Chapter 13: " From High School Student to Corvée Worker"

For several days in a row, Gu Dao stayed temporarily closer to the Town.

During the day, he went into Puchan Town, and gradually broadened his knowledge of the world of immortal cultivation.

At night, he spent the night outside the town sleeping in the open.

As time went by, Gu Dao gradually gained a general understanding of the world of immortal cultivation, which was originally confusing.

Until the seven day...

At a place called Starfall Mine Mountain.

A disheveled young man sat on the ground, looking around at the crowd of people waiting for their turn to work. Dust swirled around, and the atmosphere smelled like a mix of sweat, dirt, and despair.

"One hundred kilograms of ore per person, per day! One kilogram less and your salary is deducted!"

"Chang San, take them down!"

A loud shout broke through the air, cutting into the young man's thoughts.

The young man instinctively tightened his grip on the pickaxe that had just been handed to him. He straightened up, ready for the Laborious work ahead.

That's right, this young man is our protagonist Gu Dao.

After seven days of waiting, observing, and experiencing the dangers of society in this immortal cultivation world.

He had no choice but to sign his name for a job in the spirit mine, digging for ore.

At this moment, Gu Dao could truly understand the feelings of the corvées in Earth's history.

He is no different from those corvées in the past.

The same hesitation, the same fear of the unknown.

Back in high school, he'd learned that corvées have no human rights to speak of.

But what about miners in this world of immortals? Did they even know what "human rights" were?

The only thing Gu Dao could be thankful for was that the miners around him weren't high-level cultivators.

Looking around at the hundreds of people, it was clear they were all like him—low-level cultivators still stuck in the "not-quite-immortal" category.

But then—why hadn't he met any of them during his time wandering around Puchan Town?

Gu Dao was a little confused. After thinking for a while, he couldn't figure it out.

After forcibly suppressing his doubts, he also looked at the mine in front of him silently.

The layout of the mine is not much different from the mines on earth.

It's all a mine pit, and the more it is dug, the bigger it gets.

But compared to the shoulder-carrying and hand-carrying in Earth's iron mines, the mine in the world of immortal cultivation was very different.

The rumbling sound has almost never stopped since he came to this mine.

What caught Gu Dao's attention the most were the giant puppet creations scattered around the mine.

The puppets are humanoid, several feet tall, with arms that look like shovels and pickaxes, or iron buckets, used to quarry rocks or transport goods.

From the bottom of the mine to the top of the mine, there is even a giant conveyor bucket. The ore mined by the puppet creations is directly poured into the conveyor bucket, and finally transported to the top of the mine along the conveyor bucket, piling up mines.

In addition to these giant puppets, many immortal cultivators could be seen in the mine.

Some were casting spells on the ore wall, while others controlled magical tools that looked like mining equipment, working busily in various areas of the mine.

Gu Dao squeezed the pickaxe in his hand, putting enough pressure to easily crush steel. However, it left no mark on the pickaxe, which remained perfectly intact.

Gu Dao looked down at the ordinary pickaxe in his hand, and then looked at the various magical scenes in the mine.

It was a magic weapon.

"Let's take a step and see..."

Gu Dao looked up at the sky and moved with the crowd. Soon, the bright daylight turned into oppressive darkness.

"You guys just dig in this mine, find a place by yourselves, and come out when you have dug enough 100 kilograms!"

The responsible manager Chang San was a young man with a green face and a childish voice, but the long robe with faintly flickering runes clearly distinguished him from all the miners.

A set of magic tools, and a long robe!

Even Gu Dao, a rookie in the world of immortal cultivation, had a lot of knowledge about the preciousness of magic tools.

After all the Puchan Town, the screens outside the shops mostly marked the items and prices.

Magic tools, like spirit stones (currency), were also divided into low, medium, high, and even top-grade.

Gu Dao had been wandering around the Puchan Town for nearly seven days, and the lowest price he saw for a low grade magic tool was nearly one hundred low-grade spirit stones.

For one hundred spirit stones, he would have to work in this mine for nearly four months without eating or drinking!

Gu Dao shook his head and continued walking deeper into the mine, feeling the changes in his body. His brows were already furrowed.

He had noticed something when he first entered the mine, but due to the circumstances, he didn't use his spiritual sense to investigate it.

After entering further, the sensation became much stronger.

Under the cover of his spiritual sense, he clearly felt wisps of purple electric light filling the mine.

He was surrounded by these wisps of electric light, and they were clearly penetrating into his body. A single wisp was insignificant, but the dense, nearly endless electric light kept flowing into him...

Destruction!

As Gu Dao sensed his body, he felt the electric light trying to destroy him.

If he were an ordinary person, this kind of destruction would likely turn him into ash in a matter of minutes!

Gu Dao quickly calculated and made a judgment.

"If he were a normal, low-level cultivator like the others here, he could only last for two hours. Any longer, and he'd either be crippled or dead."

Fortunately, before landing in this world, my body experienced the baptism of chaotic energy in space, so these lightning wisps are insignificant to me.

Gu Dao shook his head and pressed on deeper into the mine, his divine sense now attuned to the ore veins around him

The Red Thunder Mine was the core reason for the existence of this mine.

Naturally, it was also the primary ore material he, as a miner, needed to collect.

The reason it was the primary, rather than the only material was that the manager had once emphasized that there was a certain probability that the Red Thunder Mine would be accompanied by the Frost Thunder Mine.

And the miners will be given some cheap spirit stones as reward for mining one pound of Frost Thunder Mine.

Obviously, this lightning wisps in the air that Eroded the body, is emitted by this ore material.

No wonder there were no cheap mortals here to serve as expendable labor

Gu Dao walked along the dark mine with his mind wandering. He had no intention of interacting with his fellow miners.

After all, the young manager only stipulated the amount that each person must mine every day, but did not stipulate that this amount... must be mined by oneself.

Chu Mu was not afraid, but he did not want to get into trouble.

Now, he just wanted to work hard here for a few months and accumulate enough spirit stones to change his life.

As long as he officially embarked on the immortal path everything will be easier.

After finding an unmanned mine, Gu Dao was dumbfounded when the first pickaxe fell.   

Even if he just struck casually, the force was absolutely terrifying.

But in front of him, on this red thunder vein, he only sank the pickaxe a little.

Gu Dao was just slightly stunned, but not too surprised. In the world of immortal cultivation, any bizarre things are normal.

He didn't understand, but it was just the limitation of his cognition.

Gu Dao swung the pickaxe again and again, and the harsh collision sound was also a sound.

The pickaxe swung nearly twenty times before it barely dug out a small piece of ore from the vein.

Gu Dao picked it up and threw it into the backpack. Without stopping, he continued to dig.

He was thinking about entering the world of immortal cultivation. He had not entered the immortal path, but the life of a miner had already begun.

...

A day passed, and everything was calm.

After handing over the hundred kilograms of ore, Gu Dao had nowhere to go, so he built a shed near the mine and slept there for a night. The next day, he went to the mine to dig.

Time passed day by day, and Gu Dao's work in the mine continued day by day.

Winter passed, and spring arrived, and months of hard work passed.

Fifty spirit stones, a number that seemed extremely insignificant.

Gu Dao wasted months on this, and he is still wasting time on it.

In the mine, Gu Dao leaned against the wall and squinted, with a backpack full of ore next to him.

After several months of mining and digging, a hundred kilograms of ore was no longer a difficult task for him.

Often, half a day was enough to complete the digging.

The rest of the time, he concentrated on studying how to control his spiritual energy.

Gu Dao is at the end of a branch of the mine. In fact, after several months of mining, hundreds of miners have mostly formed a tacit understanding without words

You are there, I am here, and we don't interfere with each other.

They are all low level cultivators, and there is no difference in strength and status. This tacit understanding has been maintained.

About half an hour later, Gu Dao relaxed and took out a palm-sized cloth bag from his arms, and dozens of low grade spirit stones the size of a small pebble appeared in his field of vision.

Three months, fifty spirit stones.

It seemed like a lot, but in the world of immortal cultivation, it was really nothing. If he wanted to buy what he needed, he would have to stay here for a few more months.

Gu Dao pursed his lips, his eyes were complicated, and there was already a bit of fatigue between his brows.

For now, from what he has seen and heard, the world of immortal cultivation is indeed flourishing and colorful.

The immortal cultivation civilization he envisioned is indeed like this.

The series of magical puppet creations in this mine alone can clearly prove this.

But what is it like to step into the world of immortal cultivation?

Flying a sword between heaven and earth?

Free and easy in the world?

It seems that it should be so, and it is also true in reality.

But why does it feel like... he seems to have returned to his previous life?

...