Xiao Shi stepped forward and took out a string of storage bags and a stack of ledgers from one of the golden leg rings.
This golden leg ring is a storage magic item specially crafted for it by the boss.
Each of Xiao Shi's six legs has a golden leg ring.
It poked at the storage bags with its feet, introducing them one by one:
"This storage bag contains spirit stones, mainly the money earned from selling external business."
This storage bag contains rare ores. My little bee and I ate half of it, and then we hatched other stone bees and ate some more. Now there are about 600,000 tons left.
This storage bag contains mineral essence, which is an even rarer type of ore.
One-third of the vein has been mined, and only seventy-eight pieces of mineral concentrate have been found.
I let the little bee eat three pieces, and the remaining seventy-five pieces are in the storage bag.
The remaining storage bags contained all the mined ordinary ore, totaling 210 bags. This amounts to approximately 97.86 million tons.
Upon hearing Xiao Shi's introduction, Song Chen and Zhao Ziyi's lips twitched together.
Song Chen opened his mouth, but really didn't know what to say.
Two little bees, Little Bee and Little Stone, actually ate 600,000 tons of rare ore!
What kind of species are stone bees? We simply can't afford to raise them!
The main reason is that they possessed 600,000 tons of rare minerals. One of them was one meter long, while the other was from the width of a palm to half a meter long.
Even if this 600,000 tons of rare minerals were piled up into a mountain, or turned into a garbage dump, it would still be half a mountain high.
Song Chen felt his heart was bleeding because he had raised a spirit pet that only ate and never grew.
Zhao Ziyi took the storage bag, opened it, and mentally calculated their profits.
After a long pause, Zhao Ziyi raised his head and smiled:
"The mining business is doing well. Including what Little Stone and Little Bee ate, we've mined a total of 1.2 million tons of rare ore, which is worth 400 million spirit stones. Once we mine the rest, our profits will be seven times the purchase price of the ore."
Upon hearing this, Xiao Shi cautiously tugged at Zhao Ziyi's clothes.
“Boss Zhao, you’ve forgotten that hiring demon cultivators to mine the veins is also a huge expense.”
Zhao Ziyi slapped his forehead; he had completely forgotten about artificial intelligence!
"How much would the labor cost be? Let me calculate it again."
Xiao Shi said:
"Among the demon cultivators, apart from the Star Pivot Immortal Fox clan, I have hired the Void Refinement stage cultivators from the other eight clans to mine."
There are a total of 1,800 people.
A cultivator in the Void Refinement stage receives 5,000 spirit stones plus a boxed meal per day.
The mining has been underway for four months, with total labor costs amounting to 1 billion spirit stones.
Zhao Ziyi nearly suffered internal injuries from holding back his anger when he heard this.
That's way too expensive!
You should know that when they bought the mine from the Celestial Fox Ancestor, a metal vein only cost 200 million spirit stones.
A spirit stone mine only cost 3 billion spirit stones.
But Song Chen nodded when he heard about the labor cost.
Song Chen explained:
"This price is reasonable. I've worked in the mines and know how efficient ore extraction is."
If we hire low-level cultivators to mine, it would take tens of thousands of years and more than a dozen generations for us to mine this much ore.
Only four months have passed, and half of a large mineral vein has already been mined; the price is incredibly reasonable.
Other factions use contribution points to have low-level cultivators mine.
With hundreds of mines operating simultaneously, the extracted cultivation resources can only supply a small portion of high-level cultivators.
Now, their Spicy Palace mines a separate vein, solely for the use of Song Chen and Zhao Ziyi.
It will only take eight months to excavate everything; that's incredibly efficient.
Zhao Ziyi nodded upon hearing this. If the price of time were taken into account, this method of mining would indeed be worthwhile.
Xiao Shi said:
"Actually, this price is barely enough to hire a cultivator at the Void Refinement stage."
The cultivators in the Void Refinement stage are all here for the boxed lunches.
They originally intended to stay in the territory of the Starry Sky Fox and become deliverymen for the Spicy Palace.
Later, having no other choice, I happened to discover a mineral vein while searching for treasure, so I hired them to mine it at a low price.
They had jobs that earned them spirit stones, and they could also get boxed lunches. So they all agreed to become miners.
They don't even want to leave now.
Just as this vein was about to be exhausted, those Void Refinement stage demon cultivators actually found several more veins on their own initiative.
I currently have the locations of four metal ore veins. Should we purchase more veins from Ancestor Tianhu?
Xiao Shi's words shocked Song Chen and Zhao Ziyi once again.
They actually found four mineral veins together!
Song Chen and Zhao Ziyi exchanged a glance.
Finally, Zhao Ziyi nodded:
"Buy it. The Star Pivot Immortal Fox Clan doesn't use or mine mineral veins, so keeping it is a waste."
"It just so happens that Song Chen and I have a large amount of spirit stones that we can't spend. Buying a mineral vein will allow the spirit stones to continue circulating."
Money must circulate in order to generate economic benefits.
In this world, there are no banks, no interest rates, and no virtual stock market. Even if they hold huge amounts of spirit stones, it's all useless to them.
Their annual major expenditures are limited to year-end employee bonuses; now, with the added expense of mining, it's not bad.
The two of them and Xiao Shi continued their conversation until evening.
Besides the matter of the Spicy Palace, there's also the matter of the Secret Realm Key and the Spirit Fire.
There are 1,000 secret keys to 【Baixi Immortal Mountain】.
Now, a year later, they have received a total of 895.
Once this news is released, the remaining keys can be collected very quickly.
After all, no one wants to fight against a hundred people alone in the secret realm and face the Spicy Palace alone.
As for the spirit fire, Xiao Shi received a total of 69 types, of which 37 types were ranked in the "Heaven and Earth Spirit Fire Ranking".
The remaining 31 types of spirit fire are no longer on the ranking list.
There was also a spirit flame, which was quite strange.
Because that spiritual fire simply doesn't exist, and there's not even a single record of it in any ancient texts.
Xiao Shi took a square box out of his storage bag.
The box was square and silver, which puzzled Song Chen.
Song Chen asked in confusion:
"Wasn't it said that this flame doesn't exist? How can it be brought out?"
Xiao Shi said mysteriously:
"No, this spiritual fire simply doesn't exist in the world, but it is real. You'll know once you open the box."
Song Chen looked at the mysterious little stone and was speechless.
He picked up the square box, turned it over, and quickly found the mechanism to open it.
Song Chen placed the square box on the table and pressed the switch.
"Thump"
The lid opened with a click.
The three of them sat together, staring intently at the box, which was empty, but they could feel the heat emanating from it.
The heat was so intense that several people closed their eyes.
When they opened their eyes and saw the inside of the box, they were all stunned.
The box was indeed empty.
But this box is actually made up of five mirrors.
A pale blue flame was seen burning quietly within the five mirrors.
"Fire in the Mirror?"
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