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Chapter 263 - Crown Drilldozer
🕑 Added 2025-03-12 07:00:07 +0000 UTC"What are you talking about? Scarlet? Stripey? Who are they?" Dastan asked.
"They are my spirit beasts. A red fox and a small monkey. There's also a bison named Mr. Bison. They disappeared as well when I arrived here." Leyvi replied.
"You are a beast tamer? You didn't seem like one at all." He was a bit surprised. He thought Leyvi only focused on being a Spiritual Cultivator. He had seen how strong Leyvi's spiritual pressure was, capable of pinning a Commander-Level Demonic Beast.
"Hahaha! If you need help to tame any demonic beast, come to me, I'll give you a discount. Hmm... looking at you, I think a Demonic Baboon would be the most suitable. You can lay your clown head on its red, swelling butt." Leyvi joked.
"Shut up Leyvi! Wait until this prince reunites with the Royal Guards, and this prince will beat your ass to resemble a baboon's ass! This prince is not fond of demonic beasts. Most of them are ugly creatures, so this prince has no need for your taming service. This prince prefers metallic creation!"
"Tch, tch. You are still easily triggered. Don't worry, I will continue this enduring-insults training until you stop getting triggered. Alright, Clown Prince, let's hasten our pace. Bring out the Clown Rider. I'll give you directions while you drive."
"This prince is almost out of spirit stones." Crown Prince Dastan suddenly felt stingy so he lied. Why should he waste his spirit stones for the only country bumpkin who dared to disrespect him constantly?
Only his enemies from other kingdoms dared to disrespect him openly and that was because they had high statuses like him. He had never met a peasant who dared to insult and attack him like Leyvi.
"Oh? No problem. This country bumpkin from a backward continent will provide the Crown Prince of the Howling Kingdom—from the greatest continent—with the necessary spirit stones to operate the Crown Rider. How many do you need, Crown Prince Dastan?" Leyvi asked, his smile so wholesome it was almost blinding.
Crown Prince Dastan's forehead veins popped. This was the first time Leyvi had addressed him by his proper title, but somehow, it felt more insulting than being called "clown prince."
"No need! This prince was just joking around! As if the richest prince in the Protogaea Continent could run out of spirit stones! How dumb are you to believe this prince's joke?" Crown Prince Dastan quickly brought out the Crown Rider and mounted it, his face flushed with anger.
Leyvi laughed inwardly. This crown prince is so easy to manipulate.
They both rode the Crown Rider, moving through the underground tunnel at a moderate speed. The light from their Qi was more than enough to illuminate the path. The deeper they ventured, the more the air changed—no longer dry and arid but dense, almost humid, with a faint metallic tang lingering in the air.
Occasionally, they would stop in areas rich with precious minerals and ores located near the tunnel. Upon Leyvi's instruction, Crown Prince Dastan would then bring out his Crown Drilldozer, another one of his vehicle spirit artifact collections, to drill through the tunnel walls and access the deposits.
Every time he was asked to do the work, Crown Prince Dastan would complain and curse, as the tunnel walls were incredibly tough and compact, making drilling a slow and laborious process. However, his mood would quickly lift once he saw the rich resources they uncovered after the hard work.
Although he could easily procure any of the resources here using his power and influence as the Crown Prince, it felt countless times more satisfying finding and gathering them himself. However, it made him wonder how Leyvi could detect all of the rich natural deposits precisely. Could it be that his spiritual sense could go through obstruction already? Impossible! That is something someone who formed a Dao Heart could do, like Royal Grandfather! Hmph! This country bumpkin Leyvi must have learned a rare detection skill.
As time passed, the two traveled further and deeper into the winding tunnel networks, where the ores and minerals became increasingly frequent, so their time stopping to harvest them also increased. Leyvi noticed that the deeper they went, the tunnels made by Demonic Earthworms had more and more hardened mucus spread on the wall and so did the smell.
At some point, a tunnel collapsed on them in the middle of drilling to reach a mineral deposit because it couldn't handle the pressure anymore. The tunnel they drilled was after all unreinforced, unlike the big tunnels the Demonic Earthworms professionally made and strengthened with their hardened mucus.
Thankfully, it happened while they were drilling and not while mining. The Crown Drilldozer, a bulky, mechanical vehicle with a rotating drill head at the front and at the back, was a tier-5 vehicle spirit artifact possessing great defense, so it could withstand all the weight that collapsed on it. However, there was no way they could mine and harvest the minerals like this. So they drilled in reverse using the back drill and returned to the earthworm's tunnel to discuss their next plan.
"We need to reinforce the hole we drilled. Do you have any ideas, Leyvi? If we can't do this, we can't harvest anything down here anymore," Crown Prince Dastan asked.
"Can't your Clown Drilldozer automatically reinforce the hole it made?" Leyvi asked.
Crown Prince Dastan rolled his eyes. "It was already very impressive that it was powerful enough to drill almost all kinds of things and automatically remove the debris to storage space. Aren't you having too much expectation on this prince's Crown Drilldozer? If possible this prince want it too. Let this prince tell you about the omnipotent vehicle spirit artifact of this prince's dream! It can fly, swim, dive, travel the land fast, dig and travel underground fast while making unbreakable tunnels, become a giant automaton to fight demonic beasts, and do everything! This prince wants a vehicle spirit artifact that can do everything like that! But unfortunately, it would be too complicated and nobody can create one yet."
Leyvi was stunned. He had indeed put too much expectation on the Crown Drilldozer because he subconsciously compared it with Scarlet's dig talent. She could control the forcefield drill to dig through almost everything, and the tunnels she made would automatically reinforce so they wouldn't collapse.
That was seven years ago. Now, Leyvi was sure that her talent had grown even stronger. It didn't seem that impressive at first, but now that he faced all these hardships down here and even a tier-5 vehicle spirit artifact's digging ability was less effective than what Scarlet could do, Leyvi was reminded again of how extraordinary the talents given by the Talent Bead were.
"Hahaha! You're right, Clown Prince. I put too much expectation on the Clown Drilldozer. Sorry about that. However, it's not all my fault for thinking like this. It's your fault too because you always brag too much. Next time, don't be so arrogant, or you might get embarrassed again. Let me tell you, the ladies don't like men who are too arrogant, you know," Leyvi said, somehow shifting the blame onto Crown Prince Dastan as he spoke.
"Dammit, Leyvi! This prince hasn't bragged about the Crown Drilldozer at all! You're just trying to blame everything on this prince!" Crown Prince Dastan retorted, his face red with frustration.
Later, Leyvi came up with a solution to support the tunnel they had drilled. He used his Clay Golem Army Martial Skill to create thick, sturdy earth pillars along the tunnel walls. The pillars reinforced the structure, allowing them to mine safely once again.
---
Two weeks later, after Leyvi and Crown Prince Dastan had harvested a rare ore deposit, the prince couldn't hold back his frustration any longer.
"This prince has contributed a lot! Why is this prince's share still only 20%? It should be 50% by now!" Crown Prince Dastan shouted, his voice echoing through the tunnel.
"What do you mean? I already increased your share by 10%. That's plenty. Without me, we wouldn't have found any of this. Stop complaining, Servant Dastan," Leyvi retorted, his tone calm but firm.
"Bullshit! Without this prince's Crown Drilldozer, you wouldn't have been able to reach this place to mine!"
"Who said I can't dig through the earth and reach this place alone?" Leyvi replied nonchalantly. He wasn't lying. While he might not be able to do it now, once he reunited with Scarlet, all of this would be a piece of cake.
Crown Prince Dastan was stunned. By now, he knew Leyvi well enough to understand that if Leyvi said he could do something, he definitely could.
"Hmph! Let's go. This prince is too lazy to argue," he grumbled, finally giving up.
In the two weeks they had spent traveling and mining, it was unclear how far they had gone, but they were now approximately four kilometers deep underground. Even though it didn't seem like that much of a distance, the surrounding environment had become much harsher very quickly the deeper they ventured.
A normal human would have long perished at this depth, crushed by the immense pressure or suffocated by the lack of breathable air. But for cultivators like Leyvi and Crown Prince Dastan, the challenges were manageable—though not without effort.
Sometimes, Leyvi had the sensation that there were extremely large movements underground, as if the entire earth shifted, but strangely, there was no tremor at all, making him think he was having hallucinations.
