion of rough stones. About 30 meters away from the center, the proportion of rough stones drops rapidly to less than 1%. About 50 meters away from the center, it takes 1,000 bags of stones to get out one bag of rough stones.

In terms of scale, this is a miniature rough mine.

…

In the second rough stone mine, in the temporary ant nest, Long Bai called Hei to propose something.

The forefoot scrapes against the stone wall to create a smooth surface, and the toes are carved with mountain patterns and characters.

"Heiti, this is the mountain peak where the original stone deposit is located. It is more than 400 meters long and more than 200 meters wide. This is the location where the original stone was discovered during drilling."

Long Bai's tentacles pointed.

"Yes!" Heiti stood upright and flicked his antennae to show that he could understand.

Long Bai raised his paw, carved a circle under the mountain pattern, and said: "This is the overall distribution of the raw stone deposits, with a radius of about 100 meters."

Long Bai drew a small circle within the large circle and said: "This is the central mining area worth mining, with a radius of 50 meters."

Heiti nodded his tentacles and agreed, thinking, and asked: "Your Majesty, don't you dig in poor mining areas?"

Long Bai: "Don't dig. It's a waste of time. If you have this time, why not plant more fruit trees in Black Lotus Lake? It's much more cost-effective than this."

Long Bai: "Only dig this area."

Heiti: "...Okay!"

Long Bai raised his claws and drew a vertical line from the bottom of the mountain to the bottom of the circle and said:

"Overall, the raw stone content is not high, the rock is hard, and there is no risk of collapse. Just drill a vertical channel and dig up from the bottom. During the excavation, the rocks are backfilled on the spot, and the raw rocks are screened, transported, and stacked centrally."

Heiti: "Understood!"

Long Bai's tentacles pointed at the center of the circle and said: "The raw stone content in the central area has reached about 10%. The rock layer may not be strong enough. When digging closer, be careful and hollow out the center first."

Heiti: "Remember!"

Heiti: "Your Majesty, how many rough stones are there in this mine? Can you calculate it?"

Long Bai: "More than 10 million, less than 15 million. You can get 100,000 to 150,000 rough stones."

"good!"

Heiti's tentacles were flailing with excitement, "Your Majesty, are you going to dig tonight?"

Long Bai clicked his tentacles and said: "Let's try digging for one night as planned. If there is no problem, you can stay and be responsible for mining. It's almost the end of winter, and I have to rush back to Xianglan Mountain to take charge of the winter fishing work."

"Is the food in the ant nest enough for the entire ant colony to last for two months? I will come in time next spring. The scale of the mineral deposit is very small. With the number of worker ants and soldier ants in this area, the mining can be completed in four months at most."

Heiti: "I know--"

Heiti: "Your Majesty, my share..."

Long Bai: "After the mining is completed, you will not miss a single rough stone in the accounting."

Long Bai showed rare kindness, spread his membrane wings, patted Heiti's back lightly, and said: "Heiti, look, you are following the king, right? You are only an intermediate king, and you already have more than 100,000 wealth. In the future, , all the resources of the advanced evolutionary mountain master level are available.”

"Do it well! The king will not treat you badly."

"oh--"

Heiti hesitated and asked anxiously: "Your Majesty, can you also help me buy a kettle made of ice and fire?"

Long Bai: "???"

Long Bai: "Why did you buy this thing? After you finish the work here, you will go back to Black Lotus Lake to open up orchards. The lake is full of water, can it make you thirsty?"

Heiti: "Uh..."

Heiti: "I think the 'ice making' function is very good."

Heiti: "Your Majesty, please buy me a cheap one. It doesn't require quality, as long as it can make ice cubes. Black Lotus Lake is quite hot in summer..."

Long Bai reminded: "After I evolve to the Mountain Lord level, I will awaken a new water ability. Not surprisingly, it should be 'ice creation'. Correspondingly, the specialized blue soldiers I cultivate can also master this ability."

Heiti thought for a while and insisted: "Your Majesty, Bai Liu doesn't know how to command the blue soldiers. I'll buy one for him to use."

Long Bai: "..."

Long Bai: "Okay. I'll ask the flame spider dealer later. If you don't ask for quality, the price will definitely not be too expensive."