Re: Evolution Online-Novel

Liam's heart began to beat rapidly as he heard the words come out of the dark elf's mouth. "You said there are more? Bring me to it right now." He commanded with fervour. 

If there were more, then he could easily give the entire group significant power up, making them elites among elites. The very possibility made him shake with excitement. 

That too, since he was planning to leave everyone by themselves for a while, these additional stats could potentially be lifesaving for them.

Ideally, Liam would have preferred to leave some of his soul minions with his guild or maybe his followers or perhaps the two golems that were guarding his sister and Shen Yue back in the game.

However, none of this was possible. 

His soul minions lacked the ability to be away from him, and both his followers and his golems were still stuck in the game world, along with the rest of the items from his personal inventory.

Liam could only curse his bad luck that he was able to bond with the spatial artifact at the very last minute. 

If he had done it even a second sooner, then he could have brought over the items from his personal inventory and perhaps even his followers along with Luna.

"Since I am out of the game, what could have happened to the items in my inventory?" He wondered. 

Tch. He clicked his tongue in disappointment, but he also did not dwell on it too much. There was no point in him thinking about that right now. He needed to focus on what was in front of him.

With Dimitri leading the way, Liam arrived at the spot in a few seconds. He immediately rubbed his eyes because he couldn't believe the sight that awaited him.

"How is this possible?"

Spread out in front of them were several creepers sprawled across a big patch of land. The leaves were clover-shaped leaves, and at the centre of each of these leaf segments, there was a stone fruit.

Some of them were red, some were blue, and some were green. There was no particular pattern in which these had grown. They were simply spread out like weeds in all directions, albeit with definite boundaries.

In fact, their boundaries were so defined that Liam couldn't help but observe them with special attention. It almost seemed unnatural for a plant that had grown this rampantly also to be contained within an area like this.

Meanwhile, the fox next to him was going crazy.

Kyuuu!

Luna drooled at the sight of so much good stuff. It had been such a long time since she had eaten something tasty. "Master! Master!" She pleaded with adorable eyes, snapping Liam out of his thoughts.

Liam shook his head helplessly and patted the fox with a smile. "Alright. Go crazy. Well, not too crazy. Don't eat anymore if you are not gaining stats."

Luna nodded her head with a big smile and then dashed forward at full speed. With her [Blur] skill activated, she was everywhere at the same time, and each time she showed up, the fruit on that leaf cluster disappeared.

Liam watched the scene in a daze, and he then shook his head. "Luna, don't kill the damn thing." He wanted her to be careful and not destroy the plant. 

As long as it was alive, they could always grow it more to nurture more of these fruits, but just as he spoke these words, Liam's eyes fell on the first cluster of leaves that the fox had attacked.

Though she hadn't particularly ripped out or scratched anything and seemed to have handled it smoothly enough, the leaves in that spot started withering away, eventually turning into dust.

Liam's eyes then darted to all the other spots, and the same thing was happening everywhere. As soon as the fruit was harvested, that part of the plant died.

"What the heck is this?" Liam turned to Dimitri for an explanation, but the dark elf shook his head. He had also observed this, but he did not have an explanation for the same.

"I am not familiar with this plant, Master." He replied.

"Hmmm…" Liam watched a quarter of the whole creeper network disappear just like that, with Luna prancing around here and there, eating to her heart's content. 

When she was finally done, almost one-third of the whole thing was gone, poof.

"Are you full?" Liam asked the fox, who was licking her mouth and cleaning up her face very meticulously.

"Yes, master." Came the shameless reply.

At this point, Liam was simply happy that she did not clear out the whole thing. 

However, even if she had done that, he wouldn't have cared too much because this meant that she had gained a lot of stats and become stronger. So, in the end, it was worth the investment.

As for the others in the guild, they had to share and make do with whatever was remaining. Perhaps, there was even a way for them to grow more of these plants?

As Liam was thinking about this, he couldn't help but remember the second half of the description of the fruit.

"It usually grows in mineral-rich areas, so there are mineral deposits here?"

Liam eyed the patch of land that Luna had effectively cleared out. "Dimitri, dig here and see if you can find anything below the land. Wait. First, collect all the fruits and then start digging."

The soul minion obediently nodded and proceeded to do the necessary.

Liam did not want to take any chances as sometimes the soil could be loose and give away, damaging and making the fruits completely useless. So it was best to harvest everything first before starting to dig deeper.

He stood on the side and watched the group of minions further pull apart the place, especially within the area where the boundary of the creeper had been.

It took a few minutes as the land seemed particularly hard even for his higher-level minions, but that only made Liam more excited.

And before long, the mystery was completely solved.

Buried in the depths of the ground in front of Liam, interspersed between rocks here and there, were large chunks of turquoise-blue crystalline shards, which gave a metallic shine as they reflected the faint colours of the dusk.

"Inspect," Liam said in anticipation, and the system notification popped up in front of him.

<Ding. Stroetium - A metal ore found in mana-rich areas. Due to its mana capacity, and strong and pliable nature, it can be used as a forging base for a wide variety of high-grade weapons>

"This is…" Liam squatted down and touched the metallic ore in front of him. This was an item that could potentially be put to very good use if he also managed to find the other right ores for the amalgam.

However, there was also something else.

The stone fruits typically grew in mineral-rich areas, while the Stroetium was usually found in mana-rich areas. So what made this particular patch of land so special?

"Extract the ores carefully and then dig deeper. Keep digging." Liam ordered the dark elf.

Dimitri quickly rushed and started taking care of things once again. Within the next few minutes, several chunks of ores were neatly piled up on the side.

Liam placed these in his inventory but waited patiently for his soul minions to finish the main task. 

His intuition said that there was something more special and unique about this place, and within another ten minutes, this mystery was also solved.

The soul minions turned the first crater-like dent on the ground into a huge deep hole and stopped when they struck something hard and crystalline.

Liam jumped down to take a look, and this time, he was not staring at some random metallic ore deposits. Instead, the thing in front of him was pulsing with life, a thick wave of mana emanating out of it.

He immediately felt refreshed. He took a deep breath and saw that his body was greedily absorbing the mana in the air around him. The mana right here was definitely thicker and richer than the one outside in the normal environment.

"Inspect." Liam inhaled more of the good stuff and said.

<Ding. Mana Vein - A rich source of mana; Rare-grade>

Liam bent down to touch the pulsing crystalline stretch of mineral, but it burned his hand as soon as he went near it. He had to pull his hand back quickly. Otherwise, he would have gotten a third-degree burn.

"So strong!" Liam clicked his tongue. He couldn't help but wonder just how much of this set-up had the Gu family figured out in his last life. Did they only find out about the fruits? 

Or did they find out about all of the fruits, the ore deposit and the mana vein?

Either way, it did not matter. Now that he had gotten to the bottom of this, Liam could think of several methods by which he could take advantage of something so valuable.

But first, he had to secure it.